The description of the conference didn’t change – SC12 is still The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, but the location did: Salt Lake City in Utah, known to the historically inclined as the crossroads of the west. I had never been to SLC ever before but the last time I was in Utah was August of 2005 – a momentary step in and out of state border as part of Glenn Canyon Dam tour which, in itself, was part of a 3 day trip to the Grand Canyon.