Sat 04.27.13 - There were a lot of very well taken care of vintage and antique cars at the annual Seal Beach Car Show, but this 1961 Mercury Monterey was very lovely.
The front of the hood dials with the Mercury logo were casting sunlight intrigued me. How could two fairly small metal and plastic dials stay in good shape for 52 years?
Video taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 Pureview on Wed. April 24, 2013, at 7:02pm.
There was a south-southwest swell coming in at an angle to the Seal Beach Pier and every time a wave broke on the sea wall beneath us the section of pier my Mom and I were on shook like an rolling earthquake. It was quite fun.
While I first reserved the blackphoebe.com domain name in 2001, I used it for mostly personal one-offs for two years until I decided to start my own blog for ideas and my photography. I installed blogging software and set up the then design by the end of my 25+10th birthday in the late evening on the 24th of April, I didn't actually publish the first post until the morning of April 25, 2003 when I finalized a few details.
An amusing entry from the summer of 2003: Thursday - Mom Surfing at Bolsa Chica
In the upcoming year on this blog, I intend to return to daily blogging, be it photos or text, and to write more about life and mobile.
Happy 10th Anniversary or Blog Birthday to Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen!
All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 PureView.
Tues 04.23.13 - This past Saturday I drove up the US Highway 395 to Bishop, CA, to attend my cousin Shelly's wedding shower, enjoy the spring in the Eastern Sierras, and to also celebrate cousin Katie's 13th birthday. Other than a few road bumps of the food variety, it was a lovely weekend visiting family.
Sat 10.13.12 - Early this evening, I had a delightful dinner with Steve Marshall and Hannah Donnovan at Yauatcha in Soho.
Sometime last week, after pondering and talking about a topic on Twitter, Dhruv Bhutani asked me if there was anything I wasn't good at. While I have a fatal case of over-curiosity and a big reading problem* and thus appear to be the walking talking encyclopedia, there are many things that am only ok to down right bad at. Here are a few that come to mind immediately:
1) Small Ball Sports.... such as tennis, badminton, table tennis, handball, and golf: Basically any hand-eye coordination sport that involves a small ball**. For reasons unknown to me, I am decent at baseball/softball, volleyball, football/soccer, and basketball. And after much practice, I can draw, so I am not a total wash out at hand-eye coordination.
2) Learning dance moves and/or participating in any synchronized dance. More times than I can count from age five to thirty-five I have enthusiastically taken a dance class only to end up in tears about 15-25 minutes into the class as my eyes & ears can see / hear the instructions on how to make the body movements in question, but I can't for the life of me get my limbs to do said activity. Tears in public, tears while surrounded by graceful dancing swans who get it right the very first time around.
3) Timing. Be it in dance or piano, I am usually two steps/beats ahead or two behind. This is an analogy for my whole life and got me kicked out of ballet & tap class at age five just before the class performance at the Costa Mesa Fish Fry, as well as causing me problems in middle school piano recitals and swing dancing during the late 90s/early 00s craze. Good thing I did not seriously practice bass guitar, as any band I was in would have had a drummer ready to kill me.
4) Illustrator. I took my first Adobe Illustrator class in 1990, again in 1991, another in 2000, more valiant attempts at the pen and path tools through the whole of the 2000s, basically I suck at Illustrator or Inkscape. I do just fine in drawing with Flash, Fireworks or Photoshop, but I want to throw my computer out at the window with Illustrator. I only use Inkscape under extreme duress now and then only for badly done mobile app SVG icons.
5) Writing for deadline***. If I am writing for myself for no particular reason at all, like this blog post, I can type out an amazing amount of words in no time at all. If I am writing for a deadline, be it school, masters thesis, business, clients, or a magazine; even if my reputation and friendships are on the line; for whatever reason, I get horrible writer's block and have been known to stand on toilets bleaching ceilings rather than write the 85 - 20,000 words needed. This is a problem.
Mind you, just because I think I suck and after much trying still can't do the above activities, it doesn't mean that I have stopped trying. I am overly persistent. Well, I don't play tennis or golf, as I have been known to bean people in the head with said ball...
- - - - - - * Notes - - - - - -
** On my Mom's side of the family, they are almost all serious athletes, be it pro or am. My Mom is 69 and is a keen surfer & skier. I have several cousins who are/were the best in their sports, a stepfather who was/is sports obsessed, and a grandfather who won the 1987 sailing world championships. To be bad at sports and bookish in my family made for a moderately miserable childhood. I fought back with goth attire and punk rock.
*** Express apologies to long-suffering CS who has been waiting for a one paragraph synopsis out of me since... oh... May.
A few weeks ago, Clinton Jeff invited me and Ali Qudsi to guest on the Unleash the Phones weekly video for the Nokia 808 PureView edition of their weekly video-cast.
It was a great conversation with some really smart folks, thanks to Clinton Jeff, Alvin, Yash, and Bharad for the invite!
Sun 06.24.12 - In November of 2009, in a flurry of dreaming about traveling, I made a Life List that was mostly crazy, off the beaten path travel to-dos. This last week and weekend I checked off #16: Spend a week in a cabin / summer house on a lake in Finland.
When I originally wrote my Life List, I had hoped to be able to spend a week in a Finnish summer cottage on or by a lake, but when it came time to book, in early May, such an event for the last two weeks of June, I was unable to find a rental cottage that was not HUGE in my rental price range. By HUGE, I mean for 18-24 people - overkill.
Carol Chen came to the rescue when she found out that I was planning on attending Devaamo 2012 in Tampere, Finland, by offering to let me stay in her extra room at her apartment in the wooded & lake'd Tampere suburb of Hervanta.
For one week, I had the opportunity to get to attend Devaamo, hang out with amazing geeks, wander around Tampere & Hervanta, and walk around local lakes. Not quite the summer cottage by a lake, but close enough for rock'n'roll without the mosquito bites!
This weekend, Carol and I went to Turku on the far southwestern coast of Finland, which is the jump off area to visit the Finnish Archipelago - Saaristomeri. We left Tampere via the Inter-City train mid-day on Friday, which was Midsummer's Eve and arrived in a very shut down all closed Turku on 2 hours later.
Luckily for us a few of the tourist options were open, like the Turku Cathedral and a few riverfront bars and restaurants. We had dinner at a nice jazz bar with a swing/ragtime live band, as well as bought tickets to tour a bit of the inner islands on the S/S Ukkopekka for the next day.
Yesterday, Midsummer, we went on two island cruise trips on the S/S Ukkopekka, the first one a day tour to Naantali that included four hours of wandering around old town Naantali and the Moomin island, and the second was an evening dinner cruise to Loistokari Island. Due to rain in the evening, dancing on the island was cancelled, but dinner on the boat with a sing-a-long band was still a lot of fun.
Today I returned to Helsinki with much of life still shut down for the national holiday weekend. I am very fortunate to be able to visit Finland in the summer, particularly over one of their biggest holiday weekends of the year.
People, do not allow any Finn to convince you otherwise, but the big secret they like to keep is how amazingly beautiful Finland is in the summer, even if a bit cloudy and rainy at times. Finland is a truly lovely country.
Wed 06.06.12 - Rather than comment on today's numerical date on Twitter, I will do it here, right now, plus put in a few words of update.
I am now one month, or 31 days, into my #AppRetreat and I have 24 more days to go. I have two wishes on this score:
a) I wish I could go home to SoCal for about 4 to 5 days over this weekend and early next week to visit with Scruffy McDoglet, drop off a whole lot of stuff I won't need in Finland, and pick up a few things I do need that I can't for the life of me find in London - like an aloe vera based Vitamin C serum for my rosacea that does not have any wheat in it - gah! People, stop putting gluten in stuff! Gah!
It is the 21st Century and I would like to request a teleporter...
b) I would like have another 3 weeks added onto my #AppRetreat as it would give me more time to get things done. Per usual, once I get under the hood and start working on an app a couple more things pop up to make the time to finish take longer. This week it is the wonders of the camera button access in Symbian Belle that has slowed me down...
Adding another three weeks on would not be hard, but where to stay that would be reasonable in price and have good internet connection?
Speaking of internet connections, while London has been lovely, the internets have been flaky here. Very flaky.
Happy 6 + 6 = 12 day. Enjoy!
All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Sun 05.06.12 - I arrived at London Heathrow to start my two month #AppRetreat this afternoon around 1:30pm or so. The airplane journey from LAX to LHR was fairly uneventful and so was passing through passport control and customs at Heathrow.
Upon arriving at my fave studio hotel and getting settled in, I checked twitter, only to see that Dhruv Bhutani was tweeting about sightseeing London. After a few back and forths, I found myself taking the Tube down to Oxford Circus and meeting up with Dhruv, Nirave, and Dani at the Slug and Lettuce next to the Apple Store on Regent's Street.
[Insert jokes here about mobile geeks meeting up next to the Temple of the Oh Holy Jobs..../]
I last saw Dhruv and Nirave at MWC in February and Dani last year in Berlin and did not expect to see any of the three on my first evening it in London, so it was a delightful surprise to find Dhruv in London for a few days for the Galaxy S III launch.
From our meet up point at the Slug and Lettuce, we walked over to Busaba eathai on Wardour Street in Soho for a very tasty dinner of chicken, chicken, chicken, and aubergine, as well as a lot of mobile device and app programming talk.
Thanks to Dani, Nirave, and Dhruv for making my first night in London a great one!
And why has Ms. Jen been so quiet here and relatively quiet on Twitter the last two weeks...
Pre-March 22, 2012 - Work, get lots done, be content.
[geek humor follows /]
Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Tues 03.27.12 - Today neighbor Tammy had to go deal with some exciting county government stuff, so she needed someone to watch 2.75 yr old Gracie for an hour or two. I offered to take Gracie to Dog Beach in Huntington with Scruffy and I as a diversion. Even though it was chilly and very windy, we had a lovely time, that is the chill and wind got to be a bit much for Gracie. She napped soundly all the way home.
Sun 03.18.12 - Here in the coastal area of Southern California, we have very very few days that could actually be called cold, a few nights per year, but very few days. By cold, I mean temps below 50F/10C by 10am. By most standards in the temperate and northern areas, 50F/10C is relatively balmy, but please do remember that in the greater Los Angeles area when the temps drop below 65F/18C, most folks start whinging on about it being FREEZING and put on a parka with their flipflops or/and Ugg boots with their shorts.
Let me further whittle this down, since 1990, by cold I mean that there have only been two days where I could and did wear a wool sweater outside during the day, when the sun was out, as I went about my daily activities. There are at least 10 nights a winter season that I would wear a coat, be it wool or fleece, and fleece gloves when walking the dogs.
SoCal is known for its warm days and cool nights, so a night in the 40s F in the winter is not that rare near the coast, but cool days are rare.
Today, a winter storm from the north-east Pacific was pulling out with 17mpg winds and temps in the 45-48F range all morning. It was glorious. I wore my wood Icelandic style sweater with fleece gloves and a long sleeved shirt while walking the dogs in the 8-9am hour. I was wildly excited about real weather, rather than fake 65F wear ones Uggs weather.
Scruffy was not as excited about the chill as I was, as he has only one thin layer of hair. I suppose if my dream of moving north, as in 50-60 deg latitude north, comes true, I will have to either get Scruffy a down feather filled body bag that he can walk in, or he will have to stay in SoCal with my brother Joe.
Unfortunately, temperatures will return to a normal 68-78F in two days. Bastards.
Video by Clinton Jeff at Mobile World Congress 2012, Barcelona Spain. After CJ and I filmed the segment of us, from 3:24 on, in the video, we decided that we need to start a CJ & Ms. Jen video-cast.
Sun 02.26.12 - The above photo of Jason (@smashpop) jumping at the La Familia Sagrada best describes the whole day. I walked down to the Fira de Barcelona to pick up my MWC badge and meet Clinton Jeff to get the audio gear I brought him to him. Rafe Blandford, Dan Carter and Nirave joined us, we toddled across the street to TapaTapa for lunch, where Trent, Jason, and Lester joined us.
After a delightful lunch, most went back over to the Fira for various press conferences but Jason, Lester, Trent and I did a 4+ km walk from the Fira to the La Familia Sagrada to stretch our legs and take lots of photos. It was good fun.
Some GroundHog Day / St. Brigid's Day links for you both new and old:
Dr. Jeff Master's "Six more weeks of non-winter" on the Wunder Weather Blog today
Celebrate St. Brigid with Beer!
My one and only Metafilter FPP on the topic of the underappreciated Feb 1 & 2 holidays back in 2006
Last but not least, Happy 3(21) + 6th Birthday to my Dad, Campbell Hanen!
Sun 01.01.12 - New Year's Day 2012 was a day of bringing in the social new year with several lovely friends: I had dim sum lunch at the Imperial China in SoHo with FJ van Wingerde, then FJ took me to Maison Bertaux for tea and cake where Helen Keegan met up with us for a good conversation and more tea, then I took a bit of a convoluted train trip (due to signal problems) to Blackheath to have dinner with the newlyweds Cami and Alan. It was a truly lovely day.
Sat 12.31.11 - The last day of 2011 was spent with a nice big walk through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park before returning to my hotel to get ready for Mecca's New Year's Eve Party in Kew just outside of London Central. The party was a good deal of fun and I met some very lovely folk, it was a relaxed way to spend New Year's Eve.
Tues 12.27.11 - Photo of Scruffy McDoglet and Belle le Cane taken yesterday at Dog Beach in Huntington Beach, Calif, with Thomas Bertling's ADOX Golf 63 1950s era vintage bellows range finder medium format camera. I used Fujifilm 120 color film at 200 ISO and got the film developed and printed at Fromex in Long Beach.
I am very pleased at the results as Thomas did not think the camera worked any longer as it was given to him by an aunt who had it since the 1950s and neither of us had a manual or much of an idea how it should work. I took the ADOX to Samy's Camera in Santa Ana yesterday morning to see if the folks at the film counter would be able to help me and they did by determining that 120 film would fit in the canister.
The first few shots on the roll were taken by complete trial and error as I tried to figure out how to advance the film, as well as the settings of the f-stop and the shutter speed in conjunction with the focus ring as all three are interconnected at the end of the bellows on the lens with out much explanation and no light meter. When I got to Dog Beach, I used the Nikon D70s' light meter settings to determine that at 200 ISO, I should shoot at f22 and 1/200th shutter speed, as the light declined and the sun set, I switched it to f11 at 1/50th shutter speed.
The ADOX Golf 63 has the following available settings:
F-stops: 6.3, 8, 11, and 22
Shutter speeds: B, 1/25th, 1/50th, and 1/200th
Focal length: 1 meter to 20 meters and an infinity setting
There is no ability to set ISO.
I am very pleased on how well the photos turned out since I was guest-imating on focus, f-stop, and shutter speed. Why was I guessing on focus? The ADOX is a range finder camera and I don't have a siting attachment for it, so I was looking through the little eye hole that does not change in focus at all as you turn the focal ring.
The first roll from the ADOX Golf 63 is here at Flickr so you can see all 12 photos. I just scanned them and did not do any photo editing. The color is pretty accurate to the printed photos, and any grain is from the photo paper and spots on my scanner, as the actual printed photos are wonderfully clear. The vignetting is a result of the square medium format film and the size of the lens/bellows set up.
All in all the whole experiment is/was so successful that I am taking the ADOX on vacation with me, so expect more photos, printed and scanned.
Mon 12.26.11 - Photo of Belle taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s using a 55mm 1.8f lens.
With Mike's attendant blog post that describes the filming/capturing of the video and T-bone's antics in Long Beach...
Some folks I truly like and respect have been participating in the month of Dec 2011 #resound11 blogging where they respond to a blogging prompt every day or nearly every day or occasionally.
It is J's post on #resound11: 12 in 12 that got me thinking about next year.
So here are the 12 Goals I would like to accomplish in 2012:
1) Get one of the three mobile apps I am currently working on in the Nokia and the Android stores before the end of Jan 2012. Get the 3rd one in by the end of March 2012.
2) Take the #2 mobile app idea and make it a full working web app that any mobile phone browser can use, which will be a mild challenge as the iPhone doesn't do this activity in the browser.
3) Go visit Cami and Alan in London before they depart to go live in Africa, which they depart in mid-January 2012, so I better hop to it. Hey London friends, I will most likely be in your city very soon.
4) Go visit Abhi & Sudha in their new place in Mumbai. Which then means I also need to get to Agra and drop some of Grandpa Bill off, hopefully CJ will still want to come with me. And then there is the Ladahk trip idea that Dhruv, Seetu and I have... Ok! So it is time for me to stop applying for the 6 month multiple visit tourist visa to India and just apply for the 5 year multiple visit visa. ;o)
5) Go to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and attend Swedish Beers, even if I don't drink beer.
6) Read more fiction. Spend less time online in the evenings and read more books.
7) Move. I love my immediate community, but my apartment is the size of a postage stamp and I would like to be able to invite folks over for dinner. More than anything, I want the adventure of a new city. And a kitchen that more than one person can kind of fit in.
8) Make more art. Be it photos, or drawing, or painting, or writing, or poetry, just make more art.
9) Go visit Grandpa Jim and Nellie in Uraguay. Even if I don't speak Spanish, I do understand most of what is said to me, and if my Grandpa can go to South America for 4-5 months per year, I can go for a few weeks.
10) Go skiing at least 2x this season, as I miss the mountains and snow.
11) Even if various iterations of my Creativity in Mobile session idea has been rejected by the SXSW committee for several years running, I would like to write more in this space on creating with one's mobile. The mobile web is wonderful, but my true heart is encouraging folks to create with their mobiles, not just browse.
12) Leave the house more often and interact with more folks more often in real life. Most of my LA friends will be shocked to read this, as they remember my great Extrovert era of 1998-2005, but in the last few years, I have cycled through some introverted times and need to see some more folk regularly.
And you? What do you hope for 2012?
Sun 12.11.11 - My cousin Brian and his wife Kristin threw a First Birthday with a Mustache theme party for their son Weston and it was was great fun.
Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N950.
Fri 11.25.11 - While many retail stores and chains trot out their Christmas decor before Thanksgiving or even Halloween, decorum dictates that one should at least wait until the day after Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving weekend to put up one's Xmas lights and decor.
This morning Mitch, Linda, and some of Mitch's electrician colleagues were installing their annual Christmas lights and animated figurine extravaganza. Each year for the last three years, Mitch and Linda say this will be the last year of their putting up the whole kit and caboodle of lights and figurines, but each year it gets installed once again.
I am heartily glad that Mitch, his electrician friends, and Linda put in the time, effort and dollars to light up the neighborhood in such a fancifuly and delightful way.
The Holiday Season has now officially started!
Sat 11.19.11 - After many months of hard work and much planning, design, and thought, Tammy and Ryan Callis had the Grand Opening party of their new Canvas Shop tonight.
It was good fun to not only see how they have transformed the 1940s era boat canvas space into a dual custom canvas creating shop in the back and a locally sourced art / creative gift shop in the front. They are selling a wide range of California created art and artisan created objects from local band's CDs to jalapeno jelly to handmade surfboards to books and paintings. It is wonderfully eclectic and a great addition to Seal Beach.
Canvas Shop
702 Marina Dr. (corner of Marina & PCH)
Seal Beach, CA 90740
Sunpig, aka Martin Sutherland, has been tweeting and blogging about the happy/bouncy/F*ckYeah that is Dananananaykroyd, a happycore band who just dis-banded from Glasgow, Scotland.
Martin described Dananananaykroyd as complex melodies turned up to F*ckYeah! Someone in the Noisey 101 video describes them as 'happycore'. I say, imagine if the Refused decided that they were really happy and Cold War Kids amped it up about 400 more bounces per millisecond.
For my LA/SoCal music friends, check Dananananaykroyd out, even if we won't see them live at Alex's.
Mon 11.07.11 - Eight years ago today, somewhere in North Carolina, Scruffy McDoglet was born as the runt of a litter maltese puppies. He has turned out to be a great dog.
Photo of Scruffy McDoglet taken by Ms. Jen two days ago with her Nokia N8.
Sun 11.06.11 - All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 even though she felt like she was running late all danged day long. Shakes fist at time change.
Sat 11.05.11 - Tonight I went to the Park Ave Restaurant in Stanton for long time good and faithful friend Kimm Gardener's 50th birthday. It was really a lovely evening and many thanks to Kimm and Kelli Gardener for a great party.
More photos tomorrow when I am not tired, I promise.
Tues 10.31.11 - All photos of local Halloween fun taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8. Click on a thumbnail to see the larger photos.
Flickr photoset here of images taken by the Space Traveling Nikon D300s.
The Launch video:
Cygnus Launch from Erich Leeth on Vimeo.
Traveling to Space is just not for governments any more...
Next Wednesday at 9am GMT, Nokia's CEO and various other humans will get on a stage at London's EXPO and make Big and Great Announcements concerning Nokia and its Future at the annual Nokia World. Big, Grand, CEO type announcements.
The kind of announcements that set the tone for the next year or two or more. Announcements that will either win the faithful and the masses back to Nokia or the kind that will fall of meh ears. Announcements that will either excite or horrify designers and developers who are so crucial to the success of the 'ecosystem'.
In the face of such high expectation, Al P and I, while sitting at Berlin cafe this morning, cooked up five probable or improbable but hopeful announcements that could come out of Nokia World next week:
1) Announcement of next Harmattan commercial release, preferably of the already existing Nokia N950 dev phone, as it is very desired.
2) Nokia N8 refresh with 12mp or higher, autofocus Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon flash, 2.2f stop, 4" screen, with green & red call buttons. We would prefer the OS be Belle, but due to current Windowsphilia conditions, most likely Mango.
3) High end phone with physical landscape qwerty keyboard with tilt screen. Too many danged slab touch only phones out on market with so little differentiation. This could also be combined with #1.
4) Meltemi gets announced and it is a stripped down core of Maemo that has S40's data sipping and battery longevity talents. Then all feature phones apps can be built on Qt.
5) A Metro (Windows 8) Tablet. 10", ARM dual core, ...[At this point Al and Jen disagree on screen resolution, price, etc.]
It should be interesting to see or hear about. Will any of Al and I's improbable predictions come true?
As a side note, Ms. Jen wants to know why the Nokia World Developer's track is only 1/4 of the event and is fairly weak in its offerings? Nokia, don't just send us to Microsoft, keep us on board with you and with contact & events from you.
Mon 10.03.11 - The best part of the last week is the lovely friends visiting LA that I got to hang out with, CJ over the weekend, and FJ today.
FJ and I met up for lunch at Bottega Louie in LA before he had to leave to catch his flight back to London. I am glad that we were able to find a time to meet up, as it was delightful to not just talk about the various bits of Mobile UX, the mobile web and design worlds, but also about life and hope. I truly appreciate FJ's insightful perspectives on various issues, as he can rapidly drill down to the essence of an idea or thing and present it from a completely different angle than I had seen it before.
Sat 10.01.11 - With Clinton Jeff visiting for the weekend between Intel's App up and AdobeMax, we decided to take Scruffy and Belle to Dog Beach. Belle had a bit too much fun.
Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Fri 09.16.11 - Doing a little dogsitting while reading Meego 1.2/Harmattan Docs and Getting Started guides on how to get the Qt SDK on my Mac to talk to and deploy a .deb package to the Nokia N950. Building and deployment to the N950 work just fine on the danged WinXP install on Virtual Box but not on the native Mac side.... Grrrrr...
Wed 09.14.11 - I love the colors, art, and creative vintage stations at Salon Pop in Long Beach.
Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N950.
Sun 09.11.11 - The best of the photos from Allison and I's road trip to Buttonwillow today. We left Huntington Beach at 11am, drove north on the 405 to the Interstate 5 take photos and Qik videos along the way, until we arrived in Buttonwillow, Calif., at 1:24pm to go have lunch at Tita's Pupuseria. This was a zany, dada-esque road trip to make Buttonwillow the road trip destination rather than the road stop.
After lunch we drove to the Tule Elk Reserve, then southbound along Elk Hills, eastbound along the 119 to Old River, southbound on Old River Rd to Copas Road to Murray Family Farms farmstand for some fresh fruit, back on the southbound I-5, to Fort Tejon, and last but not least, we stopped at the Vista de Lago Vistor's center at Pyramid Lake before finishing the afternoon with a drive-by of downtown Los Angeles.
After a bit of disappointment in the past, I gave Qik video a try again today taking about 15 or so videos that were streamed to Qik's servers. As per my past Qik experiences, I returned from my adventures frustrated that Qik would not play the videos and that there are no saved video files on my phone. Next time I will video with the phone, come home, stitch the videos together and upload to Vimeo. Qik is too unreliable and I now have no access to my videos of the day.
All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Sat 09.10.11 - This afternoon I had the opportunity to go visit the lovely Ms. Herlinda Chico and see the house that she and Jeff have bought, as well as meet the pets and new kittens.
Fri 09.09.11 - Photo of Sir Grayson Hernandez taken by Ms. Jen this afternoon with her Nokia N8.
Sun 09.04.11 - Photo of Gracie climbing on the gate taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Photo of Stanley by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Fri 07.22.11 - Dinner at George's with Mom, Joe, and Christine. Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Sun 07.17.11 - Today I was struck by a serious case of closet envy. Yes, closet envy.
The closet in the room I am staying at in the Camp Camp 8.0 rental house in Truckee is every thing I wish my closet was: big, walk-in, two clothes hanging dowels, shelves, etc.
Oh, wait. The current Closet of Doom at my place in Seal Beach is big-ish in a long way, walk-in, has two dowels for hanging clothes on, and has four shelves. So, why do I have a serious case of closet envy?
The Closet of Doom is less than 30 inches wide, 6 feet deep and over 8 feet tall, which results in it only being good for storing, stacks and stacks, layers and layers of boxes in. The closet in Truckee was roughly 6 feet long and 4 or 5 feet wide, nearly a square and had plenty of room to walk in and reach stuff hung or on the shelves even if it had stuff stored all over the place.
When I am dwelling on closet envy, I think it is time to move, as the Closet of Doom is not going to change shape, size, and its basic lack of usability.
Thurs 07.07.11 - It was for the BobbleHead give away, I swear... Innings 1-5 were fast & dull, innings 6-9 were more action packed.
The BobbleHead doll of Andre Ethier will be leaving on Monday for its new home in Kalkiji, Delhi, on CJ's shelf of figurines.
Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Tues. 06.14.11 - More photos to be added.
In February 2008, I went to India for the Nokia Urbanista Diaries photo mobile blogging trip. It was great.
My second day in India, I met up with a bunch of Chennai area photographers to participate in the 4th Chennai Photowalk.
As I walked up to the arranged meeting area on Anna Salai, I did not see anyone else with a camera and began to panic a bit about getting the directions wrong in my jetlagged haze when I saw a tall guy wearing cargo shorts and a Quicksilver t-shirt with a big DSLR camera. I walked up to him and asked if he was going to the photowalk, he said yes and that he didn't know where folks were. We introduced ourselves and then he then called and found out the meeting place was around the corner.
Abhi and I have been friends ever since and every time I have come to London in last three years Abhi and I meet up for a meal and sometimes a photowalk. Tomorrow morning I am flying from London, where I am now on a layover, to Chennai to go to his wedding.
Big Congrats in advance to Abhi and Sudha on their wedding this week!
Wed 05.18.11 - After a surprise rain storm the last two days, it was quite windy & chilly this morning. As Scruffy & I left for our morning walk, I saw my neighbors Earl and Ryan dressed up like it was winter not the verge of summer.
Sat 05.14.11 - Here are a few of the photos taken during and after the sessions of Mobilism 2011, as well as on Saturday. Both Thursday and Friday, I had the opportunity go out for delicious dinners with other speakers and friends. On Thursday, we went to Kantjil & de Tijger, a dutch-indonesian fustion place on Spuistraat, and on Friday a super delicious Italian slow food restaurant, Pianeta Terra on Beulingstraat. After dinner on Friday, we went over to Cafe Hoppe (Anno 1670) for drinks and talk.
On Saturday, after all of Mobilism was over, I rented a bike from the hotel, took the ferry to the NDSM werf and met up with Martin & Abi Sutherland and their family for a late lunch at the fun & funky Cafe Noorderlicht and then a lovely bike ride up to Het Twiske, as well as a tour of the book cases. As a proud reader & book addict, I too, one day endeavor to have a two wall living room / book case showroom. Even more important, Abi gave me a few good book recommendations.
On Saturday evening, after a bike sprint back to Amsterdam and a walking sprint to the Ouid-Zuid, I met up with Brian LeRoux, Joni Rustulka, and her brother Jay. We had dinner at an Eritrean/Ethiopian restaurant that had the best tasting Ethiopian food I have ever eaten (not usually a fan) and a lot of laughs. All was well, until 2am, when the food decided it didn't like me. Oops.
All photos at Mobilism or afterwards taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Sun 05.08.11 - Happy Mother's Day to you and yours. Magnus the Magnificent visited today and he and Scruffy had the best time running around.
Sat 05.07.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 at the Huntington Beach Dog Beach.
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.
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
Mon 04.11.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen on Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, London, with her Nokia N8.
Tues 04.05.11 - Photo taken of Scruffy McDoglet's destruction spree by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Thurs 03.24.11 - On our last day in Orlando, the nice folks of WOMWorld, aka Tom Messett & Adam Woodley, took us to the Boggey Creek airboat rides at Lake Tohopekaliga in Kissimmee, Florida. While completely different from anything to do with mobile, it was a great palate cleanser after the neon thumping wiz bang of the CTIA trade show. It was very nice to get out of the composed, planned Orlando and drive south to the edge of the start of the headwaters of the Everglades to take an airboat ride through a Florida lake.
As a birder and nature lover, it was wonderful to see a sandhill crane on her nest, to see many egrets, herons, various water fowl, alligators, a water moccasin snake, and best of all, a bald eagle soaring within 100 ft of us. The shallow lake waters with tall grass, lily pads & flowers, as well as miles of flat waters, green grass and blue sky, was a delightful tonic to a techno-weary soul.
I flew home in the evening and would like to give a big thank you to Nokia and WOMWorld for a good trip filled with lovely devices, great conversations, and good new friends. Thank you.
Photo comparison post between the Nokia Astound/C7, Nokia E7, and the Nokia N8 coming up next.
Wed 03.23.11 - Today started with a breakfast meeting between the Nokia E7 enterprise team leaders and the bloggers, while not as lively as a discussion as yesterday morning, the enterprise guru - Todd Thayer - gave some good background on the considerations of creating a good mobile device for the enterprise customer.
After the breakfast meeting we went back over to the Convention Center for more of the Trade Show and keynotes, as well as participating in an Angry Birds high score challenge. I spent most of my day wandering around taking photos with the Nokia N8, C7 and E7 for a future photo comparison blog post. To give you a wee sneak peak, the E7 is an amazing and marvelous device with a great qwerty keyboard, a delicious tilted screen, but a sub-standard camera. The Nokia C7/Astound beat the E7 on every photo and occasionally took as good as the N8 photos.
I also spent a good hour or two at the CTIA Nokia booth in conversation with various folk, including the bright and talented Darin Burris. We covered a wide variety of subjects from mobile development, user experience design, how one goes from an artist/musician to a designer/developer, the Nokia+MicroSquash alliance, to the wonders of maltese dogs, as well as attempting to get a red circle on the Nokia Near Field Communication (NFC) cup game to no avail.
The folks at the Nokia booth had four stations of demo/display phones plus two NFC readers at each station that would read a NFC chip embedded on the bottom of coffee cups. Once one got a cup, one could go around to the stations and put the cup on the reader to see if one won, if the circle turned bright red and stayed red then one would win a Nokia N8. It was fun, interactive, and a great way to get CTIA attendees involved.
The evening hours were spent at the CTIA Unplugged event at the Hard Rock cafe which included a Lady Antebellum concert. Unfortunately, I did not feel very festive due to yesterday's bad news and was not too peppy, but the company was good and I really had fun text with Erika on the Nokia E7's qwerty keyboard. Love that keyboard, love it.
The evening ended with a nightcap at the hotel bar with our group and a few SXSW friends that walked by.
Tues 03.22.11 - The first full day of the Nokia CTIA adventure started with a breakfast meeting with the Nokia Astound / C7 team leaders and the CTIA Social Reporters (aka blogger type humans). We had a lively discussion about the Nokia Astound, its specifications, the aesthetics (I think it is lovely), and its market. I will write more on the Astound later, but it is truly a great smartphone in that not only is it full powered, lovely, elegant, takes good photos, and it will only be $79 with a contract on T-Mobile.
After the breakfast meeting, we, the blogger type humans, had an Ovi Maps Check In challenge before going over to the Orlando Convention Center for the CTIA Trade Show. The Convention Center was truly awe inspiring in size, scope, and over all hugeness. The Trade Show had so many bells, whistles, loud sounds, flashing lights, etc, that I thought I would need dark shades and ear plugs. The only downside was a some bad news from the home front. In the evening, we met up for dinner and had a lovely evening.
Sat 03.12.11 - Video of the Austin Convention Center escalator ride captured by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
After I went to the big Sunflower Street post office and shipped the last four weeks of work off in big trackable priority mail envelopes, I allowed myself to finally start thinking about SXSW.
Yes, the Annual Spring Break for Geeks Pilgrimage to Austin, Texas, for the best little, ok... not so little anymore, conference / festival on the planet.
This year will be my 10th Interactive, but 13th year overall (1998-2000, I attended Music only). I guess this makes me an Austin veteran.
Now to figure out when to hold the annual wine & cheese party...
Sun 03.06.11 - In a lovely bout of serendipity, I ran into Katrina, Sam, and Iona this afternoon. They have recently moved into their lovely (Purple!) new house up in the canyons above Sierra Madre in the shade of California live oaks. We walked up to their place to see how BIG Oberon the amazing charcoal lab puppy has grown.
Oberon is now 10 months old, the size of a full grown lab at 85 pounds, but still with the brain and Complete Excitement and Joy of Life of a Puppy!!!! And many more exclamation marks.
Oberon at 8 weeks : Photos from Erika's Birthday Party
Oberon at 4 months: Oberon, the King of the Charcoal Lab Puppies, Oberon Goes to the Beach and Meets the Ocean, Goodbye to Oberon the World's Cutest (Currently) Charcoal Lab Puppy
Wed 03.02.11 - Photos of Diego and Scruffy jumping taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 in the Hernandez family yard. Yes, there was a small squeaky toy being held aloft for Scruffy, but Diego was jumping for the fun of it.
Tues 03.01.11 - This morning Gracie was quite excited about her bottle of milk, so she came over to show it to me and kept saying, "Ah, Baba!"
Photos of Scruffy and Belle taken this afternoon by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70.
Photos taken this morning by Ms. Jen at Elite Restaurant in Monterey Park with her Nokia N8.
Sun 02.06.11 - Several amusing tidbits from today's early dim sum lunch at Elite: Sabine gave me her very amusing opinions on European men including teaching me German phrases for several sets of mentionables and unmentionables, the waiter was entranced with my Nokia N8 and quizzed me on the camera, and last but not least, I finally became the Mayor of Elite on Foursquare of which I expect to promptly be out-mayored sometime this week.
Photo of Scruffy taken last week at about 7cm from the N900's lens to his nose using the Bless N900 camera app. The nice bit is the soft bokeh around the outer corners.
Thurs 01.20.11 - Late this afternoon, while walking Scruffy & Belle, I got to take a video of this big crane lifting a 20 feet lot / 10ft in diameter concrete pipe off a long flat bed truck, lift it over 25ft of trees and then lay the pipe nicely in a large trench. Biggest excitement of the day, all in the name of making sure Seal Beach has great storm drains and does not flood for any reason ever again.
Tues. 11.18.11 - 20 Months and nearly all grown up... Well, maybe not, at least nearly 2 years old and Gracie's hair is long enough to put in a pony tail!
The best part is that Gracie stood still and moved her head while I tried to get the best shot of her hair up in a pony tail. And then she offered me a few of the sliced cucumbers she had in the bag in her hands.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c |
| Verizon iPhone Announcement | |
Ok, so I have lived without a TV since 1986 and in the last 20 years or so, I have seen maybe one movie at the theatre once every 3 or so years.
People, I am a failed movie watcher. I try.
I have been trying with Netflix for two years now. I have 50 some odd movies in my Netflix queue, attempting to catch up on all the movies I have missed in my neglectful ways. I started with 2 movies a month and well, that was a grand fiasco. This time last year, I moved to 1 a month.
On Feb. 24, 2010, Netflix mailed me a movie that I have wanted to watch for years. I tried several times to get through it and I finally admitted defeat this week and mailed it back.
Ten months later.
I opened my mailbox today and there was another red envelope. Those bastards.
Let the new cycle of unwatched movie guilt begin.
Tues 12.21.10 - Happy Winter Solstice to those of us who live north of the Equator and Happy Summer to those who live south. May your Christmas be Merry, your Festivus festive, your Kwanzaa be creative, and your New Year full of happy.
Photo of my computer after a very long day taken with my Nokia N8.
Tues 11.30.10 - Photo of the brilliant end of sunset sky and laundry room light early this evening by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8, no photo editing or color correcting.
Fare the well to November and the annual NaBloPoMo! One more month of 2010 and then on to a new year.
;o)
Sun 11.28.10 - Today dawned bright, clear, chilly, and windy after last night's drive-by rainstorm. I woke up with a long-ish mental to-do list, as there is so much to do to prepare for this upcoming week. The Thanksgiving break was spent catching up sleep, quiet time, reading the latest on mobile app creation, and working on some programs.
So many plans for today were derailed by the wind and chill as well as helping some friends with their computer, but I was glad to stay in and enjoy one last quiet day of Thanksgiving weekend before tomorrow's work week starts.
This afternoon two new & lovely babies arrived on the planet:
At 3:21pm Texas time (aka 1:21 Pacific time), #MyBaby3.0 was delivered to Family Randall. Congrats to Dustin, his lady wife, and the whole family.
And at 1:59pm Pacific time, Baby Boy Hernandez 2.0 arrived in Long Beach, California to Paige and Alex Hernandez!!! Congratulations to Alex, Paige, Diego and all the Hernandez and McCormick families.
Yay! New babies only 38 minutes apart! One girl and one boy! Yay!
Alex sent me a cute MMS photo of Paige and the new baby within the hour. I am very glad that the baby has arrived safely and with a full shock of dark hair.
Happy 22nd of November, 2010!
******
Update on 11.23.10 - Baby Hernandez 2.0 has been named Greyson Archer Hernandez. Yay, Greyson, welcome!
More folks out in Internet-land are getting riled up over the TSA's back scatter x-ray scanner (aka the Porn-o-Scan) and a few more are getting riled up enough to call for a boycott/activism stance in the form of National Opt-Out Day and then Mr. Goldberg puts forth the best suggestion yet:
Oh yeah.
In other News, Ask the Pilot, tells America to remember recent history and take a chill pill. And that includes the TSA.
Photo of Scruffy racing around the Green Belt taken on 11.03.10 by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Sun 11.07.10 - Happy 7th Birthday to the one of best the dogs ever, Scruffy McDoglet!
Sun 11.07.10 - Sunday: wake up. Brunch with friends. Tea & crepes at Queen Malika in the Castro with Jason. Get in the car and drive back to SoCal via the Central Valley in the rain.
Photos taken by Ms. Jen on with her Nokia N8.
Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Sat 11.06.10 - 361 days after Wedding 1.0, Cindy Li and Matt Harris got married (Wedding 2.0) at the Aquarium by the Bay. Jeremy Keith made an excellent officiant, the ceremony was lovely, and I loved that Cindy's dad, Mr. Li gave a blessing prayer in Chinese.
After the ceremony, the receiving line was held in the Aquarium proper and we were encouraged to visit the various tanks & displays while the catering staff re-purposed the event room for the reception.
The reception was lovely with all the guests sat at airport code tables. I was at YVR with a lovely set of friends and the reception was delightful. Food, dancing, laughter, catching up.
Congratulations to Cindy and Matt!
Fri 11.05.10 - Lexi is a three month old long haired chihuahua pup that has visited with my neighbor's daughters twice this week. She is just tiny, tiny, tiny* and super cute/sweet. Best yet, she has soft fur and puppy smell.
* Lexi is about 3 pounds and is not even 5 inches tall.
Today, the 1st of November, is the start of annual November National Blog Posting Month, where folks blog daily. It is also the start of NaNoWriMo (write a novel in one month!) and NaVloPoMo (video yourself & friends daily!).
Per usual, I am encouraging you, dear reader, to take up the challenge this month and flex your creativity muscles with daily practice - go blog, vlog, write, photoblog, etc!
Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Sunday 10.31.10 - Today dawned dewy and autumn-esque, of which it remained through most of the day as the touch of chill did not leave the air. All of this called for a walk amongst the old oak trees at Irvine Regional Park before the whirlwind of All Hallow's Eve began.
Thurs 10.28.10 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Photos taken with Ms. Jen's Nokia N8.
Fri 10.22.10 - Major Milestone: Magnolia's 1st baby tooth fell out today, with lots of wiggling of said tooth. The best part is that Magnolia is one week shy of her 5th birthday. I call overachiever status for loosing her first tooth at 4.98 years old. ;o)
Photo taken with Ms. Jen's Nokia N8.
Sat 10.16.10 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8:
Stockholm Syndrome is defined by the of behavior of kidnap victims who, over time, become sympathetic to their captors.
According to some of the phrases that Ben Smith uses in his Nokia N8 review, I must have Mobile Stockholm Syndrome, as I *actually* liked the Nokia N97 from November 2009 to May 2010 and I do *love* the Nokia N8.
Ben says in his last paragraph:
The issue is, Nokia fanatics aside (and I mean them no slight - we all have to be passionate about something), the user experience hasn't improved nearly enough yet so most people will get better real world use from other devices. Only a small minority will accept - long-term - sacrificing general usability for one exceptional feature (in this case the camera)...
The N8 does have its flaws*, but as a camera phone, it is excellent. But as I read Ben's last paragraph, I started to laugh, as I realized that I do have Mobile Stockholm Syndrome, then again, so do most people when it comes to their mobile and carrier/operator relationships.
Come on, admit it: You are willing to put up with an amazing about of _insert_name_of_bovine_excrement_ in exchange for having the coolest/cheapest/bestwhaterfloatsyourboat mobile on your block. You, too, have mobile stockholm syndrome.
And if it is not with your mobile phone, it is with the carrier / company that provides the phone and data service. You haven't left AT&T yet, even with all your grousing about dropped calls, now have you? You are actually kind of fond of it, as it did get you off that uncomfortable call, right? You are just waiting for the iPhone to go to Verizon so you can deeply enjoy your iPhone and local AT&T network without all the hoi poloi junking things up, right?
I am right there with you. Really. Holding my Nokia N8 with the excellent 12 megapixel camera waiting for the teaming iPhone millions to trot away from my network. Darned folk, don't appreciate everything that AT&T has done for them...
While usability does matter for me in many instances, I would rather have a great camera phone with mildly OK usability in terms of the mobile's OS, than to have great usability and only OK to crappy camera. In this I differ from most of my designer friends who love love love their iPhones. Every time I use an iPhone, I just get frustrated and wonder how they can be so over the moon for a phone that is just ok.
Each to their mobile own. We all love our respective mobile captors while we yearn for the perfect mobile or perfect mobile carrier / network, which may only exist in our own minds for that day or week.
*More on this later, but right now it is the radio changing channels and crashing when I am walking due to the motion sensor that is driving me a bit mad. Angry enough to turn off the sensor, but then the radio app still crashed when I was changing channels.
Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
10.10.10 - This post right now. Surprise lunchtime visit by my Dad and his work truck, who were on their way to Northern California for a month. Dog Beach with Les Doggies. Crescent Moon at dusk.
09.09.09 - Through Billy's Looking Glass
08.08.08 - Blogging, BlogHer, and Dooce
07.07.07 - At Book Making Class
06.06.06 - Notice : Under Construction
05.05.05 - Happy Cinco de Mayo
04.04.04 - The Wittlest Cowboy In The West (my favorite in number and in photo)
03.03.03 - Can't remember what happened on this date as I was a month and a half from starting this blog, but I must have been excited about SXSW'03 where I was to hear Mena Trott talk about Movable Type & meet Jish (see 08.08.08 entry) that would inspire me to start this blog.
02.02.02 - My dad's 59th birthday, but the barflies.net archive is of no help here do to my cleaning directory problem and the bowling photos have been moved.
01.01.01 - Visiting my friend Denise in Boston, gone to see the Amazing Royal Crowns the night before.
Photo taken by Ms. Jen at Dog Beach this morning with her Nokia N86.
Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.
