Both Katie and I are not jazzed up for the holidays this year. There are many factors as to why, but none seem to make perfect sense. New House, new neighborhood. Renting, not owning. New School for Ethan, no school yet for Jared or Matt. House is smaller than previous homes. General family life is…
Quick article from Psychology Today. June, 2003. This is exactly what I was discussing with Katie. Our brains react more strongly to negative stimulus. Having a positive attitude is harder than having a negative one. This is the exact opposite of “It takes more muscles to frown than to smile.” Fascinating.
Grouper 2.0 beta was just released. I actually interviewed there over a year ago. They seem to be developing well. The newest version emphasizes personal video sharing. Video is an interesting area in that despite being pretty cool, it hasn’t caught on the way I thought it would. Just look at video telephony. Despite the…
I installed Microsoft Streets and Strips 2006. Every complaint I had about 2005 has been fixed. They introduced voice directions, keyboard shortcuts, dynamic zooming, aliased lines, and much more. Bravo Microsoft. Good software. Someone asked me why I blog. He thought it showed some level of egotism. Although I certainly have a strong ego, I…
Donald Norman wrote a few lines in his book, Emotional Design, about Instant Messenger. He proposed that the main function of IM is to provide emotional connection between people and not to communicate specific information. Most of the IM traffic around the world can be summed up with the following exchange: Person A: Hey. Person…
Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest. Sorry, no time for more.
Once again, I find myself in Las Vegas waiting to board a flight to Dallas. Being away from the family stinks. Jared’s tummy still hurts. I miss them already and the week has barely begun. I am on hold on my cell phone, trying to type with one hand. I do not want to be…
Jared has been sick for the last 40 hours or so. He says his tummy hurts. He kept repeating it, “My tummy hurts, my tummy hurts!?” I told him, “I know sweetie.” He replied, “Listen to my WORDS! MY TUMMY HURTS!” I felt so bad for him. In Talbots Toy and Cyclery, he threw up…
Ethan’s bike was stolen from his school the other day. Katie and I have decided to wait until Solstice to replace it. So I said to Ethan, “Mommy and Daddy spoke to Santa…”. Ethan interrupted with a long discussion about whether or not Santa is real. I told him that Santa is a concept like…
Katie got me a new Uke songbook with songs from the 60’s. Right now, I am practicing Daydream Believer and Moon River and Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. The book has many Beatles songs. One day I hope to be this good. This guy has mad uke skills. Check out the ending, about…
For work, I need to edit a file originally made in Adobe inDesign. I have never used it before. I will report my findings. Speaking of Design, I just finished reading Donald Norman’s book, The Design of Everyday things. I also just started another of his books, Emotional Design. The books are fairly well written…
Ethan had left his Bicycle overnight at his school. We went to go pick it up and it was gone. This is really bad. That bike was perfect. It was light, 6 gears, 20″ wheels with room to grow and most importantly, it was free. Ethan loved that bike. Now we need to get him…
The trip to the East Coast started off poorly. We had decided to attempt public transportation to get to SFO. Unfortunately, I had read the CalTrain schedule incorrectly. We waited for 45 minutes at the train station wondering where the train was. I re-checked the schedule and realized the next train didn’t come for another…
I couldn’t afford to buy cotton so I decided to be abrasive, and steel wool. Every proposition failed. I wish Prop 80 had done better, but I blame the phrasing of the proposition. It should have read, “Should California regulate Energy?” Instead, they put all this confusing language about limiting choice. No one could read…