We just got back from a 10 day adventure to the east coast.  We spent the first 5 days in Lake George with Danny, Dad, Me and all wives/kids.  It was a good time.  We went fishing and caught bass.  We canoed on the lake.  At one point, Abigail and Ethan wanted to canoe together on the lake.  I was hesitant but everyone else thought it was ok.  On the lake (as I watched from shore) I saw another canoe approach them.  It was bapu and Susu!  Then all of the sudden, one of the canoes flipped upside down.  Apparently, Susu and Bapu flipped over while trying to trade paddles with Abigail.  Then Ethan started pleading, "Can I come in the water too?!?  Please??!"

Danny and I played some good tennis at Weston Mega School Complex. Wow, that place is like a college campus.  We saw the Green contingency in rockland for a day.  Andy and Stacey’s baby is very cute.  Matthew, Jared and Ethan all behaved as well as I could hope.  Matthew was SO talkative.  When people passed by, he said, "Hello.  Nice to meet you.  Goodbye."  He was adorable most of the trip.  So happy.  He kept saying, "I LIKE IT!"  I felt such pride in them.

No drama.  No broken bones or broken hearts.  Overall, a good trip.

We have tons of pictures on http://pictures.kokopop.com. I know I am forgetting things.  There was this one dream I had which will be on my mind for months.

In totally unrelated news.  jQuery 1.0 is out and I am pumped up about it.
In even more unrelated news, I am listening to this band called The Feelling.  So far, I like it very much.
 

Had a great conversation with Abigail about books.  I suggested The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  Lots happening.  I am out of my regular schedule.  This page from Don Norman caught my eye.  I aspire one day to be on it.  Read the part about Outlook.  I had no idea this was possible.  In the date field you can type ‘Next Tuesday’ and it will work.  Type two months, and it will work.  They kicked ass with that.  This page si great.  God Bless Don Norman.

What is a great non-fiction book for a 13 year old girl to get her interested in reading non-fiction.  Ideally, it should be under 300 pages.

I am thinking I should go Andre Agassi and shave my head.  Or maybe I
should just use the buzzer with one spacer and have it super short. 
Please vote.  Shaved head or not.

Many designers use a particular set of latin for "dummy copy".  It starts with, "
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…".  On a lark, I looked up it’s translation on this website.  Apparently, it has been in use for 500 years.  The translation is pretty surprising.  Basically it is talking about sadism.  Take a look at the 1914 translation.

I just read a passage in the book Flow. (page 148) I had to highlight it.

Since childhood he had been fascinated with machinery of every kind. He was especially drawn to anything that wasn’t working properly: "Like when my mother’s toaster went on the fritz, I asked myself: ‘If I were that toaster and I didn’t work, what would be wrong with me?’ " Then he disassembled the toaster and found the defect, and fixed it.

This made me immediately think of Interaction Design.  Specifically, what question do I ask myself when looking at software and websites? At first, I thought it was, "If I were my dad or Penny, what would I be thinking when trying to use this?" Then I realized that this is not the question I ask myself.  I really ask, "If I were the software or website and my dad or Penny was using me and they are frustrated, then what could I do to help them?"

Interaction Design is not empathizing with the user. It is empathizing with the user interface.  If I were the user interface, how would I help these people?  This personification of user interface is critical to doing well as a designer.

Unrelated tidbit: This morning, I tried to count my steps all the way to the train. It is much harder than I thought.  I started to lose track at 160. Then I completely gave up at 250.  I wonder.  What is the highest number I have ever counted to?  Really?  Next time you are on a walk by yourself, count your steps until you give up.

I just got into work.  The floor is dark.  None of the lights are on.  No one is here.  Should I streak down the halls buck nekkit?  Helllloooooooo! (echo)

Fridays here are often like this.  Reminds me of the night Andy and I played pool at Sporting Life.  It was a converted warehouse, huge tall ceilings.  We were the only ones left.  They shut off all the lights except for our table.  It was so quiet you could hear the balls rolling on the felt and then down through the tracks and finally bump at the base.  It was one of the most zen-like moments of my life.  Everything was simple and made sense.  My senses were focused.

I miss that night and that feeling.  Although, I am glad I experienced it at all and that I can remember it now.

Getting a little comfortable with WordPress now.  The way plugins work is actually pretty easy.  I tried out a whole bunch of standard editor plugins.  The reason for this is that the out-of-the-box WordPress does not include spell checking.  I tried 5 different ones.

1. Ajax Spell Checker
2. EditorMonkey
3. Visual.SpellCheck
4. WYSI-Wordpress
5. Xinha4WP combined with Text Control

The last one is the one I am using now.  Looks pretty powerful.  This is my first post with it.  Supposedly, the comments use it too.  It looks like I can make the editor fullscreen.  Let’s try.

Ooooooooooh.  That’s nice.  Me likey.

Ok, all the others looked interesting, but I have to give the nod to Ximha4WP, although they really really need to change their name to something in English.

DirecTV sent me a letter.  It looks like they finally figured out the legal issues and now can broadcast local channels in HD.  This has been a big competitive pitch by the cable companies.  So the letter said, 'Call us and we will hook you up with a new satellite and a new receiver'.  This kind of annoys me because I just (last year) bought (out of pocket) a new HDTV receiver.  It cost several hundred dollars.  The one with HD and DVR costs $900 at the time.  Now they give away the receiver for free ($100 retail) and the DVR one costs $400.  The new satellite dish has 5 nubbins.  Katie doesn't like the term nubbins, but I don't have another word for the things on the end of the dish.  This worries me too.  How many nubbins are they planning on having?  Doesn't this architecture have severe limitations?

And they snuck in a 2-year commitment requirement for this deal.  This annoys me too because I like to call them up every once in a while, threaten to quit and get free HBO.  Now I have to wait 2 years to do that.

Anyway, the bottom line is this:  This year, I will be able to watch the Jets national games in HD.  I will also get FOX and NBC in HD finally.  This is a good thing and the reason I agreed to the other annoyances.  One day, I hope DirecTV will annoy me less and wow me more.