The Vote
I'm in San Jose, California for my company's engineering tech summit, which happened to overlap with Super Tuesday this year. Yesterday all my colleagues (well, not ALL of them; the Romanians and Germans were almost as oblivious of the Super Tuesday hoo-hah as I was) kept asking me for whom I voted. "Oh, I'm from Pennsylvania," I reminded them. "We don't vote until it's over."
This year I have hope that this won't be the case; for once in my lifetime, we might actually make it to the Democratic Nominating Convention and actually have a debate over who gets the nomination. The votes that get cast in Pennsylvania on April 22 might actually count for something.
Of course, my vote won't be among them. My vote doesn't count because I'm an Independent. A Non-Partisan. A voter with No Party in a state that has closed primaries. Unless I can get over my amazingly strong distaste for the DNC and the horror of being associated with a party that doesn't seem to represent me (and this is equally—or more—true for the Republican party), I won't have a chance to vote for Clinton or Obama until the general election. (I did review the Republican options as well, and it's hard to imagine voting for any of them. If it were a general election today with all of the originally-declared candidates in the race, Clinton and Obama would still top the list for me.)
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that in the year I that my primary vote might actually make a difference, I'm not particularly inclined to choose between Clinton and Obama. I favor Clinton for her experience and her depth on the issues, but like Mitt Romney, I'm a bit afraid of Bill Clinton hanging out at the White House with nothing to do. (I suspect Romney was trying to plant a picture of Wild Bill screwing interns into the minds of conservative voters, whereas in my nightmare he's taking on the role of Supreme Meddler). Obama, though I think he's light on both experience and details, is charismatic and thoughtful, and would be a bold choice with less baggage. I can't seem to forget that when a reporter asked him early in the campaign which books he was reading currently, he responded, "I'll have to get back to you on that," though.
Catching Up
As I mentioned in the last post, I spent last week at my company's technology summit in San Jose, CA. Aside from brief internet access on Monday morning and Friday evening (the latter's when I pushed the last post, written Wednesday, live), I lived on my iPhone. I'm thrilled that that was even possible, but not having anywhere to download all the photos from my camera and having very little time to get my blog thoughts together means that I'm a bit behind. I have the week to report on, photos to upload, injuries to report, hockey games to write about, etc. Hopefully I'll get my shit together tomorrow.
Scanning...
A big box arrived while I was in meetings earlier today, and I won't have time to unpack it until after hockey practice tonight, sadly. If it's what I think it is, my Flickr stream is about to be flooded with wedding photos from 2002 and black & white promo shots from bands that no longer exist (if I can find my notebooks of negatives, that is).
Oy, maybe I should try to catch up with posting shots from the past week while I work so those don't get lost among all the old stuff....
I should also add: I received the gift of a camera from a fellow Flickr user, and I hope to have test shots from that soon, too. (I was shooting with 4 different cameras last week, and I only finished the film in one of them.)
My Favorite Photo From Last Week
My friend and QE partner Don took this photo of me and Winsha responding to e-mail on our iPhones between tech summit sessions. It's about as representative of the week as a photo can get; Winsha and I were glued at the hip most of the time, and we were also glued to our iPhones. Winsha carried a laptop on the first day but didn't really use it, so the iPhones were our connection to e-mail, web, and everybody else (via SMS).
iPhones, by Donald Booth
Breakfast of Champions
I thought of a new way to inject chocolate into my diet the other day, and I've been employing this new method every day since: I add a few Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate chunks to my morning oatmeal. I've tried it with a Dr. McDougall's Maple Oatmeal cup (best of all, IMHO, but I only had one in the house), 5-minute rolled oats, and steel-cut Irish oatmeal. It makes the oatmeal taste like chocolate chip cookies—YUM! Be careful, though: better too few chunks than too many. You want it to taste like oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them, not chocolate syrup with pasty lumps.
Also: I haven't tried regular chocolate chips, but I did try mini chips one morning. Chunks are better.
E-ZPass PA: How NOT To Re-Vamp a Website
WTF, E-ZPass PA? Your site is down for a WEEK while you upgrade your systems, and now that it's back it's... worse. Great! When I added our new vehicle to our account, you added it twice. When I tried to delete our old vehicle, I got a message that said the vehicle couldn't be found in the list. (Ditto when I deleted the duplicate of the new car.)
One would think that "where do I purchase/how do I acquire new mounting strips for my transponder when I change vehicles" would be a frequently asked question, but apparently not. How to mount the damn thing apparently IS—to the extent that it must be answered separately for both Personal and Commercial accounts.
And now, to add further insult, when I try to ask this question via your web form, when I click SEND I get an admonishment: "Please, do not send us your credit card information." Where do you see any number at all, much less a string of numbers, in my message? THAT'S RIGHT, YOU DON'T. This is the only feedback I'm getting when I click SEND. So you either got two identical messages from me, or none at all.
I spent the morning mulling over version targeting (I'm with Zeldman: the default seems counterintuitive, especially if you're a CSS-focused designer, but it absolutely makes sense when you realize the JavaScript changes coming down the pike could *really* break the web), and my experience with the E-ZPass website just cemented my belief that there are TONS of web designers and developers out there who don't even design for more than one workflow, much less more than one browser. That there are actual web professionals who've never heard of the word "usability". That there are developers who seemingly don't even test their code. (Dudes, I have a tip for you: TO-DO LIST. Make sure you make one, and make sure everything on it is checked off.)
E-ZPass PA isn't the only website that maddens me this way, and provides more evidence that many "business" sites don't bother developing—or even testing—on more than one browser, and have never heard of usability testing. The Aetna and Caremark customer service folks have had to listen to me rant about endless loops and non-obvious links that appear below login boxes ("but you don't have to log in!" they say. "You can just scroll down and click on the links!"), too.
I don't have much else to say except there's got to be a better way. Please, let me serve myself. I'm an introvert; I don't talk on the phone unless it's absolutely necessary, and by the time it's absolutely necessary, I'm angry. You won't like me when I'm angry. Please, take the time to make your site easy to navigate. Don't leave users at dead ends or let them get stuck in endless loops. Provide accurate feedback, not useless error messages. And also? Please don't assume I'll be browsing with IE6. I won't be.
Counting, 1, 2, 3
Overheard from downstairs, while I was making lunch for myself in the kitchen (yes, it's 3:27pm, I know):
Beaner: "1 plus 1 is 2.... plus one more is 3... plus one more is 4..."
I have no idea what he and Aura are doing down there, but it sounds like all the sausage-counting* we've been doing at breakfast is paying off.
*The Beaner likes the veggie sausages I used to buy solely for myself (now he eats more than I do), and he always says, "I want TEN sausages!" I cook two and cut them each into 5 pieces, which, now that I think about it, is how I introduced the concept of multiplication. Sausages = math in our house.
Not The Answer I Expected
The Beaner approaches with his sneakers on his hands, clapping them together.
Me: "Whatcha got there?"
Beaner: "I've got some drums!"
Updates From Beanerworld
Sorry for the loooong silence. Busy busy busy, sick, busy, hockey, busy, snow, blah blah blah. Some Beaner things I've jotted down over the past week or so:
He's Been Paying Attention After All
Me: It's time to go brush our teeth.
Beaner: Why do we have to brush our teeth in the morning? We already brushed them last night.
Me, absentmindedly, because I'm tired of answering this question: Uh, because we have morning breath.
Beaner, cheerily: Because we have socks on our teeth! And because we don't want those socks to turn into cavities!
Adding to His Vocabulary, To the Tune of the Wonder Pets! Theme
One morning this week (Sunday?), the Beaner was taking FOREVER to get dressed, and I was getting sick to death of asking him YET AGAIN to put on his damn pants. Al finally came up to see what was taking so long, and I said, "we've learned two new words this morning: tedious and progress." Al immediately broke into Wonder Pets! mode and sang, "This is tedious!", to which I added, "Let's make some progress! Shirt, socks, and underpants, too -- Put them on or I'll yell at you!" [Spank actually made more sense meter-wise, but I didn't want to make empty threats.]
SpongeBob StrangePants or He Wasn't As Confused As I Thought He Was
I hand the Beaner a pair of underpants and say, "here, put on your underpants," and I go back to my desk for a second. He comes over and says, "why is he rescuing Patrick?"
Me: "Who's rescuing Patrick?"
He holds up the underpants and points to the scene screen-printed across the butt: "SPONGE SLAM!", in which SpongeBob is body-slamming a supine Patrick in the wrestling ring.
"Oh," I say. "Wrestling. SpongeBob is wrestling Patrick. I don't know why."
Beaner: "No, he's rescuing him, because Patrick fell down. What's wrestling?"