Blues in Richmond

Kim Wilson
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

Kim Wilson wailing away in Richmond at Toad's Place. I like this space for taking pictures...

T-birds in the House
The Fabulous Thunderbirds played a grand, grand show on October 26 at Toad's Place. Great to hear them again—I'd just heard them a couple of months before at the Birchmere.
Also, Toad's Place is a good place for photographing, as evinced here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojohand/sets/72157602841700674/

opening Act Blues

So I'm at Toad's Place for the Fab T-birds...and this lame bans, Prometheus Clay, is wailing away Or, more accurately, wanking away. Three piece noise band. Lots of guitar notes do not an SRV resurrect.

Connecting with the Past

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to reminisce a bit about auld lang syne, as it were.
Then, out of the blue, I hear that a dear friend, one of my alltime best friends from elementary school and high school days, just moved to Richmond! How cool, how utterly cool is that!?

Helpful Voice-recognition Help

Recently, my wife had a question regarding our Wachovia online bill-pay system. When she couldn't find an answer on the Web page itself, she followed a link that directed her to call the telephone help line.
First she tried to cancel a payment...but saw no obvious place to do so. So she selected BillPay Help. She found this advice:

Canceling a Payment
You can cancel any payment that has not started processing. After you cancel a payment, its status changes to Canceled. Canceled payments appear in the Recent Payments section and in Bill Activity.

Note: If you cancel a payment that is part of an automatic payment schedule, only the selected payment is canceled. You do not cancel any future payments in the payment schedule. To cancel all payments in an automatic payment schedule, go to Manage My Bills and delete the automatic payment.

To cancel a payment:

1. Click Cancel next to the payment you want to cancel.

The Cancel Payment page opens.

2. Click Cancel Payment.

A message informs you that your payment has been canceled.

3. Click Done to return to the Payment Center.

The problem was, there was no Cancel button next to the payment.
Upon dialing, she heard a voice system respond with, "Enter your account number, followed by the pound sign. Or, simply say your number." Uh oh, she thought, a voice recognition system.
Instead, she found the experience helpful and intuitive. The male voice directed her to ask her question in her own words$#151;after giving an example. And when it couldn't understand her, it said, "I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand. Please ask me again."
She discovered that once a payment was being processed, she couldn't cancel it. That's why there was no Cancel button available.
Sadly, the help buries this fact in the first sentence. Yes, it says, "You can cancel any payment that has not started processing," but it doesn't explicitly say that the button isn't there, or that the facility isn't possible.
This sort of disjunct between help systems sadly isn't rare. Indeed, it's as if there were two teams: technical writers creating the Billpay Help popup window, and voice recognition writers creating the Billpay VR system. Someone should have done better usability testing, especially considering how critical the act of cancelling a payment must be.
So kudos to the voice recognition software and its script writers, but shame on the technical writers for burying the lead.

The Brave One's Not a Good One

I'm tired of lazy movie wriing. Having just watched Jodie Foster's latest romp through violence and depression (think The Accused hangs out in The Panic Room and formulates her Death Wish), I'm bitterly depressed that I spent $8.50 for the ticket to see this wholly unbelievable tale.

The ease with which her character buys an illegal gun is beyond imagination: Not only does someone hanging out in the gun shop happen to overhear her desire to own a gun (when faced with the prospect of having to wait 30 days for a gun license, she whines, "I won't last 30 days"), but she blithely follows this utter stranger through some creepily exotic Chinatown locales (why are they always chopping fish in these movie Chinatowns?). Never mind that in the previous two scenes she suffered from agoraphobia, yet now all of a sudden she's following a stranger through alleys. Never mind that she was terrorized by thugs in the park, now she's just going with a total stranger who's obviously involved in nefarious activities. No, it's just way over the top.

When he sells her the gun, she says, "I'll take it." Wait. He said it'd cost her $1000. Does she have 10 $100 bills? Does she give him a check? Does he take debit cards? Wow.

She never test-fires the gun, yet in her first encounter with a criminal, she puts three quick rounds center mass into him. And she never flinches.

And the ending is just, "Oh my gawd!" ridiculous.

No, this is a lazy movie.

On the Road...and Working

The weather is great for motorcycling...so why not motorcycle! That's exactly what I'm doing. Yet with wireless I-net and a recently issued Blackberry, I can do my job from almost anywhere (except for major parts of West Virginia).

Foggy Without Sleep

Working on a multicontinent schedule means I have calls at 7:00 a.m., meeting in the afternoon, and calls around 11:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m. Ugh. Be careful what you wish for....

First Days in Germany

Came across this note from the first week I spent in germany in October 1999:

Well, it's been a full week, I can tell you--left last Monday, arrived Tuesday. Came to the office for a couple of hours, then went to the hotel they'd booked for me. Wednesday was a full work day! Thursday, too--and that night I went out with three of the guys from the company to eat & drink & chat. Lots o'fun! Friday I was told I'd be moving to an apartment...but I'd already made plans to go see a good friend of mine play blues in Belgium (see http://hometown.aol.com/terrygblues or http://www.macol.net/~~jsokohl/blues.html). Had to leave at 1 and got there at almost 10. Great night, lots of music, but had to find a place to crash. The club owner was nice enough to let me stay with him. The Belgians are very nice!
The next day I spent on the trains getting back to Hamburg. Saturday night I then had to get all my stuff from the hotel & move into the apartment. Yesterday I went shopping at the main train station (Hauptbahnhof), since the stores aren't open on Sundays...except for the ones in train stations. Comical....So, I had to buy a few items, just to survive for a couple of days. Still have to buy soap & another pillow (the one in the place is a feather pillow, and I like more neck support!).
So, I´m slowly getting used to living in Germany...it´s a bit different from all the times I traveled here before!

It was a great time, and it was quite a weekend. Seems like so long ago...

Coming Back from Boston

Had a set of very good meetings with my former boss/now peer, Kathy. We had great discussions about IAs, UX, and the integration of our newly defined areas. It's a small but important step.

Are You Es-in' Me?

Unbelievable. Not the archaic title (it's users folks, not end users), and not the context-mapping marketing....but the freakin' price. In an Amazon.com email, they sent me this info:

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Do's for Software Developers and Web Designers (Interactive Technologies) by Jeff Johnson have also purchased End-user Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications by Steve Clarke. For this reason, you might like to know that End-user Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications is now available. You can order yours for just $1,400.00 by following the link below.

Yup, that's the price—One thousand, four hundred dollars! Not Rupees, not Lire, but dollars. Four hardbound books with a total of 2,600 pages. That's a buck-eighty a page. Compare that to Jeff Johnson's great and practical book, which comes in at about a $.067 a page.

Seeing and Not Seeing

Errol Morris of the Times provides a thoughtful, exhaustive essay on how photographs are mementos, not the thing itself. Years ago I heard the term fetish used to describe photographs. That is, they are placeholders for the thing, the person, the event, the memory—not the thing, the person, the event, nor the memory itself.

What the..., Blogger?
How in the world did Blogger's spam-prevention robots determine that my blog might be a spam blog? What writing characterizes my silly little Blogger site as a threat? Indeed, I think it's the lack of context that makes robots so...well, ultimately stupid and useless. Perhaps characters like my way of showing decreased expedition:

 sllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwww

Or maybe the 'bots take umbrage at my activities? Weird. Weird approach to censorship perhaps. Quien sabe?

User Experience
So the makers of the movie "Ratatouille" get the need to go to users' environments to do research. Why can't the corporate world?

IM Helps Fight War
An interesting snippet on ZDnet about chat's use in wartime. Interesting that text messaging over a secure network was used...and I suppose is still being used. The other interesting thing is that the colonel mentions that users found other collaborative tools too wre "frankly too difficult for users to get their hands around."
In other words, poor usability degraded warfighting.

Riding on the Weekend
Motorcycle-wise, I rode some last weekend. I went up to Lake Anna and rode on a guided Civil War ride done by my friend Bob Annandale. However, the group (the North Anna Lake Riders Motorcycle Club) are all Harley-heads...and go sllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwww. Bob's leading, I'm following him, and we leave the rest in the dust...AND WE NEVER GET UP TO THE SPEED LIMIT! Crazy how anyone can ride a motorcycle so slow. Anyway, after lunch I had to meet Karen at her mom's house in Alexandria. We went to a party in Alexandria given by friends of mine from the Guzzi world. A nice BBQ--very pleasant.
The next morning we did yard work with Karen's mom, Vi. Tree cutting, hedge clipping, that sort of thing. I left around 11:00 and rode west to avoid traffic. Ended up spending time at the Manassas battlefield, seeing some of the 2nd Manassas sites I'd never visited. Then I rode to Warrenton where I had some lunch at a neat diner at the intersection of 211W and 15/29S. After that, I rode south on 15 to 522 to 20 east, picking up SR 601 and going along the northern side of Lake Anna toward home.
All in all, about 250 miles. Not a long weekend, but it was good to get out on the

Great Ride
Had a great ride today in western North Carolina. Came to Clemmons (just west of Winston-Salem) yesterday to ride in the 2nd Christian Neuhauser Memorial Ride. He was the editor-in-chief of Road Runner Motorcycle magazine. Sadly, two years ago, his Ural motorcylce collided with a semi on I-40.
The semi won.
Out of bad things, though, sometimes good things come. So last year, Christian's wife and cofounder Christa hosted a memorial ride. Low key, just friends & fans going for a motorcycle ride.
Though I missed last year's ride, this year's was great. After breakfast of fruit, pastries, and coffee at the Village Inn, we left in three waves of riders--first north on 601, then west on some county roads to US 20. What a great road! Twisties and near-switchbacks taken at the limits of our bikes' abilities. We then went south on the Blue Ridge Parkway to Blowing Rock, NC, where we had catered BBQ chicken and pork.
After this great lunch, we crept down 321 in construction traffic until we turned left on 268--another great road. Twists and turns through a lush valley. Then dinner with new friends capped the event.
Great, great day.

Two Very Good Movies
Well, my tip for movies extends to these two: Once and Miss Potter. One a great music and unrequited love tale, the other a biopic with a delightful and poignant theme.
Once tells the tale of an Irish busker and a Czech single mom who meet on the street. She likes his music, and he likes her smile, style, playing, and lyrics. Call this the movie that Music and Lyrics wanted to be. Once deftly captures the tensions of halting romance as well as the difficulties of songwriting and playing live music.
Miss Potter, on the other hand, gently tells the tale of Beatrix Potter's initial forays into publishing children's books and a fictitious romance. Rene Zellweger does a marvelous job as the illustrator and writer, while Ewan MacGregor sets aside his Moto Guzzi to portray Potter's neophyte publisher and, ultimately, surprising love interest.
Two good movies. Now, Jesus Camp is a diffent, disturbing story altogether....

Death in the Family
Sadly, the brother of a close friend died suddenly Saturday. Rod had been traveling west with his nephew, taking a long-planned trip to Alaska. In Saskatchewan, Canada, Rod had difficulty breathing. His nephew got him to an ER, where doctors tried to stabilize him. They realized they needed to transport Rod to another facility; on the way, he passed away.
Our friend Greg is simply devastated. He was visiting us for the weekend—sadly, too, his wife Nancy was supposed to be here, but she had to go to PA to visit her father, who'd fallen and broken his hip last Wednesday. For Greg, it's more than the fact that Rod was his brother—Rod was his last sibling, and his death made Greg the last living direct relative. His parents had died several years ago, and his younger brother had died from cancer earlier as well.
So sad, so very sad.

La Vie en Filme
Run, do not walk, to see La Vie en Rose, the great film about singer Edith Piaf. Having seen it Monday night at the Westhampton in Richmond, I felt utterly drained by the end...an engrossing yet enervating experience. Marion Cotillard is riveting as la môme piaf. Indeed, if Penelope Cruz can be nominated for her Volver performance, Cotillard should be granted one this week.
Too, the cinematography and the editing is utterly brilliant. Too, with Olivier Dahan's direction, you get a great sense of Piaf's life--by its jumping forward, backward, then middle way in time.
Go see it!

Stuck Inside of Memphis...
Well, not really stuck..but watching the thunderstorms on the Weather Channel. Of course, they're pretty much in my path any which way I wanna go. I think I'll alter my route and go north to see Ft. Pillow, then back to my US 64 East trek, making Shiloh by late midday. My goals are to have Shiloh and Buford Pusser's Museum done by tonight :)

Latest from the Road
Not doing a great job of keeping up with blogging, but, well, sue me. I'm in the middle of an 11-day motorcycle trip. Already been out to Fayetteville, AR, for a Moto Guzzi rally.
Yes, the Haven-meisters have done it again! Apparently a red Breva 1100 is to have changed hands yesterday, and they were riding east today and tomorrow. Still, Bob was grateful to Steve & also the dealer from Nebraska (or was it Montana? I only heard second-hand) for willingness to jump in & help.
I had to leave the BASIL (brothers and sons-in-law) at their hotel yesterday a.m. to go camping for two days with my bro- & sis-in-law & my wife, who'd flown out to Fayetteville to visit w/her sister (& bro-in-law, too!). We drove to Fayetteville, gathered food & beer & ice & barbecue & other stuff for the property they own, & headed east of Fayettteville to near Rush on the Buffalo River.
I rode behind Donna's Forrester, enjoying 412 and 65 and 62 and 14 to Rush road. I also enjoyed that, too...till the pavement gave way to a gravel 8% downhill! I rode the gravel, though, and made the turn onto their dirt road...but I gave up when it began to pour. Mud and rock and slope do not a Breva 1100 riding course make.
So, David came up with the trailer & we ratcheted my Dawn Treader down and took it to the campsite.
Had a great time hangin' with family and also friends Laura & Andre Codrescu, who live nearby. Drinking in front of the fire and telling stories, having fun, was just what the doctor ordered...because on top of everything else this trip (tire, wind, lightning, storms, Bob's bearings, heat), I lost a filling Sunday a.m./Sat. night! So, I left the Rush property early and am headed east...hope to still make the VA rally & all, but I wanted to be in civilization in case I need emergency dental work.
Sheesh!

Detail of Moto Light

Detail of Moto Light
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

Love these lights on my motorcycle! They improve my visibility and how visible I am to others. Thoguh expensive, they are definitely worth it.
Remember--we motorcyclists are out there! Be careful and watch for us.

More on the RidgeRunners' Ride 2007

Pictures of the ride.

The route was, starting in Richmond, then

• West on River Road to SR 6
  
• SR6 west through Scottsville (still torn up), with a side trip to Schuyler, VA (home of Walton's Mountain creater Earl Hamner, Jr.)
  
• US 29 S to Colleen (after lunch in Lovingston).
  
• SR 56 west to Piney Grove, then SR 778 west/southwest to US 60.
  
• US 60 to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
  
• South on the BRP to SR 130
  
• SR 130 west to Natural Bridge, VA

Spent the night at the hotel there (20% discount for motorcyclists, with the coupon from the hotel's page)

• Sunday north on US 11 (with a stop at Foamhenge!)
  
• Putz around Lexington looking for an open coffee shop (couldn't find one!) Grab some fruit at Kroger's, then stop for fuel outside of town.
  
• SR 39 west through Goshen Pass, with stops at the Maury River and Dan Ingall's Overlook.
  
• SR 39 west to US 220 north, stopping for lunch in Monterey, VA.
  
• US 220 north to West Virginia. Shortly after crossing the line, SR 25 east to SR 21 North to Brandywine, WV.
  
• US 33 east all the way back to Richmond,, with a stop on Shenandoah Mountain, fuel before the Blue Ridge, discover low oil, stop in Ruckersville looking for oil, stop in Gordonsville for a chocolate malted & a quart of 10W40 dino (mixing with my 10W50 synth, due to low oil).

Approx. 440 miles round trip, 9.5 hours in the saddle, top speed 102mph (for me, not Dave & Ray), average speed 44 mph, average fuel 39 mpg.

Tired from the Weekend, but Oh How Much Fun!  My brother Ray and my best friend Dave went motorcycling this weekend. They drove up from Georgia (Dave from Rising Fawn, picking Ray up in Lawrenceville NE of Atlanta) with Dave's new-to-him 1996 Honda Magna 750. I had Ray's '92 Nighthawk 750 here.
More about the trip later, including pictures posted to Flickr. Suffice it to say, however, that we had a blast on Saturday & Sunday! Blue Ridge, Shenandoah, and a bit of West Virginia heaven.

And they say the surge is working... Looks like Gen. Petraeus got some 'splainin' to do.

Is Apple Still Cool?  Has Apple still got it? Forbes has an interesting discussion. I still think it is and will continue to innovate.

So It Goes.  RIP, Billy Pilgrim. May you live forever on Tralfamidor.

Shopping for Records  Went to Plan 9 Records the other day. While browsing through the LPs, I was struck by how many of them came from my peak period of record-buying—1971 through 1982 or so. Artists like Dan Fogelberg, Billy Joel, Frank Zappa, and so many others show up. It's almost like a slice of musical time.

The Wayback Machine Redux  Yes, it's me, on Broad Street in St. Elmo...the area at the foot of Lookout Mountain, across from the Incline Pharmacy and almost next door to Kay's Kastle ice cream store Good gravy! What was I thinking back then?
Lord, look at that collar! I was wearing the "uniform" of McCallie School, which by that time had turned simply private...before, it was military, from 1908 until 1971.

Capturing the Past  In a few weeks I'm planning a motorcycle weekend. My middle bro Ray and my high-school friend Dave are planning to come up from Georgia (Lawrenceville & Rising Fawn, respectively). Dave's bringing his Honda Magna 750 in the back of his truck, while Ray will pick up his Honda Nighthawk 750 I picked up for him.

The goal is to ride for a day or two together, and then they'll pakc both bikes into the truck & diddy mau back to Georgia. All three of us are re-entry bikers, with me having the most riding experience lately, about 60,000 miles in the past five years. Dave picked his bike up about a month ago, while Ray just recently got his license.

I first rode on Dave's 1971 Honda 450 in the summer of '72. He even took me to get a haircut on it. I remember riding a hundred miles an hour on the back of the bike, wearing my McCallie blazer, while we raced to the back of Lookout Mountain to get to a barber we knew...who was closed. We then had to race to the foot of the mountain, where the St. Elmo barber was still open.

The next year, Ray bought a brand-new Honda 450. I vividly recall the first day he brought it home, stalling out as he humped and bumped it up the hill to our Franklin Street/Bragg Avenue house. I also vividly remember our mother absolutely collapsing in tears on the living room floor when she learned he'd bought a bike.

Now, 35 years later, the three of us will ride together. It's sort of a nostalgia trip for me in a way...the three of us were close those early '70s summers, and now, three decades later, we have a chance to spend some time together.

Bellagio at night

Bellagio at night
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

It was fun being in Vegas...up to a certain point. Winning almost $400 at roulette was a gas. Having to breathe my room neighbor's cigarette smoke and the gambers' smoke was not.

Still, Vegas is Vegas. The fact that they do what they do and do it well is great. American commerce at its most designed.

Oh, and the conference was great!

Social Economics  Sitting in McCarran Airport in Lo$t Wage$ after the IA Summit with Jason Hobbs and Andrea & Everett Wiggins, we got to talking about social network analysis (Andrea's field) and non-commercial Internet transactions (Jason's recent research topic). Andrea was talking about the interactions of people in Internet cafes in Ecuador. Jason was mentioning that, in South African Internet cafes, no banking or credit card transactions are occurring because of security concerns. They were coming close to a synchronicity of sorts, when I suddenly said, "Social economics."

Both of them kinda turned to me and said, "Hmmmm, yeah, you might have something there." Small smiles of growing recognition that, maybe, there's something there. What if there is a sense of an economy in social interactions that is not based on currency but rather on social costs and benefits? I think there might be something here worth pursuing.

One of the core things that's so cool about the conference is the web of connections that occur. so, grnted, I and Keane spent some chunk of change in my attending the conference. But think about it—I gained friendship, knowledge, and inspiration for my investment in time, extroversion, and, yes, even space invasion (that idea that I allow others to interfere with my sense of space).

Content analysis

Content analysis
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

took a great pre-conference workshop from Indi Young on Friday. Matching content to task groups (and spaces!) is pretty mind-numbingly tedious.

Vegas Bound!  I'm leaving on Thursday for the Information Architecture Summit 2007 in Las Vegas. I'm definitely looking forward to it. It's the one conference I've attended since its inception. Indeed, I've been to almost every one that's occurred:

• Boston
• San Francisco
• Montréal
• Vancouver.

I missed only two summits (albeit in rather cool locations: Portland, OR and Austin, TX.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Back Home  After spending the past five months in almost non-stop travel, I'm home...for awhile.Other than VA Beach this coming weekend for the Shamrock Race and the following weekend for the IA Summit in Vegas, I'll be working outta the house. Nice! Good to be able to walk the dog, ride the bike, get clothes out of my own closet instead of a suitcase, and go to klatsch at Betsy's.

In other words, lead a normal life.

Yet More Hidden Costs  So it now comes out that the surge isn't just 21,000 troops. From the AP:

Gates said that the request for extra MPs is in addition to the 21,500 combat troops that President Bush is sending for the Baghdad security plan and 2,400 other troops designated to support them.

Gordon England, the deputy defense secretary, told Congress earlier this week that the number of required support troops could reach 7,000.

So, that means, 21,000 + 2,200 MPs + 2,400 other troops = 25,600 extra troops...which could be 29,000. Go figure.

Why Do Republicans Hate the Troops?  Endemic to the Repbulican party is the hollow flag-draping and bloody shirt-waving posturing of the party as being "tough on defense." Instead and indeed, the truth is that the GOP is the party of big pockets for defense contractors. The recent revelations of deplorable Abu Ghraib-like conditions in Walter Reed and other outpatient care facilities shows just how little the Republican-dominated Congress and Administration care for the broken cannon fodder it has been sending to an illegal, ill-conceived war in Iraq. So the next time a Repub sez he's voting for Cantor or McCain or Gilmore or Giuliani or even John Webb, remember that these guys belong to the party that has, for at least the last seven years, gutted veteran's care.
Never forget, just like an elephant never forgets.

VCU Wins!  'Nuff said! But sitting in Cambridge, Mass, watching my alma matter spank Geo. Mason. I think it's great—a come-from-behind victory that's as thrilling as any end of a game I've seen.

Me, Jorge, and Susheet

Me, Jorge, and Susheet
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

Note the depth of the snow, relative to our legs--it's up to our knees! This shot is in Barre-Berlin, Vermont, just south of Montpelier. Too, this shot is on Thursday, when we ventured out to the Applebee's next to the Comfort Inn. Much, much snow.

Jonesing for a Ride So the weather sucks, I'm stuck in Boston, my bike's in Virginia, and I really wanna ride. I've been reading Alexis' stories lately. Man, there's a woman who rides! 50K miles last year. Crazy, or what?

I'd love to be able to do that. Tonight, Captain Bob & I were chatting about riding. We were talking about doing the four corners....7,000 miles in 21 days. He said, "That's really not too bad—400 miles a day as an average." I reminded him, though, that we'd be somewhere else...Key West or San Diego when we finished. He said, "Yeah, but then it doesn't matter how long it takes to get back."

To which I replied, "Uh, well, if I still have to work, it does."

The life of a retired guy.

Ain't Bad Work If You Can Get It So, work for less than a year in a job for which you have no specific, relevant experience and gain $10 million? Seems that it worked for Catherine West, former Capital One credit cards prez.
And folks wonder why we gripe at deals the bigs get. Sheeeesh....

Back in Phoenix... ...but only until Monday. It's been a great two-month project (other than a few personality glitches I can't go into). the client team was a perfect team: professional yet fun, demanding yet fair. That's the best way to be.
As for our team, well, it has been an honor and joy to work with them. If I say more, I'll probably begin to tear up. So, for now, I'll just say, "You guys rock!"

Winter Riding Even though it's the 10th of December, I was able to ride my Breva 1100 for several hours. At one point, my onboard thermometer read 62 degrees! How neat is that? At least, as far as motorcycling is concerned. Not sure how good it is for the health of the planet. Still, since I've been in Phoenix for two months, I'm glad to be able to get some riding in.
And speaking of riding, it was great to see a decent turnout at Poe's.

Casino Royale  A very well-done Bond. It's closer to the original plot line of a book since "Diamonds," if not "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." So, if you're a Bond fan, check it out.

Have They No Shame Redux  Rush & Michael J. Fox. 'Nuff said. Anyone who defends Limbaugh is a fellow traveller in vile, base and just mean bullying. Shame on them!

Deck Gun on the Constitution

Deck Gun on the Constitution
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

I had to get to Boston early for training next week. Fortunately, the hotel is almost next door to the berth for the USS Constitution, aka Old Ironsides.
Ever since I was a kid, I'd read about this great ship and its adventures from the days of the undeclared war with France in 1793 through the Barbary Coast wars and into its amazing victories int he War of 1812. Walking on those hallowed decks was a great thrill. it also took me back to my youth, when I read books about American history avidly.

Aimee Mann Live

Aimee Mann Live
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

What a show! I hope some of you had a chance to go, or have seen her, or will see her. First time for me to see her, but she was fantastic!
Not bad for an ex-Richmonder!

Girl in http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifa Blog  Last night we had the great fortune to meet mystery author Sujata Massey. She read from her latest book, Girl in a Box, about industrial espionage and Japanese department stores...featuring her great character, Rei Shimura.
Sujata was engaging, delightful, open, and helpful. Accompanied by Annapolis mystery author , Sujata joined Marcia in reading and chatting about writing and answering questions and signing books. All in a great evening...and K. and I both won door prizes!

Truth Be Told  I've been traveling by air more this year than I have since I returned from Germany in December, 2001. Most of my flying is with JetBlue, a great experience. But flight attendants and pilots still persist in blatthering the typical inanities that all airlines do.
Wouldn't it be great if they just told the truth?
Enjoy.

Arrgh, Matey!  I don't know how I almost missed Talk Like a Pirate Day, but here it is.

My pirate name is:

Black Tom Roberts

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. Two things complete your pirate persona: style and swagger. Maybe a little too much swagger sometimes -- but who really cares? Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

What's your pirate name?

They Get It Over At COMCEN  The Colbert is brilliant...and these guys let you get in the act. Waaay too funny!

New User Experience Designs  The results are in: Winners of a Leopard preview are in. Nicely done. I especially like the fact that the winner won on the basis of his user experience-concentrated design, not on any visual gymnastics.

Have They No Shame?  Keith Olbermann serves it up best, and in this case, he hits one out of the park. Mr. Rumsfeld, dissent is critical to democracy.

Jim Webb

Jim Webb
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

The candidate and, it is hoped, the next junior senator from Virginia, speaking.

The crowd at the HQ Opening

082806_1810.jpg
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

Quite a lot of folks attended the opening of the Jim Webb headquarters in Richmond. Bob Annandale and I ran into Ivan Appelrouth, Henry Morse, Errol Soman, and Rob Murphy. it was definitely an overflow crowd, much bigger than had been anticipated.
And I still got a hot dog, cookies, and a soda.

Fallout from Macaca   The best I've seen so far is from Salon.com. Wow. I chould have been so lucky. Still, it is the best in writing--three words that say it all.

Another Month Goes By  It seems I can't post on a regular basis. It's not that I don't think things. Sometimes it's just that I don't feel like blogging them.
On the other hand, I've been pretty busy—traveling to Boston/Cambridge and Milwaukee and Chattanooga/Lookout Mountain. Fun stuff, but also some work stuff. More later...
Certainly I've been amazed at the minimal fallout to the Allen campaign for his horribly jingoistic remarks. Then again, why should I be surprised? Allen is certainly an embarrassment to this commonwealth, indeed in comparison to its fine Senator Warner.

Avoiding a 2.0 DotBomb Crash  Heiko is always good for a quick link to new things in the Web 2.0 world. Here's some good advice.

720 Megapixel Picture!  Sydney Harbor by night. Man! What a cool shot!

Working with Me Rules Although I didn't write these rules, I certainly think they apply to me. Thanks to Donna for expressing what I feel about myself....

* I may spend a long time seeming to do very little. Don't panic - I'm thinking. Exactly what you pay me to do.

* I spend a lot of time with earphones in. That means I'm trying to think and concentrate amongst the chatter of an office, not that I'm anti-social.

* If you give me a gantt chart all arranged in linear order, I'll nod and get to the end on time and budget, but not by the path you set.

* I spend a long time gathering information and thinking, and little time producing towards the end. Once I have nailed an idea, all else is straightforward and fast. So if you think I'm going to miss a deadline because I haven't produced much, stop worrying.

* Outputs need inputs - I have experience, but I can't design a good system out of nothing. I need to base it on something. Don't stick me in a corner and not let me research and talk to people.

* Teams are good - I have lots of experience at what I do. But so do you and the team. Let's work together to create something great. Don't make me work by myself and expect me to produce miracles.

* I'll occasionally rant and get passionate. That means I care.

* Give me challenging work, give me time to work through it and we'll get there. Don't expect me to to hard work in the same time I do easy work. That's just dumb.

* If there isn't enough work, I'd genuinely prefer to be at home. I'm not hanging around to chase dollars.

* I hate banging my head against a political brick wall. I'd prefer to be anywhere else - that's just a waste of time.

Good Customer Service Means Dealing With People

Cap'n Dave on JetBlue out of Boston
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

On a Jetblue flight last month out of Boston, we had megadelays. Yet the captain (Captain Dave!) kept us well-informed: he told us about the brake light that was coming on, he told us throughout the process what they were doing about it, and he apologized sincerely for the delay. Ultimately, we had to deplane and board another plane...but throughout the process, we knew what was going on, what to expect, and what the resolution was.
Too bad most companies as well as technological devices & software don't have the same ethics and behavior.

New Bike!

It's Mine!
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

Went to Western NY and picked up my new Moto Guzzi Breva 1100. Scheweet!

Been Busy  Listening to "The Ipcress File"'s main theme...what a great movie, and what a great John Barry score. Anyway, haven't been blogging much atall. Geez...and so much going on: Haditha and militarized borders and defence of marriage (is divorce now going to be illegal? Hardly...ask Newt about that) and the beginning of hurricane season (go to www.spencerbohren.com and click on the image listed as "Spencer's Newest Music"...Get his song "The Long Black Line" for free) and Idol worship and...well, it's just been all out there.
Maybe after I pick up my new Guzzi I'll get back to blogging.

Grand Funk Railroad  ...especially Closer to Home, reminds me of 1971-1972 in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. I remember when my brother Ray brought the album home, its stark black-and-white tower of the heads of Mark Farner, Don brewer, Mel Schacher offset by blood-red "GRAND FUNK" across the left side of the cover. We used to listen to "Mean Mistreater" over and over, and we of course glommed onto "I'm Your Captain"'s nine minutes and fourty-seven seconds of paintive story.

Now, in the CD, I can hear not only the whole 1970 album, but an alternate mix of "Mean Mistreater" along with three live tracks. The true beginnings of heavy metal in the late '60s/early '70s....

Black Cash  Go see 'em!

Great Roads in the C-ville Area  I've been in Charlottesville this week, fighting the GWOT. With great weather and the advent of daylight savings time, I've been able to take a motorcycle ride after work...over roads that are some of the best in the state. From 29's bypass I took 610 northwest to 810 east over to 664 southeast. Yesterday I went up 29 to take a side road that connects with 230 west to Stanardsville, then 810 all the way back almost to Crozet...and back to C-ville.
Those who live here are blessed with the ability to ride motorcycles on great roads. Enjoy!

IA Summit 2006  The summit is a lot of fun this year, both personally and professionally. Actually, it's probably more fun professionally—I'm not feeling 100%, so I'm laying low. For example, tonight was the Adaptive Path free drink night...and I bagged off it. Instead, I ate sushi by myself and came back to the room to crash. Fell asleep watching Lawrence of Arabia, one of my favorite movies.

But Vancouver is a neat city. Liking it a lot.

When is a Blog Not a Blog  I just stumbled onto Clooneygate.

Halliburton Redux  Sheesh. Things like this come out, yet almost none of the MSM cover it...much less the screed-head propaganda arms of the right wing (AKA Fox, Limbaugh, Beck, and so on): Seems that the administration-imposed no-bid company failed to purify water for troops in the field:

Halliburton Co. failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused “mass sickness or death,” an internal company report concluded.

Read more.

Deep Down in Florida  Every time I think about Florida, I think about that Muddy Waters song.
Anyway, I'm recovering from the vacation. It really was a fun time, though. We had a great two-day drive to get to St. Petersburg, where the folks are renting a condo.
We took in a Braves-Pirates game in Bradenton, which was great. We also spent some time in Ybor City, but really during the day; we didn't participate in its infamous night life. We also went to Sun City, to visit my father's cousin by marriage, Eve. What a hoot! "Preserve our lifestyle; slow-moving vehicles" is the community's mantra. How cute, really. Then we went to a restaurant by a marina, and afterwards visited a manatee-viewing site at a power plant.
As a side trip, I went to New Smyrna Beach—all the way across the state—to visit Bill Blue. Yup, the ol' denizen of Hard Times and my one-time boss lives there now. He surfs almost daily in season, and he has a recording studio.
He makes guitars, and he still performs. Looking good, too. In fact, he took me out on the beach at NSB. For me it was cool driving on the hard-packed, flat beach. I could see Daytona in the hazy distance north.

Anyway, I'm still working on uploading pictures.

On Vaca...  No entries lately, because we've been on vacation. Right now I'm blogging from a motel in Dilon, SC, on the way home.

Blog Timeline  Heiko links to the New York Magazine's timeline of blogging. Nice to see my old acquaintance Peter Merholz gets his props.

Facing Time  Fast Company has a great quotation about time management. Basically, if work requires us to respond to emails on Sunday, we need to be able to set our time limits to go to the movies on Monday afternoon. That is, if companies require us to be available on weekends and evening, then they should also not look askance if we go to the movies in the afternoon or sleep late.
This morning at klatsch at Wired on Robinson, this topic came up. In too many jobs, it doesn't matter if you work until 10 p.m. or on the weekends—if you come in later than those who surf desks, the perception is that you're a slacker. Unfortunately, corporate management often disparages those who come in late...despite other efforts they make.

PUT-ing Development on the Right Track  I've just written an article for the James River Chapter of STC. It's for their newsletter The Watershed. Here's my central point: Why do we always have time and budget to do things over (“We’ll fix it in the next version”), but we never have time to do things right?
From the article:

I spent two years in Germany, working for an international full-service Internet consultancy. Sometimes we had to check a feature of an application or Web site we were developing. Rather than stop development for a months-long series of usability tests involving video taping, one-way mirrors, and agency-recruited subjects, we relied on the Putzfrau approach. Because Putzfrau means “ cleaning woman,” the idea is to test with someone nearby who’s not part of your specific development project.
We would get someone from another team or department and ask them to perform specific tasks, either on a digital or paper prototype. These quick results helped center the development on user-oriented approaches, rather than technologically oriented ones.
Steve Krug has a wonderful chapter on usability testing in his critically important book, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. While he takes the informality of usability testing to its extreme, he does highlight how cost-effective informal testing can be.
Rather than spending $10,000 to $50,000 on a series of usability tests, you can perform tests for a few hundred dollars. This approach eliminates the typical response to suggestions of usability testing, “We don’t have the budget for testing.”
We’ve all heard that before. I maintain, Why do we always have time and budget to do things over (“We’ll fix it in the next version”), but we never have time to do things right?

Missing Another Summit  Sadly, I'll be missing the Information Architecture Summit in Vancouver in March. It's too bad, too, because it's my favorite conference & training event. I always learn so much, I always get inspired—even when, like last year, I felt like one of the uncool kids. After a few emails & stuff, I'm feeling much better about that ;)
Still, the IA Summit is an important event in the user experience (UX) world. But try telling that to Central Virginia business leaders. Bottom line: this state don't git it.

Hard At Work

Hard At Work  The Good Humor Band at Poe's on Sunday was, as I said earlier, just simply amazing! Fun, funny, and brilliant. Go to the band's site for their story. You won't be sorry!

Another Example of Poor Usability  The Virginians who want to roll back the estate tax have an example of extremely poor usability. A link purports to take you to a map contrasting states with

So here's the question: what does blue mean, and what does white mean? Without a legend, this map loses meaning.
Sheesh. Yet another example of the dearth of UX in Virginia.

The WayBack Machine in Full Function  The Good Humor Band landed this weekend for its annual wacky music fest. Too bad for those who missed it, and too bad for me to have missed every one since the early 80s. Still, I finally got to see the bad boys of comedy (and musical excellence) for the first time since I went off to the Army way back when.
What a show—or should I say "shows." Saturday night at The Canal Club was fabulous. Great sound, nice stage, and cold beers. With Terry Garland ripping through a flawless set of blues, the evening was set. Even Joe McGlohon's daughter's band did a quick set of 80s covers to warm things up.
But the night belonged to the Humoroids. From "A Cowboy's Work is Always Done" to "Harlem Nocturne," the excellent musicianship combined with, well, good humor, made for a wonderful night.
Sunday afternoon at Poe's Pub also proved to be a never-forgetter. Guests such as Robbin Thompson (who can forget the band's intro to him?), Chuck Wrenn, and drummer David Eggleston's teenage son (is he even yet a teen?)(whose version of "Iko Iko" showcased his second-line skills, while Led Zeppelin's "Rock & Roll" was just short of fabulous) helped create a true party atmosphere.
All in all, I felt taken back to 1979 at the Pass...what a gas!

Meme-Tagged  Thanks to Joe, I've been tagged. So, why not? It's all fun...

Four Jobs I've Had
1. fry cook (shortorder cook)
2. radio DJ
3. blues band road manager
4. soldier

Four Movies I Can Watch Over And Over
1. Casablanca
2. Sullivan's Travels
3. The Quiet Man
4. Almost Famous (the extended version)

Four Places I've Almost Lived, And Still Plan To
1. Brussels
2. Austin
3. San Francisco
4. Amsterdam

Four TV Shows I Love
1. Curb Your Enthusiasm
2. Combat!
3. The Daily Show
4. Arrested Development

Places I've Vacationed
1. the Canary Islands
2. Nag's Head
3. Trento
4. Le Canal du Midi

Four of My Favorite Dishes
1. Carolina Barbecue
2. Red beans & rice
3. Sushi
4. Soft Chicken Tacos

Four Sites I Visit Daily
1. Wildguzzi's forum - sometimes fun, especially when you can't ride
2. Myway.com - my news site, my TV channels, & my movie times
3. keane.com - actually, the Web mail part for internal users
4. Army Knowledge Online...


Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now
1. Working on a billable project
2. Riding my Moto Guzzi Breva 750
3. Sipping a mojito on the beach
4. Hamburg

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging
1. Heiko (who's probably been tagged way too many times, but still...)
2. Brutally Honest (hey, I'm an equal-opportunity blogger)
3. Girlwonder (Molly probably has no time, but still...)
4. (I'm workin' on it)

Murder in the Ville  So another person is murdered in Richmond. Not necessarily a big deal, in that we constantly appear in the top 10 murder cities of the U.S. Yet this one was a block from my house. So when it comes into your neighborhood, yeah, it's a big deal.

It's Still About Usability  So Heiko blogs about usability. That's nice, 'cause he does get it. But what's not so nice is that products still aren't designed from a user's perspective. I've been trying to get this message across, yet except for New York, Chicago, and the Bay area, most places don't seem to get it. Instead, they hire business analysts instead of user-experience analysts...with the result that the products' designs reflect the desires of the business, not the needs of the users.
Same old story, same old song and dance.

Nice Day for a Ride  It was a nice ride. I met Bob at 9:00 a.m. at Ashland Coffee & Tea, then left around 9:45 (after coffee & cigarettes—Bob had a smoke, that is). Then we took 54 to Hanover CH to 614 east to 30 to 360 east to 14 east to 17 south to Yorktown. Lunch at the pub. Then down the Colonial Parkway & up Route 5. Got to the Dairy Queen at 295 & Rte. 5 around 4 p.m. Not a bad ride. I was pushing it a leetle—about 5-8 mph above posted limits, except on the parkway (I stay pretty much at the 45 mph limit, maybe pushing it to 48).

Ah, yes...January in Virginia. How sweet it is!

Obfuscatio  So I ran across this sentence on a list I subscribe to:

In general, feminist theorists seek renewed social status
for non-analytical ways of knowing which, it is has been
argued, most eurowestern projects of modernity reject.

Is it just me, or is this a Macbethian sentence (full of sound and fury, signifying nothing)? At least it is, to my thinking, a further example of what's wrong with academ.

2 Charged as Monsters  So two guys have been arrested in connection with the destruction of two families: the Harveys & the Tucker/Baskervilles. Seven people brutally murdered in seven days...and the details seem to be out of a movie like Seven. Let us hope for justice--but not for mercy.

Annus horribilis already   Horrible way to begin the year. And he was an acquaintance/friend from the 80s. So mind-numbingly sad.

Ein gute Rutsch!   A Happy New Year to all—may it be full of peace and happiness.

Quam diu redux  Here's what Bush's illegal wiretapping comes down to: "..[T]here is only black and white when it comes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a 1978 law that specifically requires warrants for any NSA wiretapping of U.S. citizens. "If you want to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens, you go to court. If you don't, you go to jail," Bamford says. "If you want to change the law, you go to Congress."
O tempora, o mores indeed.

Bitter Arrogance  "The president acted in clear contravention of a criminal law enacted by Congress, and a Supreme Court precedent, both directly on point."

Happy Holidays  Christina and Tom the Dancing Bug weigh in on this nonissue.

Ugh...  America's shame. Not defendable other than under the First Amendment. They have the right to hate....

When Help Doesn't  Sometimes software ships with online help that doesn't help the user at all. Either the prose is turgid or it belabors the obvious...or it doesn't answer critical questions. Apparently the new ThinkPad has problems For example, "Teaching the laptop what your fingerprint looks like requires a good bit of effort, no thanks to the colorless prose of the online help screens" indicates that not only is the hardware design flawed, but the help doesn't. Too bad. I bet that when Lenovo bought the ThinkPad line, they didn't hire IBM's writers.

New Version of Windows  Now we're getting new windows for the house! O Frabjous day! Calooh! Callay! They are Milgard windows that Best Windows of Mechanicsville, Virginia, installed. Best is a local firm that has a good rep. I like the fact that we're helping out the local economy...not just paying some conglomerate to do it. The windows themselves come from Fredericksburg. Pictures soon....but right now, it's cold cold cold, what with no front windows & all.
Indeed, these are the only Windows I'll pay for ;)

Tagging  No, it has nothing to do with graffiti. It also doesn't have anything to do with marking animals in the wild...at least not in the context I'm interested in. Instead, it's about adding markers to pieces of content to make them easier to retrieve.
Flickr probably does it best. Not only do they have an extraordinarily great user experience design, they enable individuals to create their own sense of meaning through tags to each photo. The approach is gaining acceptance and notice: Even Cnet has found out.
One key effect is that users don't have to depend on an info priesthood to dictate what terms and thesauri are available.

Marketers Just Don't Get It  Joe Lamantia describes a particularly aweful experience he had online. Seems the marketing heads just went waaaay too far.

Deutschland War Sau-Geil!  Still getting back into the swing of things after 10 days in Germany. First it was Hamburg, then Wiesbaden, and finally Königstein im Taunus and Bad Homburg. So good to see folks there.
Too, the conference went well. More later on that.

History, of a Sort  If you're curious or nostalgic about the past 10 years, check out Salon's retrospective. Well-written like all their stuff, it does encapsulate a lot of the past 10 years' business history.

More on Motorcycling  Well, I went on another trip this weekend. Ostensibly I was going to visit my brother in Lawrenceville, GA...but as it turns out, he was out hunting (a very Gawja thing to do thse days). Instead, I ended up riding around in the South Carolina Highlands. Next day I rode up through Highlands, NC to the Dragon...Deal's Gap. Instead of riding the Gap, though, I hung around a little, watched the packs of bikes come & go, and then rode to Cherokee, NC. I rode the first part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I had to jump off it before Waynesville to make tracks to get to Boone, NC. Seems I had sorta screwed up by making a nonrefundable reservation there.
So I got to Boone just before twilight. Next day it was 33 degrees...and I had to drive. I wanted to get home before the rain...but it was not to be. Instead, I ended up running into rain around Oxford, NC, and rode in it till Richmond. Ugh! But the bike worked well for the most part, despite its lighter size. The wind certainly pushed it around.
So, mostly, I love the bike. Still, the Griso or the Breva 1100 might, just might be in my future...next year.

I'm Back  From Italy, of a sort. Plus, I did a two-day motorcycling school this past weekend. More later about that.