Day 3 has come and gone, and it was a FULL day of information. While the previous two days had booklets with about 140-150 pages of slides, the Interaction Design presentation led by guru Dan Saffer and Kim Lenox was a whopping 300+ pages. But it was worth it Continue reading
Day 2 in Vancouver is coming to a close, and it was another good one. Today’s session at the UX Intensive was on Design Research and speaker Todd Wilkens was an extremely capable and knowledgeable speaker. We delved into the aspects of research, from how to generate the best questions for a research perspective based on the needs of the project, to the actual testing process to the analysis of the user-testing results. We’ve only touched on the surface of this at work, but with us moving forward quickly into doing more user research to inform our designs, this will be valuable information to take back to the team. The only complaint that I might have about today’s session is that we skimmed over some critical areas, but it’s understandable considering both the mass of content we had to cover and the almost infinite number of choices and methods that we could have touched on.
I skipped the happy hour tonight to call Shari and a fellow Flickr photographer Greg7. Hopefully, he and I will be getting together for beers tomorrow and he’s offered to take me around birding Vancouver on Friday, now that I extended my stay by a day to actually see the city in the daylight… In the evening, I was going to work out but there wasn’t time after the phone calls and before dinner – and dinner was WELL worth the skipped workout. We went to a restaurant called Sala Thai and it was delicious. Four of us went to enjoy the night of Thai cuisine and we had a good time – Dan from Knoxville, M.A. from Austin and Scott from Ottawa. We had lots of good conversation (you know, the normal topics – hockey, rattlesnakes, ethnic cuisine in our local towns, hiking), and some excellent food. I would highly recommend the place – the food was delicious and beautifully presented, and the service was friendly and helpful.
I did finally get out and did a little birding today. The weather was beautiful, moderately warm and alternating clouds but sunny overall. The walk was a little further than I expected, and it took me a bit longer to get there than I had anticipated cutting my time down a bit. But it was worth it. I saw a bunch of birds, including 4 new species (bushtit, chestnut-backed chickadee, Northwestern Crow and Spotted Towhee), as well as two new sub-species (“Oregon” Junco and Song Sparrow (ssp. morphna). I also saw a bunch of odd gulls that I can’t seem to figure out – and unfortunately, the work laptop I’m on doesn’t have the tools to open my RAW files… But overall, not too bad a tally for a short walk about the Lost Lagoon.
Well, day 1 of the conference is over and it was damn good – just what I was hoping it would be. The topic was Design Strategy, and host Brandon Schauer did a hell of a job with it. He’s a really nice guy, too; I got to talk to him for a while over lunch and he’s clearly on top of this stuff. I won’t bore you with the details but the content was great and I got a bunch of great tools that will be very helpful in pitching ideas and concepts for both usability and general best ideas.
The attendees are an interesting distribution of disciplines from a wide number of areas. Of course, there are a bunch of locals who get to attend a great conference in their own back yard, but there are also quite a few from all over the U.S. I think I win the farthest traveled award, although I think there might be one or two people from Europe that would have me beat. But it was well worth the price of admission. Especially since they gave us 4-day folks some nice schwag to check out including a copy of Microsoft Expression Web which I’m curious to try once I figure out how to get the frickin’ box open (no, I’m not kidding).
As for Vancouver itself, I’ve not gotten a chance to see much of it yet. It was a dark and stormy night Sunday night with winds locally reaching between 80 – 110kph (that’s 50-68mph) and causing a bunch of damage. So, it was NOT the time to go out and look for birds. The sun did come out later in the afternoon, but I was too hungry to wander off. I was going to head out this morning, but some snafu’s* made that not an option…
My hotel (Sheraton Wall Centre) is pretty nice – and even better, it’s the very hotel where the conference is being held (I love convenience). My room is pretty big, especially for one person, and pretty comfortable. The gym is pretty sweet, too – yes, I finally got off my ever-enlarging ass and worked out for an hour. I think tonight might be a longer one with some weights. Happy hour seems to cut short my workout time somewhat, I’ve found (that is, 2 beers does not lend itself to long workouts).
<h2>SNAFUs</h2>
Of course, not everything can go well. It turns out that the TSA (i.e. Thieving Stealing Airportworkers) decided to remove my Lunesta from my bag when they inspected it. I hope they fall asleep in the Xray machine, the bastards. And wonderful, lovable Chase – you know all credit card companies are super cuddly, right – decided that when questioning a purchase on my card in which I used the CVV number as verification, they should DECLINE my charge to American Airlines instead of calling and confirming it. I know I haven’t used that card in a while, but that decline almost cost me my flight change, and if it had cost me in fare, THEY would have been eating it. As it was, it cost me a 24-minute phone call (I don’t know WHAT that is going to cost me) to re-do the change to Saturday so that I can go on out on Friday to see the city.
Well, I’m here – the UX Intensive coonference in Vancouver, BC. The trip has been over the horizon for so long, but I finally made it. I’m actually pretty psyched to make it here – I’ve wanted to come to Vancouver for years, but it has never worked out. Heck, I’ve never made it to Canada, so Vancouver would be a stretch. And this conference is a pretty cool event that I’m really looking forward to.
It wasn’t the most direct of flights – I’m not sure HOW it makes sense to go from Philly to Dallas to Vancouver, but somehow the airlines thought it made sense. But even though it took 10 hours to get here, it wasn’t all bad. The Cowboys won and I got to watch a <em>whole 5 minutes</em> of the game, I met a pretty cool woman who made the flight much more bearable (the alternative would have been watching “Hairspray” – no thanks).
I’m also looking forward to getting out to bird at some point, although I might have to rearrange my stay for a bit so that I can get out while it’s daylight – my conference runs most of the day, so short of running out at lunch, I will have little opportunity to get out. Of course, it’s raining tonight so birding in the morning probably isn’t in the cards anyway.
I don’t care what anyone says, Charlie Manuel is a moron. I know the Kendrick was getting into trouble, but he was in less than 3 innings, and we KNOW that we need the starters to go deep. And Kyle Lohse? That worked out really well… giving up a grand slam to a guy with 4 home runs for the season. And Jose Mesa?!?!? Brilliant. Son-of-a-b!tch this sucks.
Cole Hamels pitched a good game yesterday … well, except for that one inning. Take that away and they had a chance. Of course, having the entire top of the order going 0-for-alot didn’t help, either. Come on Phils – we’re still hoping you’ll bring us a World Series!!!
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Now playing: Rachael Yamagata – Worn Me Down
After seeing the box score of today’s game, I’m done. I’m convinced that the Phillies have no shot of going to the playoffs this year, and the reason is simple. It’s also the same reason it’s been for the last two years: relief pitching.
Below is a chart of the Phillies relievers for their last 5 and 10 appearances. Notice anything? How about only 3 of the 7 having respectable ERAs in their last 5, and NO ONE being under 5.68 over their last ten. How can any team expect to win with numbers like that?
Hell, the team has a combined 9.76 / 9.19 ERA for those same periods (okay, it’s hard to count since they weren’t the same games, but still…). That’s just ridiculous. It’s like saying, “Gee, we have to survive 3 more innings using a reliever – are we up by more than 3 runs, just in case?”
Well, the Flyers start in a month, right?
| Pitcher | ER5 | IP5 | ERA5 | ER10 | IP10 | ERA10 |
| Myers | 5 | 6.1 | 7.38 | 7 | 11.1 | 5.68 |
| Gordon | 5 | 4.1 | 10.98 | 11 | 7.2 | 13.75 |
| Alfonseca | 7 | 2.1 | 30.00 | 9 | 2.7 | 30.00 |
| Mesa | 11 | 3.3 | 30.00 | 13 | 7.4 | 15.81 |
| Rosario | 7 | 4.4 | 14.32 | 8 | 11.4 | 6.32 |
| Romero | 1 | 2.4 | 3.75 | 3 | 3.8 | 7.11 |
| Castro | 2 | 7.2 | 2.50 | 6 | 9.2 | 5.87 |
| Geary | 2 | 7.3 | 2.47 | 10 | 12.8 | 7.03 |
| TOTALS | 40 | 36.9 | 9.76 | 67 | 65.6 | 9.19 |
I posted this using the new-ish Adobe Contribute. I made the table in Excel (TONS quicker than HTML), and then simply did an ‘export to blog’. It worked pretty well once I configured it. I might have to consider it for other things in the near future…
Well, we’re back from our vacation in Topsail Island, NC. Every year, my family gets together in August at my parents beachhouse there, and we hang out on the beach, body surf, drink margaritas, play games/cards, etc. Every year, it’s been a different cast of characters, but it’s always been fun. This year was a little more mellow than some of the past ones, but I still had a good time – I just wish it was longer.
This past weekend was my wife and my five-year anniversary (yep, hard to believe that we got married 5 years ago). On July 13, 2002, I stood on the beach at Namale Resort outside of Savusavu, Vanua Levu, Fiji. As I stood, barefoot, on the beach waiting, the sun was making a break through the frequent clouds that had covered the sky until only 15 minutes before. Then, my wife came walking down the vine-covered steps, resplendent in colorful flowers and her beautiful dress. We wed at sunset, barefoot, to a chorus of native Fijians.
Originally, we had planned to go back for our fifth anniversary – but funds weren’t available at this time; instead, we decided to spend a long weekend down in Cape May, NJ for some birding, beach time and relaxation. It had already been a long two weeks of work, so I was very ready to get out of town and start doing some relaxing by Thursday night when we left.
Shari had made reservations at the Angel of the Sea bed and breakfast, which was supposed to be one of the best B&B’s in NJ, and one of the best in the country (at least by people who are the experts). I didn’t know the place from anywhere else in the area, since I had only been there twice before, while Shari grew up in that area and seemed to know everywhere and everything. I trusted her judgement, though, so I packed up and went along for the ride.
We got there fairly late at night, and wanted to get out and do some walking on the beach. It was a little chilly, but I had a really good time as we walked down to the ‘boardwalk’ (a 3-block set of concrete along the main ocean boulevard, then through the nearby neighborhoods to the ‘mall’, where we picked up some books for Shari and some ice cream. It was a good night to start our trip as we admired the architecture and she told me about her time down here when she was younger. It was great to hear her reminisce about her younger days.
The next morning, we got up early and began our daily excursions out for birds, butterflies and – for me, at least – dragonflies. Over the next three days, we’d go to Higbee Beach, Cape May Meadows, Cape May Point and the Cape May beaches themselves. It was a great time as we ran around seeing great things like Common Wood Nymphs, Piping Plover and Least Tern chicks, Black Skimmers skimming the waters, and a huge group of darners (big dragonflies) swarming in one particular nook of the forest at Higbee Beach.
While we were there, we tried to eat healthy but we were also treating ourselves. We had to do a quick snack on Thursday night on our way in (which included some peanut butter and chocolate frozen yogurt). We had planned our big romantic dinner for our actual anniversary night – Friday the 13th – but Shari wasn’t feeling well so we put it off until the next night. No sense wasting a big dinner, right? But the place we went – Bella Vida Cafe was fantastic, too. Our waitress was bubbly and friendly, and even if she didn’t know what ‘fresh mozzarella’ really means, it was still fun to have her serve us. The food was delicious – tilapia for me, and a seafood pasta dish for Shari – and we enjoyed some romantic time talking and relaxing. Saturday night, we did our belated anniversary dinner at The Mad Batter. Shari had been there for their famous brunch, but wasn’t sure about their dinners – but the reviews were promising so we set it up. It was worth it. Her dinner was better than mine, but overall it was still very good. Again we had a great dinner and enjoyed looking around at the scenery, people-watching and relaxing.
Unfortunately, whatever bug she had came back later in the evening, cutting short the planned festivities which were to have included – in no particular order – miniature golf, skee ball, getting fudge and/or soft ice cream at one of the 1,000 places available and a walk on the beach. Instead, we retired early. It was a shame, because she was a trooper for the whole weekend despite not feeling well at all. She was sick, and worse, she was frustrated because as she put it, “this wasn’t the big, romantic weekend she had planned.” I felt really bad for her – so things didn’t go as planned, but I know that I had a great time anyway, and I think that she did, too, for the most part. I can’t say that I didn’t wish that she felt better, because that’s obvious, but I still enjoyed the chance to relax and spend some quality time with my wife without worrying about housework, my job, the dogs or pretty much anything or anyone else.
It had been a particularly tough two weeks lately, and I was bushed. We haven’t had a whole lot of quality time together, either. So, i took it for what it was – an opportunity to sit back and enjoy a little beach time, some togetherness and some time to just be with my wife, celebrating our first 5 years together (and the fact that she hadn’t killed me yet). In that respect, it was a GREAT weekend.
On Sunday, we packed it up and decided to hit a few more places on the way home. We stopped at Cape May Meadows and Cape May Point, stopped by Stone Harbor (where we had a fantastic lunch at Polly’s that more than made up for the fact that Stone Harbor had none of the birds we had expected to see) and then went up to our old stand-by Forsythe NWR. We had hoped to see the Roseate Spoonbill which has made an appearance there, but we were out of luck on that one. We did, however, get to see a lot of really cool stuff including a pair of Clapper Rails with 9 chicks, black skimmers running along the waterways and an aberrant Glossy Ibis (it had a white cap that doesn’t normally exist in the species). It was a little windy, but we still had a good time. By the time we got home, however, we were both exhausted – not that we would have had any time to unpack because the menagerie was there to great us with licks, tail wags, meows and offered toys of greeting.
So, things weren’t perfect this weekend – they were still great in my mind. Shari wants a do-over, and I’m never going to argue that one. For me, however, our fifth anniversary did what I wanted it to – reminded me why I married her in the first place, and why I’m looking forward to the next 5 years – and more.
I know that most people (that being the 8 people who read this with any regularity) are probably tired of reading about our Texas trip, but I wanted to tidy it up with a final memoir of our trip – which is ironically the first entry I started when I was on the plane coming home.
This trip represented a lot of things for Shari and me – our first solo vacation (i.e. no quarreling relatives) since the start of Iraq War 2: Electric Bugaboo, a chance to do some birding and see a lot of new things, a trip that I’ve been wanting to take for a while and a much needed vacation getting outdoors and enjoying each other’s company. We succeeded on all counts.
I got to enjoy some serious one-on-one time with my wife, remembering all of the reasons I love her (not that I forgot). I know that I can be tough to live with at times, particularly when the ADD is running rampant, but she’s be a saint. And while it’s been tough to watch her go through being sick for almost 2 years, she’s finally feeling better and getting back to her old self. There have been some tough times in the interim, but I’m happy to say that we were determined to make it through them – and we did. Having a set of shared passions (photography and birding, among them) was an obvious boon, but I also think it was in part due to sheer force of will and our deep love for each other.
On this trip, we got to enjoy all of those things that made us happy with each other; additionally, it taught me a few lessions that I hadn’t expected. So, without further ado:
