UX Intensive – Day 1

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.