Fri 03/31/2006 15:51 - Happy Thesis Turn-in Day!
March 2006 Archives
Thu 03/30/2006 22:29 - Printing off final draft for proofreading, room exploding.
I keep tripping down the "dangers of fact checking" side road. I write a line or two or paragraph or so in the lovely little thesis and then I need to check a Fact. Yes, make sure it is True and that I have Back Up for it, not just the swell of years of weblog reading and SXSW panels confusing the Facts. Yes.
So, I check a fact. Go the website, I remember reading it on. Google the fact. Google the site and approximate month I remember reading it.
Danger! Danger! Danger!
Do I then quickly note the fact and URL and go back to writing.... No. I find myself 30 - 45 minutes later delighting in George's archives from 2003 or Adam G's from 2002, how delightful, how interesting, more links, more sites. I want to read more.
Snap out of it! Go back to writing. Tomorrow is the big day.
Wed 03/29/2006 12:56 - Local tree makes good.
Wed 03/29/2006 12:55 - Must get outside. Go for walk.
It is beautiful out. The big trees have buds on them & are starting to leaf out.
Writing that darned thesis type thing. Until I hand it over to the printer later this week, I will be more than a bit absent from blogging and email and calls. Sorry.
I have decided that I need voice recognition software that works... Any recommendations?
Not for writing this week but for the future. I am good at verbal analysis but when I see a blank word doc, my brain gets stage fright and all the things I was thinking flee far far away. If I could just talk to my computer....
... footnotes...
As I am writing up my "Moleskine to Mobile" thesis, I am having more fun with the footnotes than with the actual academic content. David Foster Wallace and Terry Pratchett... be very afraid... Ms. Jen is joining the footnotes crew... ;o)
Sat 03/25/2006 11:35 - So, you say, a duck flying through a parking lot...
Ms. Jen says, taken w/ my cameraphone on a cloudy day!
Fri 03/24/2006 20:30 - And so the writing goes...
I have my masters thesis due in 8 days and it is now time to write up all of my findings. Guess what? Procrastination 2.0 has set in, like Web 2.0, it is much of the same thing with some fancy UI and behavior layered on top... ;oD
Yes, the other night, I fully scrubbed my whole bathroom with bleach. No, I am not a germaphobe, just wanted to buy some time.
Then last night, I decided I needed to redesign a whole website and move it over onto Word Press from Movable Type. ((snort, chortle, laugh)) It did not take 5 mins.
Tonight... well, James recommended Kelsey, and Kelsey is encouraging folks to Reboot. Dang. Now I want to do the Black Phoebe redesign that I have been talking about....
Grr... must write thesis... must write thesis...
This evening I will be closing my "Moleskine to Mobile" survey for my thesis. Thank you to each and everyone of the folks who took the survey. I had far more responses than I expected.
I am now in the interview stage and will be for the next five days. I will also be writing at this time.
If you know of anyone who is doing innovative or creative work with their mobile or cameraphone, email me.
When this is all over and I have handed in my thesis, I will let you all know of the marvelous and wonderful things that folks are doing out there, in the meantime, it is write/write/read/write/research/write for Ms. Jen.
Thur 03.23.06 - Amazon needs to hire my sister Allison & put her in charge of worldwide shipping. Allison sent the above package from Calif to Ireland in 6 days. Amazon UK can't get a small order from the UK to Ireland in less than 5 weeks!
Wed 03.22.06 - Third day of Spring, the sun is shining for the 1st time since I got back to Dublin, and the dafodils are out in full force.
Wed 03/22/2006 14:27 - Water reflections.
Today was set aside to see as many friends as possible before returning to Dublin on Friday. I started the day off with breakfast with Veerle and Geert before they took off to go to visit Cindy Li in Washington D.C.
Noon found me over at Antone's for the Spaceland / Heidi's Night of Beauty free afternoon party. Veerle and Geert came along to see the first band, but had left their passports in their bags back at the hotel and the door guy wouldn't let them in without proof of age. Since they were 1 hour from departure for the airport they decided to leave. As we were saying goodbye outside of Antone's, my former web design student Nate, now of the band The Colour, came out to smoke and we had a big hello.
Heidi was in fine form and looked fabulous in pink. She had one make up artist and one manicurist available for the free beauty fun. The first band never showed up and the second band, Cold War Kids, was who I had come to see, as it is the band of another former web design and art history student, Matt Maust.
Matt first used the name Cold War Kids for his website for the web design class and then used it for the band. We had a good talk before they played about what he has been up to and the design work he has been doing (band cds, graphics for Ever Clothing, etc.).
The best part of Cold War Kids is their music. It is fun yet thoughtful, rhythmic, and bordering on experimental rock with electric keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, and other percussion making an appearance as needed. I found their music and lyrics to be delightful and await a CD out of the band.
During Of Montreal's set, I got my nails and make up done before departing to run a few last errands and have a lunch of my salad and leftovers at the room. In the late afternoon, I caught up with Alex over at the Austin Convention Center where he was helping the LA Derby Dolls set up for their big match against the Austin Roller Derby team.
Alex and I went off to P.F. Chang's for drinks and ?dim sum? while we discussed the state of the Alex's Bar website and I got his approval for a redesign using the tattoo flash art logo as a basis, as we can't wait on his graphic designer any longer to deliver the Mexican wrestling artwork. We will also be putting the site on a CMS so that Alex and Jasper can do all of the updating themselves.
After the meeting with Alex, I walked over to the Town Lake shore amphitheater to meet up with James Craig and his friend Courtney to see Blackalicious and Spoon. As I walked over the Congress Street bridge, I saw the sunset flight of the bats for the first time in my 8 years of attending SXSW!
As I walked up to the outdoor event, Blackalicious came on and I missed most of their set while waiting in line to get in. When I walked up to where I was supposed to meet James and Courtney, I found them without having to ping James.
This was also the first time in 8 years of coming to SXSW that I saw Spoon, even though Texans have raved the band up to me since at least 1999. My bad. Good on James for suggesting the show, as Spoon was excellent. A mark of a good band is one that can draw you in at the first show even if you have not heard any of their music before. Spoon qualified.
Afterwards we went over to Molotov's on west 6th Street to sit up on the roof patio, enjoy the warm evening, sip drinks, talk, laugh and for me to spill my wine everywhere while waving my arms around (Courtney, sorry your shoes got a bath). Both James and Courtney are good company. A lovely, lazy way to end SXSW.
They dropped me off at the hotel, I went in and looked at Flickr to see if various folks had added more photos, then to bed before 11:30pm. Hee hee hee. Now that is a delicious pleasure, to be in bed before midnight during SXSW Music!
I woke up this morning fairly early, even though I would have liked to sleep a lot longer, so that I could join departing sxswi folk for breakfast at the Hampton. We hung out from 9am until about 11am, saying goodbye as folks had to depart to the airport. A group then moved over to the Halcyon coffeehouse for real coffee and I joined them after Lauren and I got the room payment sorted out (Thank you, Omnicom!). Off Lauren and Dave went to the airport.
When I returned from Halcyon, Mary at SXSW Housing had come through and the Hampton Inn had a regular king room for me to move myself to for the next two nights. Wahoo!
After moving rooms, I walked over to the Whole Foods mothership to get more fresh veggie/salad stuff, face stuff, and a whole lotta dark chocolate. Upon returning to the hotel, I took a bar of dark chocolate with cherries and a bar of dark chocolate with raspberries over to Mary at the SXSW Housing desk to say thanks.
Veerle, Geert and I tossed around the idea of going for a walk around Town Lake, but I bowed out, as I was absolutely exhausted. I had no more than settled in for a nap, when Alex called to find out why I wasn't at the Volcom afternoon party yet. Obligation to say hi to the LA folk reigned, so up I got and off to the Jackalope I went to make it in time for the Riverboat Gamblers.
Riverboat Gamblers = excellent as always. Crowd = club overly full and the rock/punk crowd more than a bit shopworn compared to the shiny faced geeks. I ran into my least favorite LA person within minutes, but Lisa Johnson came to the rescue. Right as I was about to leave, I saw Hector Martinez and finally found Alex, so I stayed about 20 more minutes before my voice completely gave out and I was tuckered.
I really did go back to the hotel for a nap. At 7pm, I met up with Veerle and Geert for a lovely dinner around the corner at Flemings. I must say that one of the best parts of this SXSWi was the arrival of the Flemish/Belgian and Dutch crowd. Veerle, Geert, Kenneth, and Faruk were truly delightful and tons of fun.
After dinner, the first early evening in over a week, saw me in bed with the lights off at 10:30pm.
5:00pm - no panels, just hanging out in the hallway talking to folk. Last day of Interactive.
6:30pm - Wine and Cheese Party II - Only two bottles of wine and about 20 folk, so I trotted over to my fave restaurant across the street from the hotel and bought a bottle of wine. Jon Hicks brought cheese and the welcome basket/bag he had received from Glenda. Glenda brought James Craig and Keith from another party.
Around 8pm, we broke and went over to the the fave restaurant for dinner before hitting the Media Temple Closing Party. The closing party was held at The Foundation, which is a great new venue on the west side of downtown. Great lighting, seating, and guess what... an open bar!
I had a good long chat with Jill Carson and we cooked up me visiting her and Ryan in Bath sometime soon.
Just as I started to hit the wall, James C. and Keith were leaving the party, so I walked over to the Red Bull Play Room with them. We couldn't get it until Eris showed up and used Dodgeball to ping someone inside to give us a key and a wristband. Except it did not cover all of us outside, given how tired I was, I opted out. James and Keith also decided to depart, leaving Eris & Faruk and others to go in. I hope they had fun, I was excited to go back to the hotel and go to sleep.
Continue reading Tues March 14, 2006 - SXSW Interactive 2006.
Noon to 2pm was the Bloggies and I gave away certificates for the 3rd year. George Kelly transcribed the proceedings for the IRC channel. Nikolai sang a song. Betsy Devine came up and chatted after. Her husband won the Nobel Peace Prize in Physics last year and she told George and I about the experience of the Award Dinner in Sweden with the Crown Prince. Betsey is a delight.
Tonight's round of parties saw a group of us going to Moonshine for dinner. I sat with Glenda the Good and Jon Hicks and we discussed life, the world and faith, much to Craig's chagrin. After dinner, Glenda, Lauren, and Andy Budd jumped into a cab to go the end of the Bowling event and the rest of us walked up to the Velvet Spade for the Adaptive Path / Odeo Party.
Ok, folks, the Money is Back. That is all I'm saying. Hello, open bars? That has not been seen since 2001!
Two lemondrops later, I was bouncing around the venue chatting, hanging out, watching the Pork Chop Express band (singer with an electric ukelele) with Chris Mills, and watching the drunken dancing. Bowling folk showed up, more festivities were had.
Continue reading Mon. March 13, 2006 - SXSW Interactive.
5:00 pm - Lauren and I meet up in the hallway and decide to not go to any of the 5pm panels, instead we go to the hotel to drop things off, freshen up and go over to the Flickr / Upcoming.org/ del.icio.us / Yahoo! party at the Iron Cactus.
This party was one of my favorites for the who week. Good food, good drinks, good conversations. Finally had time to catch up with Heather Heskith and somewhat with Steve C. Also briefly caught up with Heather Champ about interviewing her for my thesis. The funniest part of the evening is when Steve had Heather and I bookend Jeffery Veen to keep him in one place (Heather and I are about 5 feet tall, Jeff is about 6'4" or so). I would have liked a photo of that.
Austin's I Love You But I Have Chosen Darkness played the party. Thanks to Yahoo! for the party. As Lauren and I were leaving we ran into MJ, Dave Shea, and Nicole Lee on their way to the Fray event at the Red Eye Fly. All of us added a kiss to Dave's cheeks and of course took pics of his lipstick attack.
About a half hour into Fray, I hit the jet lag tired wall and went back to the hotel. I ran into Christopher and he was on his way to a late supper at P.F. Chang's. I joined him. I heart P.F. Chang's for the fresh food, veggies and brown rice. It made all the difference.
It takes me about one week to recover from the Europe to US jet lag. SXSW's morning to midnight whirlwind did not help any. Oh well, time to sleep next week...
Continue reading Sunday, March 12, 2006 - SXSW Interactive.
Lunch at Paradise on 6th St. with Jessica Spengler, LEI, J Cornelius, et al. The Nachos turned out to be made with "corn" chips made with wheat flour, tummy system very sick for over 24 hours.
Party Time
6:30pm - Wine and Cheese party (from whole foods) at my room with Veerle Pieters, Geert, Kenneth H, Jon Hicks, Alun, Steve Grant, Shaun Inman, Lesile Jensen, Lauren Isaacson, and Geoffrey g. Good conversation and laughs.
8:30pm - take shuttle to the Frog party. Not at the office, but at some open warehouse over east of the I-35. Very hot. Nice chat with Michael Nolan. Left after 3/4 an hour as it was way too hot. Apparently, the second band was good and folks in costume showed up after we left.
Dinner with LEI at P.F. Chang's for veggies and brown rice.
11pm - South by Northwest party at the Iron Cactus thrown by Blue Flame and Nick Finck. Very very crowded but good folk. MJ did the round of "branding" (kissing). Nice chat with Gareth Knight of London and with Jessica Spengler. Then jet lag caught up with me and my bubbles and chirp factory stopped and I stopped talking so it was time to go and go to sleep.
Continue reading Sat. March 11, 2006 SXSW Interactive Day 1.
Photo by Ms. Jen's Nokia 7610 of the plane on the final descent into Dublin this morning.
...my body is not sure what day it is or what time it is. I miss Austin. On Thursday night, I joined James Craig and his friend Courtney at the Town Lake amphitheatre for Blackalicious and Spoon, it was delightfully warm, the skyline of Austin across the lake, great music, good company, and stars in the sky. Can I please go back to the Town Lake shore, sit on the grass, and look at the stars?
While SXSW Interactive 2003 was the best year for panels and technolody inspiration (that was the year that got me to start this blog), this year was the best for people and conversations. I have all of my transcripts ready to go, I am still working on the images for my daily photo essays. When I get them all up, most likely tomorrow, I will make a post with all the links to the various bits.
On a fun note, or not so fun note, I walked out of the Dublin Airport this morning after getting off the red eye from Chicago, wearing my SXSW t-shirt and a pair of capris to be greeted by a wind straight off the plains of Siberia. I screeched, ran back inside, pulled my jacked out of my big bag, and wondered what I had been thinking. After donning my jacket, I got into a cab, and the cab driver asked me if I had broken any hearts in Texas (what? my brain was not computing) and then he went on to inform me that he was on Viagra. I was very very very thankful to get out of that cab and arrive at my warm apartment.
Fri 03.17.06 - Goodbye SXSW. Goodbye Austin. Fare thee well to all of my friends. Big hugs to all of you.
Above photo of Chicago whilst waiting to board the plane to Dublin.
Thur 03.16.06 - SXSW 2006 - Former web design student, Matt Maust's band.
Wed 03.15.06 - The Interactive Playpen.
Wed 03.15.06 - Walking around Austin.
Tue 03.14.06 - SXSW Interactive
Mon 03.13.06 - SXSW 2006 - Microformats.
Mon 03.13.06 - SXSW 2006 - Richard Rutter.
Sun 03.12.06 - Dan Catt
@ the Yahoo! Party.
Sun 03.12.06 - Jon Hicks demonstrates the fine art of banana drawing before the accessibility panel.
Sun 03.12.06 - Lunch at Halcyon coffee house.
Sun 03.12.05 - SXSW 2006 - In between panels - George Kelly!
Sun 03.12.06 - SXSW 2006 - Kenneth, Veerle, Geert, and Jon.
Sat 03.11.05 - Yesterday at Whole Foods, Lauren, Lesile, and I bought cheese, wine and other bits. Tonight we had a low key after-panel party at our hotel room.
Sat 03.11.06 - Walking down 6th St after lunch.
Breakfast will all of the gang - Brit Pack, the Belgian/Dutch Pack, Shaun and Lesile, and others. It was good to sit and hang out in the sunny breakfast area. It was good to chat, drink caffiene, and laugh.
Jorie Lordes dropped Lauren (LEI) off around 11am and joined us upstairs for awhile. At noon, a group of us (LEI, Lesile, Jessica Spengler, Chris Mills, Craig, et al) walked over to the Whole Foods mothership for lunch and to do a little shopping at Whole Foods and Waterloo records.
We sat outside near the Whole Foods "water feature" stream to eat our lunch in the sun. Warm.
LEI, Lesile and I went back in to buy cheese, wine and crudites for our proposed wine and cheese party. Afterwards we walked over to Waterloo with Aaron Gustafson and I bought a new tshirt (bunny with headphones) and a new pink bowling bag purse. The best part is that Aaron gave us a ride home in his rented AC car.
Yes, it is hot enough to need Air Conditioning. Yeah!
4pm - Time to go pick up our badges at the conference center. Even though I uploaded an approved photo to the SXSW site, I received my badge with last year's photo. ;o(
5pm - Saw the a gang of the Hampton folk (BP, BDP, etc) go to the free drinks in Brush park, sit under a big oak in the sun, and then walk around 6th Street and 4th Street looking for a place to have a drink before dinner with the Aussies and then Break Bread with Brad. We found Anders Pearson and he led us to 219 West 4th St. This was a nice wine bar/hang out place. We ended up staying and turning it into the Dinner with the Aussies. I had several delightful glasses of wine, ceviche and calamari, as well as delightful conversations with Lesile, Jessica, Gillian (Jill) Carson, Erris Free, Andy Budd, and others. I was finally able to pass off the loaf of bread that I had been carrying around since Whole Foods off to Molly Holzschag.
Someone brought label stickers and we made "tags" for people. Andy Clarke gave me "I met Chuck Heston once", and one other that I forget what it said.
9pm - We went as a herd across to Break Bread with Brad at the Gingerman. As I was walking out of 219 West, I saw The Wolf!!!! The Wolf, aka John Marlow, is an old online friend from the 1996-2001 message board days. I had lost his cell # and new email, and didn't know how to find him. John has lived in Austin since 1999 and is always a good SXSW host. He and I may try to get together for drinks at some point.
There was quite a line to get into the Gingerman and I ended up having big hugs and chats with all kinds of folk coming in and going out (Molly Steenson, Sergio Villareal, Tom Coates, Heather Heskith, etc). Once we got into the venue, I was very tired and not much up to chatting. Brad was very welcoming. I got a bunch of the "My URL is..." stickers and started to write up name tags for folk.
When I hit the tired wall, I went back to the hotel with a group of folk and off to bed I went. Kenneth Himschoot was kind enough to walk the ladies back.
This was truly the first day of SXSW, even if the conference does not start until tomorrow.
Fri 03.10.05 - @ Check in.
Fri 03.10.05 - Breakfast at the hotel.
I left my apartment at 10am to go to the Dublin Airport. At the airport, I went to the Aer Lingus counter to see if I could extend my ticket two days to stay in AUstin a bit longer than just SXSW Interactive. Nearly 3/4 an hour later, I had a ticket to return on 3/17 for only $81 more.
On the flight from Dublin to Chicago O'Hare, I worked on my thesis and worked up interview questions, as well as distilling what my 171 survey respondents said to my hypothesis and interview questions for more in depth questions.
Last two hours of the flight was very turbulent, and I got very air sick. It took another two hours at Chicago walking up and down the concourses to stop the intense nausea. Due to the large rain storm, there were two hour delays for all flights and many were cancelled so the airport was full of crying kids and agitated business people. The 6:35pm flight to Austin finally departed after 8:30pm and we did not arrive in Austin until after 11pm. I got to the Hampton late and then woke up after 5 hours. Argh. Travel over 24 hours, sleep less than 5.
The best part of the flight to Austin was that I sat next to a fellow who works as an engineer for a large construction company and he worked on the Hampton Inn build out. He said it is very safe. Good to know.
Thur 03.09.06 - Now at O'Hare attempting to walk off turbulence induced nausea, good thing the flight to Austin is late.
Thu 03/09/2006 13:23 Dublin Airport Control Tower I am sitting in my seat waiting for boarding to finish. I plan on working on my thesis & Javascript "Battleships" program while traveling.
My first act after checking in in Austin will be a late supper at P.F. Chang's, a small yearly ritual in which I eat 1 last "good for me with brown rice" meal before all the BBQ & Mexican food. :o)
The cabin doors are closed & the plane is backing up. Off we go, off goes the Nokia.
... For SXSW Interactive 2006! Wahooo...
Well, I have an hour before need to leave for the airport, and I haven't packed my bags... No big deal, I will just forget something important.
I will be 17 hours in total to-ing & fro-ing from airports, at three airports, and on the plane. The reward is Austin, Texas. Off I go to pack.
Wed 03/08/2006 10:25 - In a fit of pre-SXSW prep, I woke up at 6:30pm this morning to refresh the purple in my hair & do laundry. At Xmas time, I went to Ipso Facto to get my fave Deep Purple dye and they were out. In desperation, I went to Hot Topic at the Main Place Mall. Agh! Their Raw brand is medium purple and is strongly grape scented.
The computer lab at the Trinity Collge MSCMM program has become an embattled segregated territory. Our computer lab is split in two with the "front" side that faces the Pearse Street station and a "back" side that faces a brick wall. The front lab has the newest and best-est computers and the back has all the people. Go figure.
But more importantly, most of the men, who are also most of the programmers, are in the front lab, and most of the women, designers and artists, are in the back. I personally could care less, as I prefer to work at home on my laptop, but I tend towards the back of the lab as more of my various project group members are there and the front lab has a lot of glare in the afternoon as the window blinds are all jacked up.
We were told at the beginning of the course by people who were in the course last year that folks would "settle" into a computer and it would be "theirs". At the time, I thought, "That's b.s.". I still think, "That's b.s.". Only problem is that it is causing bad feelings with the folk who feel a certain computer is "theirs".
All the computers are run of the mill Dell desktops with a variety of audio - visual - web - image - etc programs on them. I like to sit down at whatever one is open and go to work. If I am working on a project, I like to sit next to my group members so that we can talk as we work, even if it is on things that are not project related, as we can build community and riff off each other.
Continue reading That's My Computer!.
Mon 03/06/2006 11:14 - Last week Spring went on vacation and Winter showed up with a punch. And I got sick again. Bah
Well, Spring is back today. My jacket is unzipped, my gloves are in my pocket, and I feel well again, Thank God.
In other news, it is in the 80s in Austin this week!
Sun 03/05/2006 23:28 : More DIY hair dyeing in prep for SXSW.
Mon Morning on the Luas - Three more days of the usual routine and the on Thursday I leave for SXSW Interactive!
Happiness. Austin. Sun. Warmth. Geeks. Tacos. BBQ. Happiness.
Thurs 02.09.06 - The sphinx benches along the Thames river embankment, London, UK.
Fri 03/03/2006 16:19 - I walked out of my pre-SXSW haircut to find another fall-heavily-from-the-sky-for-10-mins-but-doesn't-stick snow flurrie this afternoon and Dubliners ill prepared & scurrying in every direction. Dubs react to snow the way that SoCal folk react to rain - surprise, horror, & indignition.
