Midwest: July 2026: Day 5: PEARC26 plus Mill City Museum

Midwest

July 2026: Day 5: Minneapolis

PEARC26 closing ceremony.

Sweet potato pancakes were flat things of sadness and crushed dreams. Eggs weren't much better.

Copy2 for faster data transfer.

HPC benchmark performance and cost analysis across public cloud.

Dust extractors at Mill City Museum.

The view from the Flour Tower at Mill City Museum.

Gold Medal Flour sign.

Mosquitoes hold sway.

Inside the exhibit hall.

Water room inside the exhibit hall.

Big dust collector.

More machinery on display, not just dust collector.

Hometowne Pizza and Bar. Menu.

Menu.

Inside.

Side salad is generous.

"Minnesota sushi": cream cheese, dill pickle, corned beef, more cheese.

Kinda weird.

Sheraton lounge snacks.

Deep fried cream cheese. No thanks.

Green beans. Meh.

Post-run snack from Five Guys.

Final day of PEARC26, obligatory closing ceremony, and instead of a conference lunch, breakfast was served instead-- this might have been the worst meal of all, with sweet potato pancakes that were flat things of sadness, and something mixed in the eggs (vegan cheese?) that didn't work for me. At least the chicken sausage was edible.

Visited some vendors again, and stopped by some posters as well; some were more in-depth than others, one on a utility called Copy2 looked interesting for improved file copy performance. The one panel talk, research software engineering in the age of AI, was actually pretty good, although a bit outside of the area of focus for me in terms of practical ideas to gain/implement.

With the last day of PEARC26 being a half day, took the time to properly visit Mill City Museum in the afternoon. It's actually not as big a museum as I thought, but was definitely nicer to visit when it wasn't mobbed by a thousand conference attendees. The history touches on both Native American significance, including the river and its falls, as well as the museum's namesake, which, literally, is about milling of wheat over time. Quite good, and if you had small kids, accomodating with a water engineering play area for them. Was a quick walk to the nearby historic post office as well, which also had a bit of history.

Early dinner at Hometowne Pizza and Bar. They had a taco pizza, like some of their competitors did, and then a more unique "Minnesota sushi" pizza, which was a weird thing of a thin crust, cream cheese, sliced dill pickle, corned beef, and more cheese. Oddly it sort of worked, although it also was not very interesting. The most interesting bit was the slices of dill pickle giving some extra saltiness, the corned beef didn't have much taste on its own. Ended up at the hotel lounge afterwards, which was full of deep fried cream cheese balls and deep fried green beans, both of which sounded like a heart attack that I elected to pass on. Went on a run instead and grabbed a burger at Five Guys after in an effort to get some protein.