% !TEX TS-program = LuaLaTeX
% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode 
% !TEX root = ../../mal-core.tex

\gdef\mujnazevCS{Přání k~70. narozeninám prof. Antocha}
\gdef\mujnazevEN{Happy 70th birthday for Professor Jaromir Antoch}
\gdef\mujnazevPR{\mujnazevCS}
\gdef\mujnazevDR{\mujnazevEN}
\gdef\mujauthor{Noël Veraverbeke}

%\bonushyper
\nazev{\mujnazevCS}

\nazev{Happy 70th birthday for\\[2pt] Professor Jaromir Antoch}

\author{\mujauthor}
\medskip
\small

\noindent
On May 12, 2023 a~small symposium was organized at the department of Probability and Statistics of Charles University to celebrate the 70th birthday of our colleague Jaro Antoch. I~felt honoured to be invited and this brought back many nice memories of this dear colleague and friend.

I~met Jaro at many occasions in the past when I~visited his department. My first contacts with the group in Prague were through Jana Jureckova, Marie Huskova and of course Jaro. I~met Jana already in 1977 in Vilnius and in 1984 she came for a~research stay of two months to my university in Hasselt, Belgium. 

I~visited Prague for the first time in 1985 and that is the first time that I~met Jaro. I~was allowed to stay in a~beautiful house if the university in Celetna street and Jaro took me around in town. Prague looked very different, compared to nowadays. It was winter and there were almost no tourists, which is difficult to imagine today. Jaro was very proud of his town and he showed me the many nice spots in the city. We tasted the Czech beers and wines. I~remember very well that one night Jaro also took me to the Rudolfinum to listen to the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Really unforgettable.

Jaro was invited to our university in Belgium in the academic year 1987--1988 for a~four months research stay. During that period, he really became a~good friend and colleague of many of us. Jaro gave us a~seminar, every Friday, for the whole group of our statisticians. He did this in his own style and with his own humour. The topic was CART (Classification and Regression Trees) and he followed the book of Leo Breiman that was published in 1984. But Jaro did much more than this. He also spent a~lot of time in exploring our software and the (modest) computer infrastructure on our campus in Diepenbeek. 

A~nice anecdote is that Jaro organized towards the end of his stay a~“First Czech evening in Diepenbeek”. To prepare this event, Jaro and I~went by car to Brussels where we stopped at a~rather mysterious house which turned out to be the Czechoslovak Embassy. He went inside and I~waited in the car. I~remember that I~got worried because it took very long. But finally, he come out, fully loaded with plenty of material for his plan.

It became a~great evening, with promotion films, beautiful tourist books, Czech food, beer and of course also Becherovka. On my bookshelf at home, there is still a~nice present from this evening: a~beautiful book “Walks through Prague” with 500 black and white photos of all the famous spots in the city.

I~returned many times to Prague for conferences, research or teaching and each time it is always a~great pleasure to meet each other again.

Dear Jaro:  Ad multos annos!

