This is hilarious

I just signed up for Jott and tested it out. Jott is a service that allows you to send emails, post reminders to yourself, and even update your blog simply by making a phone call. 

The problem is, it makes me sound as though English isn’t my first language.  Evidence appears below.

Another awesome moment in life

 SF from above

(Photo courtesy of brockvicky.)

Okay, so I had a little moment of magic during takeoff on a plane flight last week. After giving all the perfunctories about flight time and local weather conditions, the pilot narrated our flight up and out of San Francisco, peppering us with sweetly interesting facts along the way. Some things I learned:

  • SF has a mediterranean climate, one of only five in the world.
  • Since 1954, California has been the most populous state in the US.
  • Berkeley has an element named after it, berkelium (BK).
  • Angel Island has good grass for grazing. Passing ships with livestock stop there to feed their animals.
  • And the Golden Gate Bridge proves that things can be both beautiful and functional.

Amen, Mr. Pilot.

Ireland redeemed

Ok, I’ll admit it. After a cranky start, our trip to Ireland is turning out to be pretty awesome. It kind of feels like this:

We’ve been walking all over Dublin and the surrounding suburbs.

We took a lazy and lovely sidetrip to the south to a small town called Bunclody, where a car, a narrow lane, and some wayward horses conspired to produce a heart pounding but kind of magical scene.

Yes, we’ve spent some time warming stools in pubs, but mostly we’ve been busy mastering public transit, and keeping dry.

We’ve also been taking lots of photos. You can see more on flickr, if you’re interested.

Meltdown in Dublin

Imagine ten hours on a plane in economy class. You’re all cramped and stinky. All you want to do is brush your teeth and get in bed. You arrive at the address for your hotel, only to discover…

Welcome home

An empty, boarded up building surrounded by scaffolding.

Yes, dear friends. This is how my trip to the Emerald Isle begins. What followed was two hours of lugging suitcases around in drizzling rain trying to figure out where the hell we were supposed to be. The whole mix up is evidently due to a combination of *hilarious* circumstances, including:

Phantom hotel. The hotel is actually a part of another hotel that’s located under a separate name and address next door (but there’s no sign or indication anywhere).

Genius on the phone. The woman on the other end of the phone when I called to ask why I couldn’t find the hotel actually gave me a third and completely incorrect street number to go in search of.

Awesome urban planning. When we went in search of said street number, we discovered that numbering sequences on opposite sides of the street bear no relationship to each other. We stood outside No. 55 and faced No. 126 across the street.

Of course all of this will be written up in a scathing review on Trip Advisor when I get home, but right now I’m so grateful to have an actual bed to sleep in, I’m going to pretend to be a satisfied guest until I’m safely on my way.

IA Summit, here I come

I’ll be in Miami this weekend at the IA Summit presenting my thoughts on how to be a user experience team of one.

This is a topic that’s very dear to me because, well, it’s about me!

For 3 years at Barclays Global Investors I worked as a user experience team of one, but it was only after I left and joined a group of designers at Adaptive Path that I realized how many fundamental design techniques had been missing from my time at the big investment bank.

Now when I’m out and about talking to other practitioners, I hear the same frustrations that I had in other solo practitioners.  So this presentation is basically my way of sharing all the cool tricks that I’ve picked up at Adaptive Path with a crowd of people that I still strongly identify with.

If you’ll be in Miami at the Summit, I’ll be speaking at 2:45 on Saturday. Come check it out. 

Just finished a really delicious english muffin. Yum. There’s something about an english muffin that makes me feel like I’m eating virtuously (this one was wheat; i am truly a saint). Of couse the truth is that I really just love them for the butter vessels that they are.

*Sigh*

There’s something about Saturday mornings that’s so bittersweet. With the full possibility of the weekend laid out before you, it’s almost immobilizing.  What among all the many things I told myself I’d do this weekend should I do first?

Oh, I know! Hem the curtains. 

Awesome quote from my aunt Susy: “Is there a geek equivalent to match.com out there somewhere?" If there isn’t one, there should be!

It's so annoying.

I don’t care if they call them different names, but could the PC world and the Mac world at least agree to place the command and control keys in the same place on the keyboard? Having to retrain your muscle memory every time you switch between the two plaforms is really annoying.  I’m using my PC at home right now and I keep typing alt+N, alt+C, alt+V. Grrrr…