Proposition 8 passed in California, unfortunately.  It banned Marriage for Gay/Lesbian couples.  It defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

I hard supporters of Prop 8 talk about the sanctity of marriage.  And how you could have “civil unions” which were the same thing.  I was thinking this morning what else people who voted for Prop 8 would support.  Especially when it related to a word, like Marriage.

How about Kissing or Love or Sex?  Would they support a proposition saying that Kissing is defined as between a man and a woman?  How about Love or Sex being defined as between a man and a woman.  If two men wanted to kiss, they would have to call it Man-Lip Pressing.  And it would be the exact same thing as kissing, but it would have a different name.  Would that be ok with the gay community?  They could DO IT (kiss) but they couldn’t CALL IT (kiss).

Marriage, Kissing, Love, Sex.  These are words that have baggage (good and bad).  They have meaning in society.  Marriage is a lifetime committement and the basis of a family.  Kissing is showing affection to your partner.  The words we use to describe them matter.  Do Lesbian couples have sex?  They don’t have intercourse.  The words matter.

This is a slipperly slope.  Saying two men or women can’t “Marry” is like saying they can’t Kiss.  They can have a civil union and they can press lips.

I think it’s sad that people don’t believe in equal rights.  The government shouldn’t be telling people who they can and can’t marry, kiss or love.

This is my first try at “reframing”, but I hope I did it ok.

Well, they were pretty smart, I guess.  Today I heard news about a laser at Lawrence Livermore Labs that can create unlimited energy.  What is the fuel?  Old nuclear waste.  And guess what…it turns the waste into less toxic material.

I am confident that, by the time Ethan graduates college, we will revolutionize energy in the world. Electricity will be nearly free. All new cars will be electric. Smog will diminish dramatically. Asthma rates will decline. Increased happy, decreased sad. Very confident.

Email Template with 3D Effect.

I tested it in ReturnPath to make sure it looked right.

Nuts.

Katie and I cleaned up alot this weekend.  We threw away some old books.  We put artwork on the walls.  Lots got accomplished.

For some reason though, I feel like I didn’t get much accomplished.  Something is eating at me, but I can’t tell what it is.  I am in a funk for some reason.

And this whack-a-doodle editor issue isn’t helping.

Some things in my head were:

1. Animated
2. Friendly
3. Rounded Corners
4. Transparency
5. 3D Layered
6. Original

Yes, this list is a jumble of different topic areas, but still, those were in my head.

I started with jQuery and jQuery UI.  I added the background images and colors and made the clouds.  Animating them was super easy.  I rounded the corners with a jQuery plugin.  It is easy to use and doesn’t make a million sub-<DIV> tags.  However, it’s not perfect when the fade gets behind it.  You can see the color mismatch.  I will have to figure something else out.  I could change the structure of each box to be a 3×3 table grid.  That would allow me to use transparent PNG-24 files to create the rounded effect.  In fact, that would allow me to put an outerglow on the whole thing too.  I am leaning towards doing this.  It would enhance the 3D effect and the table structure is not that ugly.  I wish there was a better way.

I actually tried corner.js.  I used a small 50×50 PNG with 50% transparency and absolutely positioned it around the DIV with a height/width of 100%.  It worked PERFECTLY, except that is was dog-slow.  I removed it for two reasons.  One, it wasn’t jQuery and it felt wrong.  Two, it was just too slow.  Still, this was the closest thing I had to a superDIV ever.

I added a couple of new plugins like the rich text editor for comments.

Right now, I think I am just in brainstorming mode.  I am trying out new things and the design is coming into focus.  I need to add in the picture of the kids somewhere.  Maybe riding on the clouds?

When I look at the theme, I like it, but I don’t know if it’s ME.  Is this the blog of a UX Architect?  Somehow I don’t think it is.  Is this original enough?  Does it evoke the right feeling?  I tend to think No, it doesn’t.  Still, it’s alot of fun to play around with it.  I like the feeling of playing with one’s one blog.

Well, I guess it’s about time I made my own theme anyway.  I am starting with the sandbox.  I will be editing and upgrading this theme over time.

First thing is clearly jQuery.  Let’s get that bad boy in their right now.

One thing is the color scheme.  Its black and grey.  What happened to the lighter friendlier colors.  This is a little depressing.  The images don’t look finished in many places, so I imagine they are still in flux.  The images for the buttons for exmple are not dithered properly.

There are some nice effects, like menus with rounded corners and slideUp/slideDown animations.  This is generally nice, but there are alot of places where it’s a little rough.  The minimize on the tree on the left, for example should animate.  I didn’t know what I clicked on at first.

This is really a bold upgrade, now that I look at it.  The UI is significantly different.  I am worried because I think Wordpress is the best software program out there right now and I have a very high bar for it.

The tag chooser is a little weird.  It uses a tag cloud.  Hmm, I need to try that a little.  I also need to get all the uncategorized posts to have tags.  It’s way too big.

Overall, I am excited about what they are doing, but I need to play with it more and see how it develops.

Yet, lots of other things did not go so well.  That horrible woman Bachmann won who said that Obama was un-american and that we need to bring back McCarthyism.  Ted Stevens, the Alaska felon, might win. (He is winning, but its a recount)  How the heck did that happen??  (He might be a felon, but he is our corrupt felon and he brings home the earmarks!)

Proposition 8 may pass, which I think is a real shame.  It’s just so riddiculous.  Why should straight couples care whether some stranger calls themselves married or not?  Ugh, its pathetic.

The chickens won their rights, but most other things lost.  Energy, Police.  The veterans got some money and a rail between SF and LA passed.  That confuses me.  Who needs a that?  Is it really that important?  boggle.

And what about Al Franken!?  He is down 500 votes out of 2 million?  Come on Al!  Good luck on the recount.

The web was very helpful during the election.  We used NYTimes, CNN, Yahoo and MSNBC.  They had great information with great user interfaces.  It didn’t make them any money (investing in those RIA projects) but it sure was fun to use.

So it was a good day overall.  The next two supreme court justices will be progressives.  We will have a new energy bill.  We might even get out of Iraq.

Good Luck Barack.  We support our president.

And give Joe Biden something important to do.  He deserves it.

1. Yes, mass transit.
2. Yes, equal rights for chickens.
3. Yes, equal rights for children.
4. No, equal rights for teenage pregnant women. (I misread this at first)
5. Yes, equal rights for non-violent drug offenders.
6. Yes, equal rights for police.
7. Yes, energy
8. No, equal rights for same-sex couples.
9. Yes, equal rights for victims.
10. Yes, energy.
11. Yes, equal rights for districts.  (Huh?)
12. Yes, equal rights for veterans.

Is this a good way to vote?  As good as any other, I imagine.  I’ve read all of the election pamplett and all of the PRO and CON arguments and their rebuttals.  Why is it that half of the rebuttals use ALL CAPS TO SCREAM AT ME!  Yuck.

I tend to think that spending money on these sorts of things yields higher productivity and benefits.  Saving $1 is as good as making $1.  I want California to save as much money as it can.  So to do that, I want to invest in energy independance and mass-transit.  Plus, equal rights are good for the karma.  One day, someone may have a bond act to help out poor User Experience Designers.

Oh, I changed my theme for the next two days.  Go Obama!

2007: Gorilla.  Matthew was my monkey boy.

2006: Wizard. I scared the heck out of Matthew. He freaked.

2005: Jared apparently was a John looking for a hooker in a bar.

Ahh, I was Superman!

2004: Superman. Wow, I wore it two years in a row? Katie is an angel!

2003: Ethan dressed up as Hugh Hefner.

Happy Halloween!

Lesson: Dressing up for Halloween is part of the American experience. If you aren’t dressed up, then the terrorists win!