Category Archives: Ideas (blog)

bug babble.

On the road again (or should that be “still”?)

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More stream-of-consciousness posting from the nut on the iPhone. This time I greet you from the passenger’s seat of the camry we bought a few months ago as we drive past Quantico marine base just below Washington DC. Nighthawk is driving, and we’re on our way to my cousin Mark’s wedding in Williamsburg, VA.

Hmm, helicopters fly disturbingly low here.

So let’s see, I left off at UI13 on Tuesday right after the Phillies had won. As expected I was exhausted the next day but by Wednesday there were a lot of people wearing down and I’m pretty sure most of them weren’t phillies fans.

Wednesday was another all-day session, this time with the tremendously awesome Donna Spencer.

(Dear iPhone: stop helping. I wanted to write “href” not “beef”. Love, Kirabug.)

The session was on the fundamentals of information architecture & organizing content, and I picked up a lot of tricks that have really raised my confidence for doing my job.

I alst took the T by myself to run some errands, which made me proud. Yes, to the Bostonians in the audience (or any other city-dwellers) that probably sounds like something a 3rd grader should be writing, but cut me a break. I’m a sheltered chick from the rural ‘burbs where I’m thankful if the road has a sidewalk.)

After the day’s session ended, I met up with a whole bunch of really awesome UXG professionals that I met at the conference via Twitter. I’d list them all here but let’s face it, entering links on the iPhone is a bitch without cut and paste.

The dinner was a ball and I felt really comfortable with the crowd. A couple of us are big sports fans, so there was plenty to talk about, especially with the Phils playing to clinch at 8:30.

I missed the first few innings but made some great new friends so I think I came out ahead in the deal.

Won’t go into much detail about the game (since you can get the full coverage anywhere) except to say that I’m really glad I had IM on my laptop so I could watch the game with basschica virtually.

After that I was a bit hyper from the fact that we’re going to the world series for the 1st time in 15 years. Took the time to pack everything and lay out my clothes for Thursday morning, because we were flying out Thursday halfway through the day’s sessions and I wanted it to be a low-stress affair. Finally went to bed around 2 and still tossed and turned for a few minutes before I finally fell asleep.

After that the night turned into a real adventure, but I’ll post about that later, since we’re close to the hotel & I have to help navigate.

Non-stop, but rising to the challenge

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Wow, I have been flat-out busy the last two days.

Yesterday, the conference session on Visual design for the web (check out the nifty podcast) I attended started at 8:30 and ran until 5:30 — with generous breaks to keep us all sane, but most of the break time was eaten by things like waiting in line to use the bathroom and waiting for the elevator.

(Quick elevator aside: I’m in a hotel with no less than 26 floors. I’m on floor 21. The conference is on floor 2. If you want to get on the elevator to go up, the easiest way is to go downstairs to the lobby via the escalator, and push the up button from there, because despite the volume of folks at the conference, it’s still easier to catch the elevator at the floor it almost always has to touch on a “down” trip. Once inside, we’ve been playing “elevator bingo” — we won earlier today by loading a full row (floors 5-6-7) on one trip. I’m hoping to see us win with a column sometime before we leave. As for catching the elevator going down, rule 1 is wait patiently for it to arrive, rule 2 is wait patiently some more, and rule 3 is once you’re on board you’ll be stopping on every floor, so wait patiently. Patience is a virtue I don’t have, so it’s been a challenge.)

The session was highly interactive and quite interesting, though, so it wasn’t a challenge to get through it. And I feel a lot better about the basics of visual design and the idea that I can have an intelligent conversation with a visual designer and not make quite as much of a fool of myself.

After the session, some of the guys I work with and I met some other PhillyCHI people that are also at the conference, and we went out to dinner at Cambridge Brewing Company. The food was good and the conversation was excellent. It was a relief that we didn’t spent the entire time talking about user experience, but instead spent most of our time on more pressing topics, like “Why hasn’t Anne ever been on a subway before this week?” and “How old do they potty train kids in Brazil?” and the weather in Chicago and how the Phillies were doing. I had a great glass of Riesling wine, some sweet and spicy wings, and a butternut squash soup that was just sublime.

The weather here has been crisp — definitely fall in the air — but not cold, so we’ve been able to walk back and forth to restaurants and the like without any issues. It’s been quite nice.

Anyway, got home to my ivory tower and turned on the Phillies game, and at the time we were winning 2-1, which was awesome. I talked to Nighthawk on the phone for a bit and then chatted with my sister online, and the Phillies were going downhill and more downhill, until the score was 5-3 and I was just waiting for a horrible loss. Not having the energy for it, I shut the TV off and instead did some desk work and fought to stay awake.

When I’d just about finished that, I decided to go to bed, but my curiosity about the game was killing me. I finally killed the cat and checked out the Phillies search feed on Twitter (which is filled with folks tweeting all throughout the games) and discovered that holy shit, the Phillies had tied the game. I turned on the extremely sexy flat-panel LG tv in my room just in time to watch Matt Stairs park one, putting the Phils ahead. Well, there was no sleeping after that until the game ended, that’s for sure.

I didn’t drag my sorry butt out of bed until almost 8:00 this morning and barely made the first of the 90-minute mini-sessions today, but once the day got started they were pretty damn awesome. And also flat-out. Watched a session, then a break, then another session, then a lunch with other information architects, then the keynote, then what was supposed to be an ice cream social, but my head said no. My sinuses said “hey, moron, we want water and pain drugs or you pay.” Two tylenol sinus, a bottle of water, and a power nap later, and I was back on my feet for the final session. By then it was 5:30, so we were done, right?

Wrong. After that, there was a really cool social down in the ballroom, where we ate totally excellent pasta and other foods (jerk fajitas, olive bar type doohicky, lots of little desserts, oh, and alcohol) and chatted with existing and new friends about what we’d learned and how everything was going. I had a great time and overate, of course, so when that finally broke up at 7:30 I was stuffed and feeling icky and exhausted.

I seriously considered hitting the pool but I’m not confident I have anything appropriate to wear over my suit and I’m 100% sure I don’t have the confidence to haul my fat ass through the halls and 17 floors down the stops-everywhere elevator in just the swimsuit. Plus, I was raised by a Coast Guard vet so I’ve got a natural aversion to swimming without a buddy because I’ve got the kind of luck that would make me the only person in the history of Information Architecture that drown to death at a conference.

But one of the great things I hadn’t really considered about Tang Soo Do when I first joined is that you can literally do it anywhere, so instead of swimming I cleared a spot in my room and did the basic stretches and kicks and punches that we do to open most classes. It was a little difficult to warm up without a kihap on the kicks (which I figured might freak out the other folks on the floor) but I pulled it off. Now I’m feeling a lot better, much less achy, and willing to sit down and be a geek for a little while.

So… my poor iBook laptop (the Dread Pirate Roberts) with its 933 MHz PowerPC chip and its 1.12 GB of RAM has been processing video and Dreamweaver downloads for me all evening and I think it’s about ready to throw itself out the window. I’m taking some down-time and reveling in it while I can, because it’s back to full speed tomorrow morning.

Taking the good with the not-quite-as-good

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After arriving safely in Cambridge and dropping off our stuff at the big fancy hotel, the gang I’m traveling with and I took off for downtown Boston, where we wandered the streets following the Freedom Trail and generally being tourists for as long as our feet would hold out. We made it from the State House to the USS Constitution, and then had to double-back a good distance to get back over the Charles River and pick up the T (which appears to be the fancy name for the Subway system here).

After that adventure, I checked into my room, and went down to a very nice welcoming reception for UIE, where we were able to pick up our registration materials and meet other folks coming to the conference.

And after that, I went back downstairs a third time to watch the Phillies play the Dodgers on one of the TVs in the hotel’s restaurant. Munched some food with the guys and returned to my room because honestly, I’m flat-out exhausted right now.

(We’re currently down 7-2 in the 7th and threatening — as much as any team can threaten down by 5 — and I’m watching the massive flat-screen TV in the mirror so I can type at the desk, which is really breaking my brain. Ryan Howard tagged up and moved from 2nd to 3rd after a fly ball a moment ago and in the mirror it looked like he was booking it back to 1st base. Ow my brain.)

Anyway, I’m in a big fancy hotel with big fancy features far from home. I’m traveling with people I like and I’m going to learn a ton, if I can stay awake long enough to absorb any of it. I’m pissed that my team melted down in the 1st inning, and I’m pissed that we’re not batting better, but I’m too tired to stay up and finish the meltdown. At least I get to make a giant pillow nest with the 6 pillows on the king bed, which will hopefully rest me up well, because I’ve got to be up at 7.

It’s good, and not always good, but good enough to take.

Off to UIE

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This post is a bit stream-of-consciousness because I’m writing on my iPhone. I’m currently sitting in an aisle seat of a little Airbus waiting to take off for Boston, where I’ll be attending the UIE conference in Cambridge.

So far all adventures have been of my own making. Security confiscated my soda (I forgot) but to the amazement of my co-workers I was allowed to keep my 14″ aluminum knitting needles. If the guys didn’t think the rules were stupid before they do now. Andneither one of them wants to sit next to me and my scary death needles on the plane.

There are 18 planes in front of us to take off, so I have a few minutes yet to hang out on the web and stuff before the make me shut the phone off.

I think half the plane is asleep already.

…and here we go, into the air. So instead of posting this before take-off, looks like it’s going up when we land.

I’m spending four very busy days in the greater Boston area, and leaving Thursday afternoon to come home. I don’t get to stay there long though because my cousin is getting married in Williamsburg, Virginia on Saturday. When I get home from UIE, I get something like 12 hours to wash all my clothes, pack, and sleep, and then it’s back in the car (with Nighthawk this time) and on to another state.

I have a comic in the queue for Wednesday but not Saturday, but I’m pretty sure I’ll have time to whip something up soon.

I have nothing against Airbus but this plane sounds like an electric lawnmower when it accellerates. I keep waiting for them to ask for volunteers to get out and push. We’re just passing NYC now, though, so I suspect we’ll make it to Boston OK.

…it’s 11:17 and my ears tell me we’ve started our descent, so I suspect it won’t be long now until I’m back on solid ground. Both of the guys I’m flying with (Jim and Jingfu) are fast asleep, as is the only toddler on the plane. Some day I guess i’d better learn how to sleep on moving objects.

Either the area I’m flying over is a giant cranberry farm or the trees up here have already started to turn red.

The last time I flew, the plane’s AC didn’t work and we were hot and sick for most of the flight. No worries today, though. Smooth flight and the cabin thermostat is set to 12 degrees below zero.

Pilot just said we’d be touching down in about 20 minutes. Not bad.

…and we’re on the ground again. My face would like me to know that taking the sinus decongestant before flying is preferable to taking it after landing. Got some novel writing done, all on the phone. If it weren’t for drawing the comic I couldve probably made this trip sans laptop. iPhones rock.

Will post more later in my trip, I’m sure.