Yesterday, I was still in Buenos Aires, Argentina, spending 1 day touring after the ALIO-INFORMS conference. The city was filled with the Argentine flag and numerous decorations to commemorate the first day of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. While dining and getting ready to head for the airport to catch a flight back to Dulles and then to Bradley, I caught glimpses of the South Africa vs. Mexico game (score 1-1) and the France vs. Uruguay game (score 0-0) plus some of the opening ceremonies prior.There are numerous large TV screens in Buenos Aires so that people can watch the World Cup soccer matches.
After a very comfortable flight on United from Buenos Aires to Dulles of about 10 and a half hours but a less than comfortable processing at immigration and security at Dulles with long queues and some sort of strange call for a meeting at 7:00AM for the customs and immigration workers, we just made it to our last flight from Dulles early this morning.
While unpacking, back in Amherst, we caught parts of the Argentina vs. Nigeria game in which Argentina won 1-0 with Maradona as its soccer team's coach.
Above are some photos taken in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the past week marking the World Cup festivities. I am sure that the country is celebrating with its victory in the World Cup today.
The sport of football/fusbol/soccer brings the world together during the World Cup, which takes place this year from June 11-July 11, 2010, in a terrific display of athleticism, cameraderie, appreciation of other cultures, and just pure fun!
At the ALIO-INFORMS conference in Buenos Aires, I very much enjoyed Dr. Celso Ribeiro's plenary talk on how his research was applied to construct the schedules for Brazil's soccer teams, with great success. I especially enjoyed listening to the importance of "fairness" in the schedule and how such constraints were incorporated into the optimization model.
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