home and away

Eugene is better, and is back from the hospital, jaw wired and all. Now it's time to focus on domestic affairs for a little while, as in about a week I'm taking off for Barcelona. Susan should be there already, if all goes according to plan. The plan calls for us driving all the way through the south of France to Tuscany, Umbria, and Rome. We'll see what happens!

But, back to the home front. I just planted some hedge plants, and have very high hopes - we could really use some green in front of the ugly wire fence. Here's my pride and joy:

Now, if I could just remember to water it once in a while...

no yum

Eugene is in surgery now, getting his jaw fixed and wired shut, and front teeth removed. He'll have to undergo more surgery later and get dental implants, but for the next two weeks he'll have to eat though a straw. Sucks all around.

jab of fate

Here I was, minding my own business and getting lunch for Sue, who happened to be home sick with the flu, when my phone rang. My brother's name was on the caller ID, but when I picked up it was his girlfriend - and she was clearly shaken.

She told me that Eugene was at a dermatologist's office when he passed out, fell, and broke his jaw. Yaowsas. I got in touch with my parents as soon as I could, and we headed of to NYC.

Luckily, we missed all the traffic and got to the NYU Medical Center quickly. Eugene just got out of ER, and was in a pretty sorry shape - bruises on his face, cuts on his lip, and talking with about as much diction as Mayor Menino. He swallowed so much blood that he was throwing up, but by the time we got there the bleeding subsided. They had him hooked up to IV and morphine... in other words, the scene was exactly what you see on TV.

Incidentally, TV shows were my only frame of reference. I've never stepped foot in a hospital before, which might explain what happened later that night.

I left to park our car in Brooklyn, and met with Sunny on the way back to the hospital. We took a cab to go a few blocks up 1st Ave, and walked through the lobby to where I remembered the elevators last were - only they weren't there. At this point, we ran into the first security guard, who directed us to go to the visitor's office and procure visitor's passes. Nobody was paying attention to us in the office, so we took off to dodge some more guards and actually made it into an elevator. Too bad it only went up to the 9th floor - and Eugene was on 11th.

Only after a long conversation with a guy back at the office did we figure out that we were in the wrong hospital. NYU was up one block. D'oh.

guilty pleasure

I love going to Walmart. There, I said it.

Last nite, when Susan mentioned that she wanted to go, I hollered "Me too!!" You don’t see me get this excited for your average shopping trip, oh no. Walmart is "special" in every sense of the word.

First, I’m very much aware of the fact that Walmart is taking over the world, eating babies of small business owners, and turning China into a cesspool of pollution. However, in my mind, this is balanced by the fact that I can get all my stuff in one place for cheap. How about that for rationalization.

What I secretly enjoy the most is getting a glimpse into the life of middle America. Boy, it’s as captivating than watching a car wreck in slow motion... and about as tragic. It wouldn’t be a Walmart trip if you didn’t see a poster child for morbid obesity, ignorance, or poor birth control choices. You’d think you’d leave depressed, but no, the opposite happens – when you walk out of the door, you say to yourself, "Phew, I’m sure glad I don’t have to shop here!"

But you know you’ll be back.

dios mia!

Susan and I simultaneously realized that we're going to Europe in a just a couple of weeks, and we have no idea where we're gonna stay or what we're gonna go. Panic.

chi 2009, wrap-up

CHI ended with a bang. As in, me banging my head against the seat in front of me, hoping to erase the awful memories of the closing speech. Some professor from a Dutch design school went on and on about what I could only classify as "design for the sake of design". His presentation style was lethargic, the text on the slides was microscopic, and on top of it all the guy chose to dress like Steve Jobs. Argh.

But, all frustrations aside, I got a lot of useful stuff out of CHI. On the last day, I participated in a great SIG discussion on user research in online social networks. The general outcome was "IRB, you ain't seen nothing yet". I happened to sit next to a guy from Facebook who complained of researchers circumventing privacy controls (and Facebook's TOS) by joining geography-based networks and screen-scraping to their heart's content. There was also some interesting stuff coming out of IBM's Beehive... oh, and some great smackdowns regarding the concept of "aesthetics".

As my co-worker put it, it's good to check CHI out every couple of years to see what's going on in the field. Maybe the field should do a better job separating fluff from stuff, though.

chi 2009, cont.

CHI continues to be a total mixed bag. Some sessions are well composed and presented; others are on the level of "we've asked six people about their phones". Some are inspirational and/or immediately useful; some are so researchy/long-winded that they turn my brain to mush - like the guy that spent half an hour introducing the word "trajectory" to describe user interaction with a system.

I've heard some semi-useful stuff on social networking research that I'll be able to use. There's some interesting stuff on metrics, mobile stuff, and video. Sustainability made an appearance as a topic, so that's good to see.

The venue (Hynes Convention Center) is eh. The biggest complaint is the wireless network that goes in and out. You'd think that they'd plan for a crowd of geeks with their laptops...

chi 2009

So Boston CHI is under way, wooooo! Judy Olson just made her opening speech... reminded me of the good ol' SI days - Judy is speaking in her usual "drinking from a fire hose" style, and I'm typing away on my laptop. She spoke at length about social ergonomics, or the intersection of human psychology and the CSCW technologies like telepresence.

The conference opens on the same day as the Sox season, and the Sox are playing at home for the first time in, like, eternity. That is, they are scheduled to play if they don't get rained out. Either way, an interesting commute back is guaranteed.