Walking in the cold

Leanne with an alert Asha by Corinne S.

Today I met Leanne at Magnuson Park and we took baby Asha and puggy Maple for a walk in the off-leash area. It was a cold day and we got caught in the middle of our walk by some hail. We waited it out under a little shelter with other dog lovers.

Then we went to a Title 9 clearance sale we ran across in one of the Magnuson hangars. Leanne bought a couple of things and I splurged on $90 worth of clearance items, including one desperately needed pair of pants.

It was great to see these pretty girls. They both seem pretty happy with their new life. Oh yea, and they bought a Honda Element (okay, that was Leanne and Charles, not so much Asha).

Halloween fun

Piper and me, stalked by Death by Corinne S.

Here I am on Saturday night with Piper and Benjamin at Piper's annual Halloween-Birthday party. More photos from the party.

Book: The Devil Wears Prada

Much better than I expected

This book was much funnier and more engaging than I expected. I don’t usually enjoy the witty, smart ass, New York chick books. But this one was an exception. In addition to being a well formed and engaging story, the narration of the audio book was well done and perfect for the content. I recommend checking it out for some light reading.

Great photo

Kiss from Kees by Papa Morris

This is an excellent and touching photo that my friend Leanne's husband Charles posted to Flickr. This is Leanne's brother Kees with her daughter Asha. I find this photo all the more touching because I know that Kees is quadriplegic and can't "hold" Asha in the traditional sense.

New old photos

Cindy and Molly by Corinne S.

This weekend when I was home sick I unearthed and processed some more images from my grandma's 80th birthday party in May. You can see all the photos from the party on Flickr.

Weekend of sickness

I got a cold on Friday last week and stayed home all weekend. I slept 16+ hours a day, took meds, and watched TV.  I left the house once to return books to the library and take the dog to the dog park for an off-leash walk.

iPods with a virus

"'As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it,' the company stated."

I find this willful ignorance deeply frustrating. It's not that Mac OS X is hardy and Windows is not. It's that no self-respecting hacker would waste his time writing a virus that would impact, at most, a mere 4% of computers when they could affect up to 95% of computers running Windows. AP Wire: Apple says some iPods contained a virus

This is only a test

If this blog entry were real, I'd be much more clever.

Meaningful or meaningless?

Multi-tasking sucks me in

I've been realizing (over and over) recently how much I suck at focusing on one thing at a time and how it is probably affecting my ability to be engaged, creative, passionate, and spontaneous. I think this article by Scott Berkun, and the discussion of the article, do a great job at addressing this topic. Why do I want so badly not to give up this multi-tasking behavior that I love and to which I am completely addicted, even while I know I should and that it would likely make my life better? The idea makes me tired. I think I'll go to bed early, which is both an effective avoidance tactic as well as a single-focus activity. ;-) ScottBerkun.com: Attention and sex

Stupid sleepy

50 Most Powerful Women in Business 2006

You may find this collection of articles from Fortune magazine interesting. Some would argue that these women aren't good role models for "normal" women since they generally have little "work-life balance," but it's still good to see women succeeding in corporate America. Hopefully someday they can do that more often without needing to emulate the behaviors and success criteria of their male counterparts. Fortune: 50 Most Powerful Women in Business 2006

It's good to see someone take Bush to task

Keith Olbermann kicks Bush's ass to Guantanamo and back regarding the suspension of habeas corpus through the Military Commissions Act of 2006, signed into law on Tuesday. This is very worth watching. MSNBC: Beginning of the end of America (video) (transcript)

Book: Flashback

Reasonably entertaining, though not unique

The premise for this story is far from original. However, the execution is good enough to make it an entertaining read. I’d consider it the kind of thing you’d read in paperback while on vacation.

Movie: The Departed

Very well done. Very violent.

on Saturday night, Benjamin and I saw this movie at the Neptune with my father-in-law and Benjamin’s friend Jimmy. The movie has an excellent cast and a solid, if imperfect, story. As you’d likely expect from a Scorsese mob film, it’s violent. Despite the sometimes extreme violence, I enjoyed it.

Ink blogging

First Windows SideShow device available in retail soon

I think this new digital picture frame will be the first Windows SideShow-compatible device available to consumers. It will work as a digital picture frame out of the box and then you can use it the Windows SideShow functionality as soon as you upgrade to Windows Vista. ;-) The 7" and 10" frames are available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

Injecting humor into the corporate world

A colleague of mine just sent out an email whose beginning I find amusing:

"Impermanence describes the fact that all phenomena that arise from causes are subject to continuous and inevitable change. Well, our process has changed."

I then searched Google images for an appropriate image to accompany that thought, and stumbled across this amusing comic from toothpastefordinner.com.

Sibling birthday celebration

Siblings blow out the candles by Corinne S.

On Saturday evening, Benjamin and I went to my parents-in-law's house in West Seattle for a joint celebration of Davonna's and Benjamin's birthdays. We brought takeout from Bai Pai Thai near our house and then everyone had carrot cake and ice cream. It was a nice, relaxed gathering.

More photos, including fun shots of the nephews, are on Flickr.

Book: A Bend in the Road

Not bad

I enjoyed listening to this as an audio book, but the ending didn’t do a whole lot for me. The story is about a man whose wife is killed and how he deals with that and tries to move on with his life. There’s a new romance, which struggles in the face of new evidence about the wife’s death.

The characters are well developed and the story is engaging, but in the end it left me wanting somehow. I am at a loss to say exactly what was missing.

Karen enjoying fall in Minnesota

I emailed my friend and former co-worker Karen recently and she replied, including this picture. Karen and I used to work together in the Hardware group and now she's a user research big whig at GM (that's General Mills in this case).

Working with Karen was great while it lasted and I love to hear what she's up to. It sounds like such a different life out there in the Midwest working at a non-tech company. Luckily, that difference is a largely good one from Karen's point of view. :)

New kitty

PA070004 by WeilandFour

My cousin Cindy's family got a kitten. It appears to fit right in with the family's coloring. ;-)

I'm excited about this new kid's game

I attended a class at the School of Visual Concepts (SVC) on Wednesday that was taught by the creator of a really interesting new kid's card game, so I thought I'd tell you guys about it. I am planning to purchase the game for my nephew's birthday (shh, don't tell him!). I don't know why, but I am completely psyched by this game. It just seems so neat - it's great content, and it's gorgeous. I'm very impressed with Amy Tucker for coming up with it. Xeko is a trading card game based on real life endangered species in different parts of the world. The two editions out so far are Costa Rica and Madagascar, with 32 more locations coming in the future. The art is beautiful and the game sounds both intriguing and educational (game play involves some math, plus learning about the animals). Apparently the game just came out and they've already won two awards. It's available at various stores locally and will be in more by the holidays. Since the class, I discovered that a woman at work's husband works for Xeko and so now I know that the game is locally created, manufactured in the US and Canada, printed on recycled materials with soy based ink, and 4% of sales go to Conservation International. They also have a stuffed animal of Harry the hairy-eared dwarf lemur and he's made out of a new soy product, too. :) To learn more, go to xekogame.com. It's listed as ages 8+ (since math is needed for game play). Another neat feature: their website's Xekopedia has more details about every animal in the game.

Welcome to another new baby

A designer on my team is a new dad. He sent out a link to his new son's web site. He has some great observations and words of wisdom mixed in with the photos.

Design books

I can't remember if I ever linked to this before, but I found myself looking something up a book on designing with grids in this list today, so I thought I'd share. This list is the University of Washington Visual Communication Design program's list of recommended reading. (That's the program I graduated from, in case you didn't know.) uw visual communication design reading list (click Additional Titles on the left for the complete list)

Asus laptop announced with Windows SideShow technology

A real, not prototype, Windows SideShow-compatible laptop was announced this week from Asus. It has a Windows SideShow-compatible device made by PortalPlayer Preface embedded in the lid of the laptop. This isn't a detachable model, as was prototyped for previous conferences, but it's still early in the game.

TV: 24 - Season Three

Not as good as seasons 1 or 2

Season three of 24 continues to be fast-paced and engaging, but it isn’t up to the standards of season 1 or 2. The plot doesn’t hold together nearly as well and some of their style and methods has become predictably annoying. Benjamin and I joke that you should have to take a drink every time someone says “You’re just going to have to trust me” (or an equivalent). They’re really into that trust dilemma and it becomes a cop-out after a while. However, it was good enough that we watched the whole thing and are looking forward to season 4, which we hear is very good.

BTW, I think that Keifer Sutherland looks like Harrison Ford in the photo on the front of this DVD box.

Book: How The Pro-choice Movement Saved America (Unfinished)

What I read of this book was very good, but I needed to return it to the library and I knew I didn’t have time to read it right now anyway. I may check it out again, but if you’re interested in the subject, I recommend giving this book a go. It was well written and convincing, as far as I got into it anyway. It seems to go into how the Pro Life movement has become more and more about restriction contraception over the years and less about preventing abortion, especially since use of contraception actually decreases the need for abortion.

TV: NCIS - Season 1

I really enjoy this show

I find this show very enjoyable, even though it isn’t the most spectacular show on TV. It’s really the characters that make the show so appealing. I originally decided to try it out because I had enjoyed Mark Harmon’s performance on West Wing so much. While I do like him, I like NCIS’s Goth forensics specialist Abby, played by Pauley Perrette, that much more. On the final disc of NCIS season 1 there are DVD extras, including an interview with Pauley. I was delighted to find she is a super smart Goth in real-life and is interested in forensics in real life—she has a Master’s Degree in Criminology. She didn’t study acting at all and she’s a computer nerd. My kind of girl. :-D

Book: The Last Girls

Fine book, but not excellent

I thought this was a perfectly decent read, but nothing to write home about. It’s a story of a group of college friends who reunite later in life to mourn the death of one of the friends. They take a cruise down the Mississippi River to scatter the dead friend’s ashes. The story goes back and forth between their time in college and the present day. I started out reading it in paperback (a gift from my sister-in-law), but ended up listening to it as an audio book.

Hilarious mobile PC scenarios

One of my co-workers, who is apparently a talented cartoonist, recently created a slide deck of tongue-in-cheek mobile PC scenarios. It's very worth your time to check this out. I laughed out loud several times (admittedly, I am in the midst of the same planning process he is, but you still might enjoy them). He's posted the presentation in Flash format on his website. Mobile PC Planning - the Lost Scenarios