I discovered this after switching buses. Upon sitting down, I looked at my lap and a giant wet stain covered each thigh. As I was digging through my bag to try and replace the lid of the soup container, the lid popped off of another container and my very healthy chicken breast, pan-fried in olive oil, sailed in an arc away from me and landed with a noisy *thwap* on the bus floor. I scrambled to collect the chicken breast and in the process knocked over my, fortunately empty, cup of coffee. It was at this point, that I realized I should not have left the house today.

I arrived at my destination, walked across the building, and rode the elevator to the office, all the while doing great gyrations to try to (unsuccessfully) hide the large vegetable stains on my pants. (Did I mention that the soup was tomato-based?) This is probably why the security guard who never says anything to me, said “Hello…” in a suspicious voice and watched me closely as I gyrated my way toward the elevator. Half an hour and a whole roll of paper towels later, I managed to clean up most of the cracks and crevasses of my bag, purse, notebook, picture frames, mp3 player, insurance card, FSA receipts, notebooks, banjo tab books, pedometer, sunglasses, Hello Kitty mint container, various lipsticks and balms, saline nasal spray, 100 calorie individual serving popcorn bags (unpopped), calendar, blueberries, two finger puppets, carton of half and half … well, you get the point. I carry a lot of stuff in that bag.

As I type this, my slightly mismatched but fun all green outfit has dried and there is only minimal stainage on my left thigh. I reek of vegetable soup. I smell salty and savory — Eau de Légume. In fact, I look and smell very much like the zucchini that won the giant squash competition at the county fair last year. I work in a casual work environment, but does casual include looking and smelling like a giant zucchini?

Happy Monday Everyone!

Let’s face it – there is a lot of porn on TV. Of course, that meant that a lot of porn channels like Hustler and Playboy and Wicked were represented at the cable TV exposition. All these channels had “models” and “actresses” autographing photos. Miss August 2004 was at the Playboy TV booth one day, so I swung by the booth to get Hubby a signed photo. (Best wife ever!!!) Her name was Pilar, and she was very nice. She addressed the photo to Hubby and signed it with an XXXOOO. A week later, Hubby is still walking around the house with her photo clutched to his chest. I hear him wistfully sighing, “Oh, Pilar…” (Did I mention – best wife ever?!?!)

One of the evenings I went to dinner and drinks with a group of my co-workers (a few of them fairly high-up and influential people or as G’pa would say “big-cheeses”). I was once again the only female in the group, which became highlighted right away when ordering cocktails. (I’ve always worked in highly technical industries that seem to be inhabited mainly by males.) Everyone started out drinking barrel aged Jack Daniels. I’m not a huge Jack Daniels fan (one of my many rebellions against Dad) so I went for (that’s right, you guessed it!) a Gibson martini with Bombay Sapphire gin. We were at a very nice, expensive, fancy steakhouse on the strip in Las Vegas and the martini was excellent. It was also huge. The glass was big and had major heft and this was not a one shot martini. Definitely 2 or maybe even more… So, I had two martinis (hey the “big-cheeses” were buying).

I’ve also changed my diet recently. I did this because I kept falling asleep all the time (oh yeah, and ’cause I’m also fat and have high cholesterol, but technically I’m blaming those things on genetics and am still in full denial that I can do anything about them), so I haven’t had much alcohol, sugar, or red meat lately. The smallest steak at this place was a 10 oz. filet mignon. I got that – simply grilled (instead of heaped with blue cheese which was my other option – I figured by not getting the cheese I was still “on diet.”) This was one of those places where you get just the steak for like $40 and then you can order separate side dishes at $12 a pop if you want something other than meat. The guys all wanted side dishes so they got creamed spinach, macaroni and cheese and asparagus. Well, needless to say, I indulged perhaps a bit too much.

Slightly tipsy, I followed the group back to MGM where they were all staying. Oh, I forgot an important detail. Mom was back in town and we were sharing her car. I met her for lunch that day and she dropped me off at the conference. We were going to meet for dinner, but when I was invited out with some of the “big cheeses” I called her and told her I’d take a cab home. She told me that she’s usually up until 11:00 so to call her and she’d come pick me up. My colleagues were concerned about my transportation and I told them that up until 11:00 my Mom would come and get me. This started a line of ridicule that continued throughout the evening, “When’s your curfew again?” and “What time is Mommy gonna’ be here?” and crap like that.

Anyway we get back to the MGM and I remember there is a bar there that has these really good bellinis (champagne and fruit juice) and the bartenders dance on the bar periodically. I suggest we go there. They agree. I drink my bellini and listen to them gossip about other “big cheeses.” Highly enlightening. (And men may seem stoic and quiet, but boy they can gossip better than any group of chicks I know…and biiiitchy….whoaboy…quite entertaining.) So, here is something else I forgot. When I drink champagne I should only drink champagne. Champagne and hard liquor or wine or beer – it just is kind of like when you are a kid and you make that model volcano for your science class – and you learn about mixing vinegar and baking soda… Anyhoo, the bar we are at is called The Centrifuge, but somehow I don’t remember it actually spinning like a centrifuge when I was there before. Hmmm… must be a newly added feature.

The guys decide they are going to go gamble. I’ve lost enough money playing bingo at the old folks home all week so I say my goodbyes. I call Mom and she picks me up. The other thing I should mention, is I tend to get car sick even when I’m stone cold sober and haven’t eaten for a week – let alone my current condition, stuffed full of steak, mac&cheese, creamed spinach, asparagus, gin, and champagne. I’m also sort of a “professional barfer.” Meaning – I’ve thrown up in a lot of different places all over the country, so often that as a kid I could actually control it enough to turn it into a stream that would hit the bathtub from the doorway to the bathroom without getting any on the floor. Anyhoo…I think you see where I’m headed with this story…

My poor Mom had had a really bad day at work. As she is telling me this, my evening erupted all over her car (and a little bit on her). I guess those ads really are right – what happens in Vegas (ie: my dinner) really does stay in Vegas! Her only comment to me was, “Did you have asparagus for dinner?”

Well, Mom’s been barfed on a lot, especially close to curfew when asked to come pick me up from a party, so it was sort of a nice little sentimental flash back for all of us. I’m a good daughter and fully detailed her car, so it smells just fine and is shiny and clean. I’m just really glad my colleagues weren’t there to see it!

And that ends my tale of the Uninspired one year anniversary job-related trade-show experience. As you can see, some things change constantly (your job) – and some things never change (once you have kids they’ll never stop barfing on you – even when they are 37 years old). It is all good.

It was an exhausting week of pure culture shock jumping between the highly oxygenated, slow-paced halls of the assisted living facility, to the smokey casino floors and Armani clad businessmen who populate the cable TV industry – not to mention a brief time-travel back to high-school curfews.

Part I – Hangin’ with the Homies

The G’s are in an assisted living facility in Las Vegas. The are both near 90 (on one side or the other). G’pa has heart trouble and Parkinson’s. G’ma has heart trouble and lung cancer. Mom has been helping them for several years now and has actually let go of the rope when it comes to patience (in other words beyond being at the end of her rope). She needed a vacation desperately so I agreed to hold down the fort in LV so she could get a little R&R.

Right before Mom’s vacation, G’ma started having a bunch of problems, including falling out of bed and extreme confusion, and was moved to the 24 hour care wing of her building where most of the folks have Alzheimers. Mom also signed G’ma up for hospice care at this time. Mom was crazed and yelling at everyone. She was going to cancel her vacation, but I forced her to go.

I spent my first two days trying to sort out a bunch of the miscommunications/confusion/power struggles that occured between Mom and hospice care. While doing this, I spent a bunch of time in the Alzheimer’s Wing.

Alzheimer’s people love me. They always have. Frankly, I kinda like hanging out with them too. One lady in the wing grabs onto a phrase from her environment each day. When I arrived she was yelling “Happy Easter!” over and over (this was on a bulletin board near her room). On Bingo day she grabbed onto “G29″ and just said it over and over. She made me laugh, and if I just returned, “Happy Easter!” or “Hooray! G29!” she was happy too.

One day I was writing some notes from a conversation I’d just had with the hospice nurse and I overheard this conversation which I found highly amusing:

Old Guy 1: “I tell ya’ I don’t like that new male nurse.”

Old Guy 2: “Oh yeah, he kinda rough with ya’?”

Old Guy 1: “Oh yes, when he is dressing me he is just way too rough. I told him to stop but he doesn’t listen.”

Old Guy 2: “Wait a second – someone dresses you?!!”

Old Guy 1: “Oh yeah, don’t they dress you?”

Old Guy 2: “No!! Geez, I have to dress myself every day!”

Old Guy 1: “Well, that just isn’t right. It isn’t fair! You shouldn’t have to dress yourself!”

This just cracked me up because it was so backwards. Most of us dread the day someone has to dress us, yet to these two guys the unfairness of having to dress yourself was worse than the initial complaint about the roughness of the nurse. It is a matter of perspective, I suppose.

Maybe I like hanging with these people because they are just their raw selves and I don’t have to worry about figuring them out. Plus, it is easy to make them laugh and it feels so good to see them laugh.

Another thing I noted is that a lot of Alzheimer’s people I’ve met are stuck in their college years. More often than not, the stories they tell me are about where they went to college or their college graduation. Why is that? Was it the happiest time of their lives or maybe the biggest time of change going from the shelter of home out into the real world? Was it their proudest accomplishment? You’d think with all the alcohol consumed in college those braincells would be gone, but they seem most resilient after all.

I hung out with the nursing staff after everyone was tucked into bed and we’d swap stories about G’pa and his pants. He is very particular about his pants not being pulled up too far — probably because of the atomic wedgies Mom gives him when getting him into the car. She lifts him by his belt loops. It’s forever made him very nervous about anyone helping him with his pants.

Grandpa and I explored the ins and outs of dog ownership, the price of gasoline (years ago he arrogantly claimed to his golfing buddies that gas would never go over 50 cents a gallon. Boy, when he is wrong, he is really wrong!), Dan and Louis Oyster Bar in Portland (This is where the family would always eat when they were in Portland. G’pa asked me if the name of the family who owns the restaurant is Wachsmuth. I looked it up and indeed it is! He couldn’t believe it. He said with a sheepish grin, “Now how did I remember that? I can barely remember my own name most of the time!”), wood floors vs. carpeting, the benefits of HD TV, his gambling philosophy, and his famous BBQ grapefruit recipe –entirely at the top of our lungs because he doesn’t hear too well. He also regaled me with stories of the nurse who bathes him and their ongoing battle over how one ought to wash one’s face. All in all, I was highly entertained (and I’m not kidding — his battle with this nurse is epic and freaking hilarious!)

G’ma was confused when I first arrived (she thought the President was Truman – but hey at least she named a President – a war-time President at that – which is better than what reportedly a lot of American high-school students can do these days) but steadily improved while I was there. By the time I left she had her appetite back and remembered where she was and why she was there, as well as the previous days events. I gave her a banjo lesson on my travel banjo, and I learned that she played the violin at one time in her life. All these years hanging out with her and I’m still learning new things about her!

In my spare time I kicked around Mom’s house, made a brownie recipe I heard on NPR that is supposed to be Katharine Hepburn’s recipe (they were really really good), and experimented with Splenda. Yikes! I’d been hanging out with the old-folks too long!!

Enjoy!

When I was planning a vacation to visit family in Las Vegas, the Project Manager pointed out that I’d be there during NCTA and the applications I was working on were going to be demoed at that tradeshow. The company was kind enough to let me have a pass to the Expo floor. I’ve been to some large software trade shows before, such as the Game Developer’s Conference, but I’m a complete newbie to the cable industry. Here is my newbie-eye-view of the Expo floor.

In a nutshell, the NCTA Expo screamed, “Diversity Diversity Diversity!”

The Expo floor was a slice through the industry exhibiting the layers of technology, communication, and entertainment that come together to bring that delightful little box with 800+ channels to your living room. After chatting with the folks from Hangzhou Xingfa Transmission Equipment Co Ltd who provide more than 200,000 km of cable to the industry and checking out content providers like Beat the Traffic, I realized that the cable industry offers a range of diverse and interesting jobs.

The Expo floor nicely demonstrated that this is a world-wide industry. I stopped by Shalom TV and the Russian Television Network of America to meet figure skater, Oksana Baiul. Univision Television Group, BBC, and TV Japan are just a few more examples of the global programming represented at the show.

The diversity of the audience that the cable channels try to reach was stunning. At breakfast one morning I went through the program and circled exhibitors that sounded interesting. The Pentagon Channel piqued my interest, so I swung by the booth which was manned by a fully uniformed Air Force man. We discussed the goal of The Pentagon Channel which broadcasts military news and information for the 2.6 million members of the U.S. Armed Forces through programming including DOD news briefings, military news, interviews with top Defense officials, and short stories about military work.

As I wandered around it struck me that the Expo floor planner had a sardonic sense of humor. For example, I stopped by Wealth TV to pick-up a chocolate bar, a cigar rolled on-site by a very intense Cuban man, and to stroke the soft, soft leather of the convertible Ferrari. I turned around and next door was EWTN, the Catholic Network, where I spoke to an extremely sweet man who armed me with some Rosary beads and a crucifix painted with St. Francis of Assisi. Then again, maybe this was just very convenient. I could easily indulge then repent.

The floor show is obviously a big deal and everyone brings their “A-Game.”

All the booths displayed the latest apps and TV shows on super high quality screens. The entertainment oriented companies brought in stars from current shows. There were appearances by actors from the TV series Nip/Tuck, past American Idol stars, cheerleaders from the show Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team, a live fighting demonstration from National Geographic’s Fight Science show, and a pretty funny ice-sculpting demonstration at the Weather Channel booth.

My company fit right in with all this fancy stuff. Its booth looked great and was in a prime position near the entrance to the show. The apps I had helped deveop were displayed nicely and looked spectacular. Every time I swung by the booth it was teeming with people who appeared to be engaged in interesting conversations. I also visited the apps I helped with in the Weather Channel booth. They looked beautiful!

I had great fun, learned a lot, and recommend that anyone in this industry attend NCTA. It really opened my eyes to the complex and diverse nature of the Cable industry. I’ll end this report with the first ever “Newbie Best Booth Awards” for NCTA 2007 :

• Newbie Favorite Booth Award goes to MTV Networks/Bet Networks for drawing people in by asking fun Trivia questions about their programs, giving away great prizes for the answers, bringing in fun personalities, and being the best at interacting with the people who visited their booth. I saw more people laughing here than in any other booth.

• Newbie Most Popular Award goes to FOX for generating lines of people that wrapped around their booth by bringing in stars, having entertaining demonstrations and handing out related paraphernalia (including skateboards).

• Newbie Nicest Staff Award goes to Imagine Communications for giving me a great tour of their products and somehow getting me really interested in video compression.

• Newbie Cutest Booth Uniform Award goes to GolTv, a soccer channel. The “booth babes” had on knee length ruffled dresses in black and white striped referee material and high-heeled Converse tennis shoes. They were running around the conference handing out whistles. Very cute!

• Newbie Best Booth Slogan Award goes to the Discovery Channel for “Smoothies on Demand” (and they were tasty too!)

1) I am happy in my job (which has comparable pay and better benefits than the job I was fired from)

2) I like my boss.

3) I am getting the opportunity to learn new things at work.

4) My company trusts me enough to let me set my own schedule, decide how to go about doing the work I am assigned, share company information with me with a minimum of up-the-ass smoke blowing.

5) I work with balanced people with normal egos, respect for their co-workers, who can have conversations and question things without getting all threatened and twitchy.

It is amazing what can happen in a year!!

This site is not dead. I promise! I’ve had some sick family members this year and I’ve been travelling A LOT doing hospice care. I have a bunch of half-written posts that I hope to get done soon.

During all this travel I read a fantabulous book called Bitter is the New Black by Jennifer Lancaster. If you’ve ever been laid-off and are slightly bitter about it, you must read this book. The author also goes down in my list of Fearless People. Her priorities changed a lot after her experience and she took the leap to become a writer instead of continuing to sign up for jobs that made her unhappy, but paid the rent. AND it seems to be working out for her. You can read her blog at http://www.jennsylvania.com/.  I suggest you pour yourself a nice martini and settle into the couch with your lap-top while you peruse her blog. It will enhance the experience.

Introduction
Song – “Diary of a Madman” by Ozzie Osbourne
I mainly use my hands, eyes, ears, and occasionally feet to execute tests through the software user interface. For the most part, the code is opaque to me. Other testers have more insight into the innards of the software and many test the code by writing test code. All of these techniques are combined to test a product, and testing tasks vary depending on the project as well as the phase of the development cycle.

I recently worked on a product that was just released, and I think my typical day at the end of a project highlights how months of testing tasks performed by various test engineers generate the tools used to evaluate a software build. (Disclaimers: some things are embellished for your entertainment. Parental Advisory Warning for the playlist.)

5:50 AM
Song – “Kitty” by The Presidents of the United States of America
The “Biological Clocks” (a.k.a. cats) wake me up. I walk to the coffee shop with Hubby, take the bus to the gym, work-out on the torture device…I mean elliptical trainer, take the trolley to 23rd street, and walk the remaining few blocks to the office. Normally I avoid the crepes and pastries that line the streets of Northwest Portland, but since this is release week, I treat myself to a café au lait and crepe with strawberry jam. Oo la la!

8:00 AM
Song – “Message in a Bottle” by The Police
I launch my email. It may contain bug reports from other team members or it may contain no emails at all. Today, I have an email saying a new build, “lucky number 13,” is ready for testing.

8:10 AM
Song – “Coffee’s Gold” by Abigail Washburn
I go to the QA Lab and prep a machine. The QA Lab machines have disk images with just the operating system and antivirus software on them allowing me to always start from a baseline “clean” system.

8:30 AM
Song–“Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult
The bug database is my main means of communication with the rest of the team, my task list, my memory, my alibi, and my best friend. I currently use Bugzilla which is an open source bug database tool. I search for any bugs in the current project that are marked fixed. At the end of a project the only bugs that are fixed have to be extremely bad and the fix needs to be low risk. Today there is only one fixed bug. I make sure I cannot recreate the bug in “lucky build 13” and that any areas that the fix may affect are functioning properly. The fix passes my tests, so I close the bug.

9:00 AM
Song – “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple
I start executing the “smoke tests.” Early in the project, the test team creates a test plan that lists the details of what needs to be done to assure an agreed upon level of quality for the release. This project’s test plan consists of smoke tests, automated tests, and manual tests. Smoke tests are basic tests that broadly cover the software and quickly verify a build is stable.

9:45 AM
Song- “You Can’t Bring me Down” by Suicidal Tendencies
I take a break from the smoke tests and check Bugzilla to see if other team members reported any showstoppers in “lucky build 13.” Phew! All is clear.

10:00 AM
Podcast – Bollywood Basement
The project manager wanders into the lab to see how things are going. I’ve got my highly danceable Bollywood Basement Podcast cranked and I’m grooving in my chair. I don’t realize he’s there (for who knows how long). So embarrassing!!!

10: 30 AM
Song – “Nothing to Fear (but Fear Itself)” by Oingo Boingo
The smoke tests are done and they pass! I check Bugzilla. Whew! All is cool.

11:00 AM
Song – “Invasion of the Gabber Robots” by The Laziest Men on Mars
The QA Department has a lot of automated tests written by various test engineers. Many of these tests were modified to run in the the current project. Today I use the automated tests to quickly execute hundreds of in depth tests and verify that no major areas of the product are suddenly broken. The automated tests pass!

11:30 AM
Song – “Nine Pound Hammer” by Flatt and Scruggs
I check Bugzilla. Still no bad bugs entered. Phew!

12:00 PM
Song – “Take it Easy” by The Eagles
The Project Manager walks past my cube and I notice he is wringing his hands. I let him know that so far no showstoppers have been reported for this build, the smoke tests pass, and a subset of the automated tests pass.

12:15 PM
Song – “Hot Burrito Breakdown” by Alan Munde
Lunch!! Decisions, decisions … Do I eat my healthy home-made lentil soup, get something from the burrito guy downstairs, or do I take a real break and walk to Sushiville where the brightly colored plates of fish hypnotically wind along the snake-like conveyer belt in a way that I find strangely relaxing?

1:00 PM
Song – “Reading in the Dark” by Béla Fleck
I review the latest draft of the product release notes and email the writer my feedback.

2:00 PM
Song – “I Think I’m Paranoid” by Garbage
I run through my personal project paranoia checks. Basically there are certain issues that happen over the course of a project that stick in my mind as really bad and I feel the need to double check them.

—This is where you, dear reader, get your reward for reading this far! Choose your own ending!!—

Ending 1
3:00 PM
Song – “Raining Blood” by Slayer
The Programming Lead passes by just as I’m executing the last test and suddenly the software is frozen, I can’t reboot the system, and smoke starts pouring from the machine. I call out to him, “Ummm…there seems to be a really bad bug…could you please hand me that fire extinguisher?”

6:00 PM
Song – “I Wanna be Sedated” by the Ramones
I take the bus home. Tomorrow will be another day.

Ending 2
3:00 PM
Song – “We are the Champions” by Queen
The Programming Lead passes by just as I’m executing the last test. I haven’t broken anything all day. I tell him what I’ve covered and I think “lucky build 13” is “the one.” The team meets. We agree it is good to go. Confetti falls from the ceiling, the sun comes out, throngs of people cheer in the streets!!

4:00 PM
Song- “Coming up Roses” by Elliot Smith
After I finish clearing away the pyramid of Diet Coke cans that accumulated on my desk over the course of the day, I head home with a hop in my step and a smile on my face. Tomorrow is a new day!

You know you aren’t valued when…
A QA department at a very uninspiring job I once had was quartered in a crummy ground floor room that was intially a storage area. It was a dingy space to say the least, but we made the best of it and set up our QA lab, hung our classic Apple Computer posters, and set up our Lord of the Rings RISK game table. There was a tester there who did excellent work and had ridiculously been a temp for about 3 years. He was starting to get understandably irritated that the company wouldn’t actually hire him, since his time as a temp lasted longer than most companies in the tech industry at that time. He was feeling undervalued and it was starting to finally show through a bit in his attitude. (I would have started being surly at 9 months!) Well, one day the ceiling right over this guy’s workstation started leaking. Within an hour a large puddle has amassed on his computer and was starting to pool in the flourescent light holder above him. He finally gave up trying to be productive, moved his stuff and left to investigate the leak. It turns out that the men’s bathroom was right above him — and a toilet was leaking!!!!!!!!

A Manager is Chained to his Desk
I used to work with some folks who had all previously worked together at a small software company. The company was started by a young programmer who used to be a wrestling champion. He was a big, strong, and fairly serious guy. The story goes that a friend of mine walked into work one evening – he was going to work some late hours. He heard a noise coming from the boss’ office. When he investigated, he found his boss completely trapped in his chair at his desk. Somehow he had gotten his chair rolled far enough under the desk so that he couldn’t move his arms, nor could he roll the chair back. He’d been stuck that way for quite a long time. It was a good thing my friend decided to work late that night!

Feed the Meter
A friend of mine worked at a photo lab on a busy city street where the boss was pretty much described as crazy and the atmosphere of the job left something to be desired. Still, for an aspiring photographer and project manager, it wasn’t a bad job. A new woman started work one day and spent the first couple of hours doing usual first day on the job things, training and getting the lay of the land. She announced that she had parked on the street and needed to feed the meter. She never came back to work. Now, whenever I am having a bad day, I announce with a wink and a nudge that I need to go “feed the meter.”

HR PI
A woman I know is a Human Resources Director (a.k.a. Personnel Director) for the Health District of a well-known west coast city. Let’s call her Consuelo for the sake of this story, though that is not her real name. She oversees personnel issues for city staff like public nurses, epidemiologists, and health inspectors for swimming pools and restaurants. A public nurse had been charged with not actually visiting some of his patients, but was still billing the time and mileage. Consuelo was in charge of investigating this. It was a big political ordeal and a lot of mudslinging was going on. Consuelo was, of course, being painted as the “big bad” for just doing her job. An investigation pretty much consists of interviewing the patient, the employee, the person who made the charge, and the employee’s manager. Pretty standard stuff. Consuelo had a meeting that was unrelated to this, but with someone who was stationed in the same building as the nurse under investigation. The meeting was after lunch and Consuelo was really exhausted, so she decided to drive to the building, eat lunch in her car, and take a little cat nap before the meeting. She had sunglasses on, because she lives in a very sunny city. Well, the cat nap turned into a 3 hour snooze fest. She awoke to find that she had completely missed her meeting. She rushed into the building to find her appointment and apologize profusely for being so late. The woman she was meeting with laughed and said, “Well, all the nurses think you are out there spying on them. They think you are tailing them to make sure they make all their reported stops.” Word spread through the building like wildfire that Consuelo was out in the parking lot – disguised in sunglasses – spying on them! Consuelo was hysterical with laughter — she’d been sound asleep.

Did I Eat That?
A friend of mine works at a company that allows employees to bring their pets to work. My friend grabbed some coffee and a muffin on the way to work and was in the middle of munching on it when he had to go to a meeting. He left the half-eaten muffin on his desk and attended the meeting. When he returned to his desk a few hours later, the muffin wasn’t there. He thought about it and wasn’t sure whether he’d actually finished it or not. Then, he noticed a few crumbs on his desk next to a big slobbery looking wet spot. He peaked over his cube wall. Sure enough, the next door neighbor’s dog was asleep in the cube, incriminating crumbs on his lips, and a very satisfied look on his face.

1. The 10 Minute Solution workout DVD series. I received the Fat Blasting Dance Mix and Rapid Results Pilates DVDs for Christmas. Each DVD has five 10 minute workouts targeting different things. You can just do one or you can use the DVD to string them together in any order if you want to do more. Hubby even tried these and liked them. Kids would enjoy the Dance Mix. Even if you don’t feel well, the stretching section on the Pilates DVD is wonderful. It really helps release tension in my back after sitting at work all day.

2. I walk with Hubby to the coffee shop and take the bus from there on weekday mornings. This adds 20 minutes to my morning routine, but wakes me up gently with a brisk walk. It is also a nice time to chat with Hubby. I’ve read many articles reporting that the average American couple only gets 15 minutes to chat a day. Hubby and I have already beat the average by the time we get to work. I also feel more relaxed when I get to work, because I had a slower, stress-free start to the day.

3. Write or draw something. I post to this blog. I often spend more than 10 minutes a day, but even just writing a quick poem or doing a quick sketch helps ease my mind. Write or draw about something you are worried about or something that is on your mind. Maybe send a friend an email or written letter – it really is therapeutic.

4. Learn a language. Hubby and I have been talking about going to Portugal for a few years now. This year, I bought Hubby the Pimsleur Euorpean Portuguese Interactive Lessons CD. Each lesson is only 30 minutes and today we started our “a lesson on Sunday mornings” plan. Not only is this something the entire family can do (the cats are really good at rolling their “r’s”), it is supposed to be a good Alzheimer’s-fighting brain building exercise.

5. Learn and play a musical instrument. I progress pretty well if I practice banjo just 20 mintues a day. I take a 30 minute lesson once a week. Get the whole family involved and you have a band!

6. Pull out that crockpot on Sundays and make a meal that will last a few nights. Making a crockpot meal only takes about 30 minutes “hands on” time and then you have a nice sit down dinner for the fam on busy Monday night. I made pot roast, pork tenderloin, and black beans and rice recently. All of these crockpot left-overs can be used in different ways for multiple nights (one night I stuffed bell peppers with the beans and rice, smothered them with cheese, baked about 10 minutes in the oven, deeeelicious!).

7. Get a Playstation 2 and play DDR, Taiko Drum Master, or Guitar Hero. Yes, you snobs, these are video games but they are interactive. You won’t get brainwashed into shooting up the neighborhood by these games. (geesh) You can work-up a sweat doing them. You will laugh a lot when you play them. Your kids will love playing them with you (so will your in-laws, siblings, and grand-parents). The only trouble is, it is hard to keep to just 10 minutes – though I can’t physically do more than an hour DDR without completely collapsing! For some non-physical but waaaaay hilarious, bizarre, and non-traditional fun try Katamari or Rayman – Ravin’ Rabbids.

8. Put on a song that makes you feel good, crank it up, and dance baby dance! Suggested songs are “I’m so Glad” by Cream, or “I can see for Miles and Miles” by The Who (both of these require super loud singing along). Anything by System of the Down rocks my world. “Mach 5″ by Presidents of the United States of America, “I Wanna be Sedated” by the Ramones. My cats love this! They start tearing around the house. I suspect kids will do the same thing!

9. Set up an obstacle course for your cats (or dog, or kid, or ferret….whatever is around). My cats are indoors cats because I live on a super main thoroughfare and I prefer 3-dimensional cats over the mushed variety. I noticed that whenever something is moved out of place, like furniture, or their toy basket, or if a new box is plunked in the middle of the floor, they go crazy. Just putting a kitchen chair in the living room incited an all out play-war between the two cats (one on the chair, the other underneath the chair). Making tunnels out of newspapers and boxes is also a favorite.

10. Sit in a sauna! If you join a gym, make sure it has a sauna. This makes me feel so good. I can’t really describe it other than I am warm, and it smells like the woods at Lake Tahoe, and it makes my head clear (literally and figuratively). If you don’t belong to a gym, take more than 30 minutes and treat yourself to a sauna at a place like Löyly where you can lounge around for up to three hours for a $20 entry fee. (Often your local YMCA will have a sauna and a cheaper day fee.) If you want to do something cheap at home, lay on your bed and cover your face with a steaming hot cloth for a few minutes. Then put Earth Therapeutics Recover-E Cucumber eye pads over your eyes. It feels pretty good, only takes 10 minutes, and it does help the puffiness under my eyes go down temporarily.

I like to think about how the user interface of stuff is designed. Why did the designer(s) think something was a good idea? What about the thing makes it so a certain design was chosen? Did the designer(s) understand their audience?

Another thing I think is very interesting is to watch how people use stuff. People use tools in ways that were never intended by the tool’s designers, and people do some pretty imaginative things to get around a tool’s design flaws.

Very rarely, have I found a software tool that just does what I need it to do without me having to spend extra time tweaking it. When developing software, is there a perspective that can help you create an intuitive tool that just works in an obvious way without the user having to invest extra time to get the tool to work?

Today, while reading about how television works, I was struck by a very simple analogy that helped me generate a quick list of things to think about as I design my next ‘get-rich quick’ widget. (OK…not my next…actually my first, but next makes me sound more credible.)
Until today, I never knew what UHF and VHF stand for even though I spent many years twisting little UHF and VHF dials on my Grandpa Vern’s TV. Grandpa Vern’s TV was pretty ‘bare bones.’ There was a dial with big letters “VHF” above it and a another dial with big letters “UHF” above it. Both dials had tiny numbers and hash-marks actually on the dial itself. The UHF dial had a lot more numbers and hash marks (which were too tiny to read) than the VHF dial. The TV also had power and volume buttons on the front. On the back, it had an antenna with a switch box connected to it and that whole switch box/antenna thing had little wires connected to the back of the TV.

At 10 years old, I’d say I was representative of a large portion of the the television viewing audience. I went to Grandpa Vern’s after school every day and stayed there until my parents got off work. Every afternoon I would race to the TV and frantically try to tune to Bewitched in time to see the beginning and find out of it would be an episode with Tabitha. If it wasn’t an episode with Tabitha, I’d frantically try to tune to Gilligan’s Island to see if it was an episode that featured Ginger. Then, I’d have to make a decision about which one I wanted to watch or whether I should go outside instead (in the case that neither Tabitha nor Ginger were going to make an appearance).
The problem was, I didn’t know how the TV worked. How the TV worked wasn’t intuitive from the interface. The only way to get help was to ask Grandpa Vern and, much like the Tech Support of today, asking Grandpa Vern usually resulted in a thump on the head and the brusk comment, “Quit monkeying around with those dials.”

My eye was immediately drawn to the text “UHF” and “VHF” because it was the biggest text on the set. I didn’t know what UHF and VHF meant. First I’d twist one dial. If I didn’t get what I wanted I’d twist the other dial. If I didn’t get what I wanted I’d twist both dials at the same times in different patterns. The whole switch component of the TV was completely unknown to me. Therefore, I came to believe that tuning this television required a somewhat superstitious twisting of both the UHF and VHF knobs in a pattern that may be related to the cycles of the moon, and if persistent enough, it would either tune to the desired channel or half and hour would pass and I’d miss the show anyway. Occasionally, I’d throw in an adjustment of the antenna, but this usually really ticked off Grandpa Vern, when he tried to watch M.A.S.H. later that night.

When designing a user interface for something, think of a 10 year old trying to tune Grandpa Vern’s TV.

• Where is the eye initially drawn? Is it drawn to the somewhat obscure information “UHF” and “VHF” or is it drawn to the more helpful information – the tiny numbers on the dials that represent channels. If the eye isn’t drawn first to the most obvious information, then redesign the interface so that information stands out more.
• Does the user have to go to different areas of the product to set up something in order to use a basic feature? For example, do I need to first go to the back of the television and flip the UHF/VHF switch before I can use the dials on the front of the television to tune to the channel I want? The user has an easier time getting something to work if everything they need is located in one place.
• Can messing around with an obvious UI element (like the antenna) get me into big trouble and make things worse? If so, rethink the design and behavior of the antenna.
• Does the interface have all the information the user needs to use the basic features of the TV? If I don’t understand what UHF and VHF mean, how do I even know I need to go looking for the switch? With this design, I already have to know how a TV works before I can use the TV. Your user is 10 years old and really only cares about Tabitha and Ginger. Don’t design an interface under the assumption that the average user already knows something integral to making the product function at a basic level.
• Does the help system equate to admonishment and a thump on the head? If so, make the product’s help system a little more approachable (especially if the user has to pay extra for tech support).

Earlier this week, I was using M.S. Word to write a 5 page report. My boss wanted the report to include a cover page, a Table of Contents, and page numbers. I wanted to set up the page numbers so the cover page had no number, the Table of Contents had this kind of numbering, i, ii, …, and the rest of the document was numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on. I’ve done this a bazillion times over the years, but I can never remember how to do it. If you had walked by my cube, you would have seen me superstitiously ‘twisting the dials’ on the software. I eventually figured it out. It took half an hour longer than it should have. I had to use a floating toolbar and a menu option (that was collapsed, so I had to expand each menu before I could find that option) and I had to search the help documentation a few times (trying different key words before I found the right info) before I finally remembered what I needed to do.

I’m sure the folks at Microsoft have some nifty template or switch or something that would have done this really fast, but it wasn’t obvious to me. To be fair, it’s hard to make an option stand out in a product that has a complex set of options available. It is also hard to make a product that is generic enough to be useful to both the 10 year old girl and Grandpa Vern. I think this is why the more widely useful a tool is intended to be, the more complex it becomes. Perhaps that is the problem, though. The more complex a tool is, the harder it is to use. There are too many “channels” in most of the software I use today. Most users just want to watch Bewitched or Gilligan’s Island. Make it easy for them.