Beautiful Sunset

Sunset near Westeraccum
Originally uploaded by Wattwurm.

I don't even know where Westeraccum is, but I think it's part of the Frisian Islands&emdash;that is, the northwest of Germany. Still, it's a beautiful photo.

Us

Us
Originally uploaded by mojohand.

The happy family...Karen, Sunny, and me.

A long day ends  Heiko can now get some rest. I know how tough this is, just as a manager...but in Heiko's case, he was also involved in L10N as well as I18N.

Sad but True  Job Hunting. Thanks to Heiko for the tip to this guy. Depressing but funny in a black comic way.

Flawed but Funny  Rules for Being a Republican.

I Told Ya So  National Guard Reports Serious Drop in Enlistment. No shit, Sherlock.

It Always Comes Down to Usability  More Is Sometimes Less touts the cheaper music players rivaling the iPod Mini. Yet with comments like

You can run your finger around the iPod's famous click wheel fast to jet down to the W's and then slowly to pinpoint "What a Wonderful World."
But the Rio's thumb wheel has no such variable speed; it's four songs per turn, period. Working through any list longer than about 12 songs is an excruciating exercise.

you see the problem. Another extract takes the Creative Zen Micro to task:

[T]he iPod's wheel has been replaced by a touch-sensitive vertical strip. In theory it ought to offer variable speed scrolling, but in practice it's a sticky, balky nightmare. You'll find a similar lack of polish when you want to use the Zen Micro's hard drive to transport computer files (a terrific feature of the iPod and all of its rivals) and discover that you must tell the software in advance how much space you'll need for them. How could you know that ahead of time?

Who thinks this dreck up? Oh...that's right...engineers and marketeers.

Coding Again  So for the past few days, I've been writing HTML & CSS. I've been creating a menu page for a tutorial I've yet to write as well. The thing is, though I'd tried to use Captivate's MenuBuilder, it looked & felt decidedly, well, PowerPointish. So I created a brushed metal background with Canvas, then I created a few minimal interface decorators as well.
I've been struggling with a four-column layout. Three columns, yeah, I can do that...but I need four columns. Any thoughts?

Bad and Getting Worse  The soldier speaks his mind. At least he got some notoriety, but I'm not surprised that he didn't get a straight answer. Reminds me of something that happened in Germany in '80. My best buddy there Mark L'Heureux was at a battalion assembly in the post theater in Baumholder. A group of soldiers was on stage, as they were taking the oath of reenlistment. Right when the LTC paused before reading it, L'Heureux yelled out, "Don't do it! Don't...do it!"
Everyone broke up laughing. And L'Heureux was protected because he was so short...I think he had about two weeks left in the Army.

End of an Era?  IBM isn't compatible anymore, apparently. I remember when the phrase "IBM-compatible" was the sine qua non of business phrases in the '80s. My how times change.

D'ya Think They'd Vote for Shrub Now?  My Way Finance: "A surprisingly soft 112,000 new U.S. jobs were created in November, the Labor Department said on Friday, casting a shadow across an already downbeat holiday sales season with consumers apparently worried by scarce work and high oil prices."
It's just amazing how he gets away with it.

When Jargon Becomes Mainstream  Perhaps it's interesting that David Pogue notices the use of the term wireframe in a kid's 3-D movie in New York. Perhaps it's interesting that the term is used both in animation and in UX work. But I suspect it's interesting because of the crossover.

Why France is the Best Place in the World  Because you don't get fat, you don't have to diet, you don't have to work out, and you eat whatever you want. Anyone need any user experience designers there?

Selah A pause for the cause

Working in Wiesbaden  Attending the tekom conference, the German technical communication conference. I was invited to speak at the pre-conference called the European Information Development Conference. I spoke about personas and how they can help develop products. Of course, Bogo (whose site is still being developed) was there, as were Scott DeLoach and Rob Houser and Seth Maislin and so on and so forth.

Blue, So Blue  Not sure why. Could be the change of weather, as the days get noticeably shorter, the nights cooler, and the motorcycling less frequent. Could be the almost $2500 spent on taxes, and knowing that I'll have to pay penalties, too. Could be that Karen's going away while I go to drill...and not wanting to go to drill.

Is This Any Way to Run a Railroad?  Heiko rides the blinds...and it doesn't turn out so well. Reminds me of a 20-hour trip I took from Berlin to Warsaw in 1990. What was supposed to be a first-class cabin turned out not to be, and in fact there were no first-class car on the train.

It's Still ABB  Sean Aday has it right, when he argues that the duping of CBS shouldn't hide the fact that Bush lied, that Bush betrayed his fellow Air Guardsmen, that Bush showed how base his character really is.

Rockin' down the boulevard  If you haven't picked up Eliza Gilkyson's newest CD Land of Milk and Honey, do yourself a favor & get it now. My fav right now off the CD:

Hiway 9

Well, the white god said to the little man

we're gonna fulfill scripture in the holy land

between the Tigris and Euphrates, it's a lot like hell

go on and liberate my people and the o-i-l.



Got your big trucks rollin' down hiway 9

put on the armor, it's party time

gonna dance with the devil of our own design

get your big trucks rollin' down hiway 9.



So the little man gathered all his chicken-hawks in

and the neo-cons and his daddy's kin

With their own clear channel and a helluva spin

and a white man hidden in a black man's skin.



Big trucks rollin' down hiway 9

pulverize the public, it's payback time

who's tax dollar is it? your's and mine

keeps the big trucks rollin' down hiway 9.



Well we got caught sleepin at the sentry post

now we're standing toe to toe with what we feared the most

that old father and his son and the unheavenly host

We gotta do what we can and don't give up the ghost



Big trucks rollin' down hiway 9

food and water and an Internet line

run to the polls when it comes a time

cause the big trucks rollin' down hiway 9.

Another one bites the dust...  Well, another job possibility slips by. The hiring manager told the recruiter, "He was great, his work is outstanding, he's really overqualified, but we just decided to go with another candidate."

Hmmm...funny how that works. I wonder if it's because she simply didn't like me, or perhaps it's because I was honest and told her that I'm in the Army Reserve (more on that later). I think it's quite plausible that she didn't want to run the risk that I might be called up, but she didn't want to go on record as being so unpatriotic. The recruiter suggested it might be sticker shock as well—I was presented at $35 an hour instead of the $30 an hour they'd requested.

Sheesh. Sorry, but even at $35 an hour, I'm selling myself short...and giving a potential employer a bargain.