hallo ween!

For the first time ever, Susan and I carved pumpkins together. It was pretty neat! The pumpkins definitely brought out the artistically un-PC sides in us.

Exhibit 1: Susan's pumpkin


Sue's pumpkin can be best described as "An Angry but Well-dressed Asian Guy".

Onto Exhibit 2:


Any ideas who that is?

I'll give you a hint: this pumpkin was rotten inside.

Now you guessed it! That's right, meet President Bush.

I couldn't come up with anything more scary.

on screwing up

So Sue and I went to a lecture by Meg Hourihan, co-founder of Blogger.com. Interesting stuff, and interesting message: in a few words, keep screwing up until you find something that makes you happy.

To give you some background, Blogger was a complete accident. Meg and her business partner hired a developer to work on a project management application. This guy, who was just referred to as "Paul" in the lecture, created the blogging engine as a side project. Still, the company faltered, Meg left, and eventually Blooger was bought by Google. Since then, Meg helped run another company into the ground, worked as a chef, and now does nothing. With the exception of the whole entreprenual thing, sounds like a typical story of a Tufts graduate with an English major.

What's interesting is that no one, and certainly not Meg, focused on the failures: all of them were presented as "learning experiences". I was suddenly reminded of the incident a few years back, when an American crew had to land a spy plane in China because of a mechanical problem. Their failure to destroy sensitive equipment dealt a huge blow to the intelligence community, yet when they came back to the US, they were treated as heroes.

In Russia, they'd be shot.

error message from hell

Check out this baby... absolutely fantastic! It's even better if you're driving in an unfamiliar area. Oh so much better.

I (heart) DC!

Wow. To say that my trip turned for the better would be such an understatement. I'd say that my trip strapped on some boosters and blasted off into freakin' space! See for yourself.

I give most of the credit to my good buddy Alcohol. Well, maybe my ol' college pals Fraser, Kenny, and Matt had something to do with it as well.

You know, after you settle down and start working, you sometimes think that you are done having fun. Well, this weekend we proved that notion dead wrong. Highlights:

- a whole new look on playing cards
- Kenny being no fun sober
- Kenny being a lot of fun not sober
- most filling Italian dish ever
- all-you-can-eat sushi place that gives out fortune cookies
- rehashing of 1000 old stories... just in case one of us forgot what happened in Bahamas/New Orleans/on the quad
- Matt's multiple dilemmas
- Fraser's most uncomfortable cab ride ever
- Jon's... oh wait, Jon wasn't there!

Very good times.

I am no longer usable

This is the true life of a usability "professional":

- get up at 4:30AM
- have your beautiful and understanding girlfriend drive you to the airport
- run around one airport, fly, run around another airport, rent car, drive in an unfamiliar area
- get to the DC office by 9AM
- conduct the following:
    - one survey
    - two user interviews
    - four usability tests
    - one fire alarm evacuation
- suck the data clean once you get to the hotel

Tomorrow is going to be much of the same...

I love business travel. Yes, let me travel some more!

</sarcasm>

sunday recap

Today was a great day for a multitude of reasons, including:

- Susan fed me the best pho by far, ever. Maybe I just thought it was good because I decided to bite the bullet and actually use the chili and the hoisin sauce. Yum!
- My cargo pants saga is over! I was about to order pants online or resort to other desperate measures, like inventing a time machine to go back two years to the time when people actually wore them. No such need - Target rescued me! And for what a price: $19.99!
- My car got exactly 333 miles after the last fill-up. Not too bad... although I could probably get 10-15 extra miles if I stopped myself from V-TEC'ing up and down onramps... oh well, maybe when I grow up?

awww... no mo' Jonas!

Well, the temporary offspring of Susan and I has gone back to Cali... Why "temporary"? Why "offspring"? In the 7 days that Jonas was here, we totally switched into the parental mode. When Jonas was late coming home, Susan and would stay up waiting & worrying where our baby was. Of course, once he did come back, we gave him the requisite "Do you have any idea how worried we were?" speech.

Fraternal/maternal moments aside, good times were had by all! Even though the "family" was skeptical about the prospect of driving two hours up north, it all paid off once we got to the start of the Kancamagus Highway. What followed was a sweet drive on a winding mountain road, interrupted only by short episodes of parking to jump around on the rocks lining miscellaneous waterfalls. Ahh the great outdoors!

Besides that, there was plenty of good eats: Indian, Boston seafood, Mexican, even delish homecooking (yum lasagna!) Oh, and there was shopping... maybe a little bit too much of it. My long search for cargo pants through the Prudential mall was highlighted by a voluptuous store host telling me that "cargo pants are hard to find, as people stopped buying them two years ago." Great. I'll just sit around and wait until my retro style becomes popular again!

OH MA GAWD!

Holy crap!

Schrock's dad won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry!!!

See for yourself!

I can't believe my freakin' eyes!

For those unaware, I've been friends with his son ever since high school.

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'VE SPOKEN/SHAKEN HANDS WITH/BEEN TO THE HOUSE OF A NOBEL LAUREATE!!!

My IQ jumped up 20 points just by association.

This is very, very sweet!

michigan invasion

Ok, so Mr. "Future AOL CEO" Louie came and went, but good ol' JK stayed behind to enjoy the UIE conference. We sincerely hope that everybody who comes to Boston likes it so much that they would get jobs in the 128 belt and stay here. The trend of defections to New York needs to be stopped. California is another thing though, and the 10-day stretch of cold rain here kinda highlights the fact that the weather in Boston is not quite up to par. Thankfully, our watchful President is doing everything he can to make sure that the global weather warms up in the future.

Anyhoo, here's an abbreviated list of activities that are planned for JK's Boston tour:
- eating at Antonia's / Red Bones / Faneuil Hall / misc. lobster place
- drinking at Sligos / The Burren / Boston Beer Works / Sunset
- taking a scenic drive to New Hampshire / Cape Cod
- visiting Salem
- playing poker
- duking it out on go-karts
- checking out the new exhibits at the Museum of Fine Arts

We'll see how many of those we'll be able to pull off, but the bottom line is, everybody should come to Boston! Red Sox rule... even if they suck :)

oh blimey!

A crapload of Wallace and Gromit's sets has been destroyed in a fire: news report here. In other news: earthquake kills a quadzilion people in Pakistan.

That reminds me: recently, Bush was listening to a report by Romsfield about the situation in Iraq. Donald discussed the turmoil that surrounds the new constitution, and ended by saying, "Yesterday, two Brazilian soldiers were killed."

Bush grimaced, then threw his hands over his face, visibly upset. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, he looked up at Donald and asked, "How many people is a brazillion?"

second try

OK, so my 'Sol is not sold - note to self, poor people are not good buyers... because they have no money :(

Oh well, we'll try again. I need to sell my baby before the snow comes.

ohhh...

Susan got a $50 ticket because I forgot to remind her to move her car.

To make matters worse, Sligos doesn't have the $3 Boddingtons anymore.

Sadness.

that's one ruthless Stan

Stan is having his way with Mexico: hurricane advisory here.

Now, the headlines:

- "Stan packed maximum sustained winds near 80 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported"

- "Stan was having a deadly effect on Central America"

- "Stan strengthens into hurricane, targets Mexican Gulf Coast"

Ah yes. Always the patriot, Stan chooses not to hurt the US. Good Stan. Gas prices are high enough as it is.

civic's secret, revealed

OK, check out this site and pay attention to the Civic logo. Notice the two C's in the beginning and the end? Do they remind you of something?

I'll save you hours of fruitless search: the C's are reminiscent of the pattern that lights up in the brake lights of the previous-generation Civics.

Honda, I have no doubt that you did this on purpose. Very clever indeed.

tropical storm STAN!

YEEEESSSSS!!

Let's just hope that my baby becomes a hurricane and makes it to front pages... I see something like "Stan's Fury" and "Stan Causes Massive Damage"... that would be totally sweet.

More info here.

cooking for a straight guy

Males, take note: the answer to your cooking woes is getting a slow cooker. Well, that, or a girlfriend.

If you decide on the former approach, it could not be easier: cut up some stuff that you think will become edible when cooked, toss it in the pan, press a button, and come back a few hours later.

The only problem with a slow cooker is that, by definition, it doesn't satisfy your hunger quickly. Believe me, watching the slowly-roasting pork through the misty glass lid is less than satisfying when you're about to consider ripping off that lid and taking your chances with food poisoning. Clearly, planning in advance is not something that comes naturally to guys.

On the bright side, you don't have to take the slow cooker out for dinner ;p