mini-UPA

Every summer, all the usability/UX/IA/HCI/UCD/whatever folks in the Boston area gather for a conference that we ourselves put together. This year, the turnout was even bigger than in previous years, over 700 people. The sessions differ from shameless self-promotions for books and consulting services to Jared Spool's blabbering to decent, practical advice.

This year, it was pretty clear that companies are getting desperate in trying to hire qualified people. A manager from a company located close to mine was hounding me constantly, asking me if I wanted to switch. I guess that's a good thing.

engine's hanging out

So, what's keeping me busy lately? Let me try to illustrate with one picture:

Yup, that's my car's engine, entirely disconnected from my car. I thought it would take me another month and a half to get to this point, but I got help from Jeremy, Susan's friend's husband who used to be a mechanic. Man, it definitely helps to know what you are doing.

Now, I need to replace the timing belt and tensioner, clutch and flywheel, and about a million other things which will add to my car's awesomeness. This is tough work, but it's rewarding as hell. And oh how nice it is to do it in my own garage!

all quiet on the office front

It’s eerily quiet in the office – a lot of people took the day off to get a head start on the long weekend. The rest of us suckers are patiently waiting for the clock to advance to the point where we can tactfully slip away.

What have I been doing at work lately? The video-teleconferencing control touchpanel that I redesigned has been rolled out across the company, and the number of support tickets for usage problems has dropped from 1 million to 0 (numbers are approximate). We were able to the design the controller system in such a way that it could be installed or modified in-house, without having to hire external contractors. So that was pretty sweet. Problem is, if you do something well, the work will never stop. Indeed, the same group is now overhauling a more portable video-teleconferencing setup, so I’m given the fun task of squeezing a whole bunch of functions into a remote with a tiny touchscreen.

We rolled out an update to the corporate directory. Among other things, we pushed out a feature that lets users add a custom note to their page. Before the release, managers were seen running in the hallways with their heads on fire, screaming “Think of the children!” – the amount of freedom that we allowed users to have wasn’t really something that anybody has done before. We persevered, and I’ve been tracking usage for the past month. Sure enough, the worst fears of the pessimists have not been realized: people are not using the feature to call each other names or post nuclear launch codes. Instead, the system became a little more malleable – sweet #2.

The portal project has finished the requirements gathering process – apparently, “requirements gathering” involves me typing up every dumb little detail of the project, then handing them over to successive waves of managers that burrow their eyebrows, draw Gantt charts that immediately become obsolete, and have their secretaries compile documents that nobody reads. Luckily, we seem to be past that stage, now doing the same work that we would have been doing if we didn’t go through the useless exercise of etching everything in stone.

The fun never stops around here. Unless the long weekend is coming up, that is.

piiiictures

Um yeah a little busy lately, but I finally put up the pics from my trip to France and Tufts' 5th year reunion. Good times: too bad many Jumbos couldn't make it back!!

floor it

Susan and I decided to upgrade the floor in her room/closet – and trust me, that floor decidedly needed upgrading. So, we got some dirt-cheap wood laminate flooring from IKEA, and went to work.

On one hand, that stuff is amazing. When the planks connect properly, you don’t even see the seam, just the fairly realistic wood grain.

Problem is, the planks don’t connect properly all the time. We have to hammer, bend, and plead them into place. So, after a few hours, only about a quarter of the floor is done. Rough.

color me

Susan and I went to Home Depot to look at paint colors, and left thoroughly exhausted. It's hard to pick through so many choices, without much of a clue of what they will look like on our walls. But, we think we have something to replace the color that Susan lovingly calls "Leprechaun puke green" in our living room.

into the wild

Yesterday, Susan and I have tried our hands at gardening, for pretty much the first time since we moved in. We discovered that dandelions have all but pushed grass of our lawn out of existence, and decided to do something about it. More importantly, we attempted to plant some currant bushes.

A family friend has some red and black currant plants that she grew from small seedlings that somebody sneaked into the country from Russia. She clearly has a green thumb, as her garden is booming with color. Ours... well, dandelions add a bit of yellow to the brown grass ;)

Anyhoo, we were told exactly how to do the planting - mix peat moss and a little bit of gypsum, fertilize, keep moist... Unfortunately, we have no gardening supplies of any kind, so we'll see how the currant plants fair after our "stick into the ground and hope for the best" approach.

end of solitary confinement

Susan is coming home!!! I'm happy, excited, but also a bit nervous... kinda like an employee who's getting called into the big boss' office.

recap

All right, it's been two days since I got back, and the possibility of me finding time to write up a detailed account of my trip is diminishing with every minute. Let's just hit the highlights:

• Nice is not a bad place to stay; there is a train that can take you to Monaco and Italy in a matter of minutes, and, if you go west, Antibes and Cannes. If you take the bus, make sure you get your bus ticket validated - you don't want to have to run away from the police, as we had to.


• Cannes is for pretentious people. Bathing suit tops are optional. Pebble beaches are mandatory.


• Antibes is beautiful. Very well preserved old town, where you can get lost in the little stone streets and love every second of it. The port is home to the most out-of-control yachts that you can imagine. When you have a helicopter sitting on the stern of your boat, that's when you know you made it.


• Eze - what a great cliff-bound fortress! The scenery around is gorgeous. We took the Nietzsche trail down to Eze-sur-Mer... what a walk. Down sheer cliffs, with a view of the sea... aaaahh.


• Paris. I though I discovered most of it before. I was wrong. The Catacombs were impressive, to say the least. I expected a few bones in an underground vault. What I found is an endless bone warehouse. Chilling, and very thought-provoking. Out of the thousands of people that lived and died, only a few are remembered. Bones of the rest are stacked like firewood. Crazy.


• A million thanks to Abdel, my host. It would be impossible for him to be more hospitable, and I really appreciate him showing me "his" Paris. As a bonus, he totally kicked my ass when we went for a run one morning.

where am I and what am I doing here?

I am staying in a Paris with a very nice guy, whom I've meet only yesterday. Why? Well, let's try to backtrack for a second.

Susan was teaching in Paris, and wanted to stay in France for a couple of weeks after her school year was over. So, we decided that it would be a perfect time to visit, and I booked my tickets.

However, Susan switched apartments a few months into the year, and on top of that her cousin got a job in Monaco. So, this combination of factors made it very enticing for her to move to the south of France in the middle of April.

No problem - I got cheap EasyJet tickets to go from Paris to Nice, so cheap that I would have to spend a few days in Paris on the tail end of my vacation by myself. Well, that's aight, there are worse places to get stuck. Plus, Susan had a friend that offered to host me.

All was going according to plan, until Susan's friend canceled at the last minute - and, pretty much everybody else was leaving Paris the same weekend. On top of that, all the hotels were booked... what to do?

Thankfully, Susan's roommate from Nice called up her boyfriend and asked him to put up my sorry butt for three days. So, here I am, in a cozy apartment in Vanves, living an approximation of "real" French life. But, more on that later. Tomorrow, all the museums in Paris are free, and I need my rest.