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!