"1990 will be seen, I will posit, as being the first year of the great revolution that we are living through. It is also the first year of the great confusion for the vast majority of people who are in power today. ... The internet is fundamentally different, it thinks in networks, not in hierarchies." - Ben Hammersley
April 2011 Archives
Yesterday morning, I woke up nice bright and early due to jetlag, and tried to turn on my computer to entertain myself while it was still dark out. I looked up in the top right corner and saw that my lovely, now 4 year old, MacBook Pro had not been charging the last few hours. In fact, it wasn't charging at that moment and was nearly out of battery even thought the power adapter was plugged into the wall and into my computer.
I took it into the living room and pulled out the router which was on and tried the power adapter there, no luck, no charge. Given that I was a very short time away from losing all battery, I quickly searched for "MacBook Pro not charging" and followed the various instructions to no avail. I then turned it off to save the last bits of battery and then went back to sleep.
I tried again about 8am yesterday and the computer would not take a charge nor respond to the various Apple Support resets. While I was doing the third PRAM reset, the computer simply would not turn on at all. This was very frustrating as the power adapter is less than a month old, the battery is less than 4 months old, and I have a lot of work to do right now. Then for no reason at all, this morning, it decided to start charging again and turn on.
Something tells me that it is time to start looking for a new computer as this one is starting to do its own thing. I really hope it can last for least two more months, as I would rather go to Abhi's wedding in India in June than buy a new computer.
Dear Chick-a-Poo the MBP, please hang on in there...
;o)
Happy 8th Blog Birthday to Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen a few days late!
Eight years! Yay!
Wed 04.27.11 - Many thoughts have crowded into my head today and then fled just as fast as the miasma of jetlag has descended on my brain.
A few of the fleeting thoughts that I either can recall right now or have repeated on my brain:
1) I really do want to get back to daily photo and/or text blogging. I want to reinstate the multiple year daily blogging that got disrupted in February. One of the things I thought about while in London, is how much I do love blogging and that this is my place. It is time to reclaim it. Please encourage me.
2) The complete disconnect in big big big companies between the executives and the teams that actually do the work astounds me. Last week in London, I heard a true account of one Big Company Making a Big Contract with another Big Tech Company of which it is due to be executed contractually by this June, yet the Big Company to do the work decided to lay off the workers to do the work a few months ago and then when the executives realized that without the workers that the work wouldn't get done and they would be in breach of contract, much LOLs followed. Ha ha ha. F*cking Executive Idiots. Ha ha ha.
3) So Nokia + MicroSquash deal got signed in the workers' blood this last week. Hope the 7,000 employees that are to be laid off aren't the workers who are to actually do the work to make the contract happen, like in tidbit #2 above. Wouldn't that be LOLs?
4) If a certain Mr. Elop is to wield the hatchet, hopefully he will lay off the multiple layers management between him and the teams that do the work. Wouldn't it be big time LOLs if he keeps all the management that have throttled innovation & execution the last five years and lays off the teams that actually do the work?
5) In between bouts of jetlag brain, I did a big spring clean of my house and found the Angry Bird furry slingshot toy that Adrian Parker won for me at CTIA. Adrian, I will mail it you tomorrow.
6) Glad to hear that folks are rescuing Delicious from a certain death by starvation, hope that some passionate social photographers with $$$ will rescue Flickr from Yahoo neglect.
Photo of Ms. Jen reflected in the seat back entertainment screen in hour ten of the plane ride between London and Los Angeles on Tues 04.26.11 with her Nokia N8.
Tue 04.26.11 - I am at Heathrow nice, bright and early for my flight back to LAX, so here is a set of photos taken with my Nokia N8 in the last 24 hours. I have more photos from UX London, this weekend in Oxford, and yesterday's golden light hour toddle around Kensington Gardens to post for you all when I get home.
While I love all of you, next time I am not coming to London during school Spring/Easter break. For as much as staying for the Royal Wedding might be a great spectacle, in the bread & circuses sort of fashion, I am escaping... ((O.o))
I want to say an EXTRA BIG Thank You to Family Hicks for a lovely weekend, to the nice folk at Clearleft (esp. Sophie & Andy) for UXLondon, and all the friends and colleagues I met up with while I was in London. You all made this trip. Thank you.
;o)
Photos taken on Sat 04.23.11 and Sun 04.24.11 by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 while visiting Family Hicks in Witney, Oxfordshire.
Saturday the 23rd was Leigh's birthday, celebrated with a lovely lunch and friends over in the evening. Sunday the 24th was my birthday, celebrated with Steve Marshal, Ian & Manda Lloyd, as well as Alun & Mego & Alex Rowe coming over for Easter lunch and hang out time.
The weekend in Witney was good fun, relaxing, and very nice to be in the countryside. Big thanks to Jon and Leigh Hicks for their hospitality over the weekend.
All photos from Week 2 of my stay in London have been taken with my Nokia N8 from Mon 04.18.11 to Fri 04.22.11.
This week was a mix up of meetings, meet ups, work, and resetting my self with walks in the various parks. This week was overly warm by my standards but my London friends were excited that California weather had reached them in April - shorts & t-shirt weather. By mid-week, I started to regret being here during the British and European school Easter/Spring breaks, as it was somehow even more crowded than high tourist season, so I did my best to avoid the tourist spots.
I don't know if it was the heat, or the students on break, or what, but London felt like it was going to erupt in riots all week - a very jangly feeling. Today the tide changed, as the students mostly seem to be gone and have been replaced with adult couples on a long weekend break - much more laughter tonight.
Tomorrow, I go off to Oxfordshire to spend the combined birthday weekend / Easter with Family Hicks. Then back home to California early next week.
Last Sunday, April 17th, I met up with the lovely Hywel Reed for lunch and a wander around Chelsea. I have not spent much time in Chelsea, other than having to once get on the Tube at Sloane Square, so it was good to wander in and amongst the lanes, take a stroll on King's Road, and go to the Saatchi Gallery, as well as sit in the garden of the pub that has the supposed largest pub garden in London. As you can see, Chelsea was awash in spring flowers.
Big thanks to Hywel for lunch, the tour of his neighborhood, and for the lovely afternoon. All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8
Tues 04.19.11 - Yesterday marked the end of an era, when at approximately 12:30pm in Palm Desert, California, Great Aunt Babe passed away after a couple months of illness at the age of 97. Yes, people, 97 years old!
Great Aunt Babe was my Grandma Grace's older sister and I am not sure that anyone told her that Grace passed away three weeks ago. I prefer to remember both of them in good times, like the above photo I took at Thanksgiving 2006, they had a lovely time hanging out and my Grandma had on a badass pair of sunglasses from Oakley that my cousin Brian gave her.
Babe was one of those great flinty, tell it like it is, but very loving ladies. Last year at Thanksgiving she told me that she was still playing bridge weekly with the young men (70-something). One of my fondest memories is when she and my Grandma Grace were sitting across the table from me at my Grandma's 85th birthday party and both of them finally answered some old family questions that I had.
Goodbye Grandma and Babe, I love both of you. I hope when I am in my 80s & 90s, that I will be one fraction as fabulous and inspirational to others as you both have been the last 10-15+ years, as you helped redefine what it meant to be elderly and active. Y'all kicked serious bootay.
Photos from my first week in London taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 from Tues. 04.12.11 to Sat. 04.16.11. Photos from UXLondon and the day in Chelsea with Hywel coming up next.
Mon 04.11.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen on Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, London, with her Nokia N8.
The last two months, from February 11th to today, April 11th, have been a crazy rollercoaster ride. The kind of rollercoaster in which you alternate between screams of joy and barfing.
To say that the last two months have been a crazy whirlwind, is to say the least:
Elopocalypse, [redacted-personal], [redacted-personal], SXSW, CTIA, Grandma in hospice, Grandma passing away, and now going to London for a working holiday. There has been little to no breathing space.
After the lights turned off on the plane today/last night, I tried to watch the movie "Made in Dageham", but ended up crying through the whole first twenty minutes while thinking of old photos of my Grandma, my Mom and all her siblings from the late 1960s and early 1970s. I stopped the movie and cried over Greenland instead. I arrived in London feeling wrecked beyond the normal jetlag and am now going to put myself to bed early.
I am looking forward to London, UX London, meeting up with folks, and working on my mobile app, but first, I need to decompress.
Tues 04.05.11 - Photo taken of Scruffy McDoglet's destruction spree by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
While we were at CTIA two weeks ago, Tom Messett from WOM World had Franco the Shuttle Bus driver run over a Nokia Astound / C7. Not only did the Astound survive, but Tom continued to use it the rest of our time at CTIA. It only had a few dents in the back of the case, no broken glass, and no broken functionality.
Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.