I’ve been working on a project where the issue of readability has come up more than once, especially long lines of text in paragraphs. Searching for some hard data, I came upon the Usability News site, and also the University of Wichita’s psychology department and their studies based on usability testing. I’m impressed by the breadth and depth of the results, as well as its layout online. I’m going to be linking back to this one (and doing a lot of reading) in the next few weeks.
Todd, my cube-neighbor, asked me a few weeks ago if anybody I knew would be interested in a beautiful used dining room table for sale; he and his wife were selling it to make room for their new table. After a brief consultation with Jen, and a visit to look at the table (and a very tasty frittatta which Heather claimed was burnt—it was not), I signed on the dotted line. Tonight it will appear in my dining room, which is little more than a narrow hallway between the living room and kitchen, and hopefully not dwarf the rest of the house.
Outstanding television. The West Wing, over the course of the last couple of episodes (that I’ve seen, at least) has been some of the best television I’ve watched in a long time. This evening’s episode, the season finale, was gripping, intelligent drama—and last week’s leadup was some of the most suspenseful TV I’ve seen in years. And John Frickin’ Goodman as the Speaker of the House!
Last night, we took the step we have been fearing/looking forward to for so long: Both platoons of cats were moved into their new digs. My cats had been wandering around my suddenly empty and echo-ey house for the past three days by themselves; I packed them into pet carriers and loaded them into the truck (the tortoise is still at the shop). Firing up the now muffler-less Scout, both of their pupils got HUGE and their gentle meowing became yowls which roughly translated into
“what-the-F***-are-you-doing-this-thing-is-louder-than-GOD-where-the-hell-are-you-taking-us!?!”
I didn’t think anything was louder than the truck until I heard Teller’s screams of fear going through the Harbor tunnel. Jen called while I was on the road; instead of answering, I held the phone up to the carrier and let him howl into the handset like an escaped mental patient.
Jen’s cats had a shorter ride, but are handling the new situation in roughly the same way. Both groups are prowling around their respective prison camps wondering when they can catch the bus back home; both Penn and Pique are pretty chill about the whole thing, while Geneva, Sage, and Teller are planning to break the pet carrier, fashion shivs, and stage a prison riot. Luckily they all have light, fans, and windows to sit in and get used to their new surroundings.
I sat out on the back porch and talked with my mom last night, and the air was cool and quiet. It’s so much more peaceful there than in the city. I wasn’t worried about the tools in the Scout getting stolen, or the plants on the side of the driveway walking off, or any of the other hundreds of small nagging city fears I’m used to. I finally feel peaceful there, even though the list of stuff to accomplish is about thirty feet long, the laundry and boxes are piling up, and the lawn is getting shaggier.
Now, on that last note, one of my daily reads, What do I know, had a post a few months back about manual mowers and how much the writer enjoyed his old-school mowing. From that site I found a link in the comments to another site, cleanairmowing.com, which features lots of environmentally-friendly products for working in the outdoors. (We have a greenhouse and the sellers left us two rainbarrels, and this coming spring I intend to install them back under the downspouts to collect water for gardening.)
Why the hubbub? Well, we don’t have a mower, and I’ve got to make arrangements for one sometime real soon. I’m considering this manual mower because I could use the exercise, it’s inexpensive, it’s environmentally friendly (I was considering an electric mower as well) and I could use the exercise. To be decided…
For all my tri-state peeps out there: Todd sent me this link this morning. Wave your ADIDAS in the air if you know Carvel.
backyard, mid-august 2002
Jen and I had a very, very good weekend.
The backyard is further along; the brick is down, the sand is in, the planters are full awaiting plants, and there are a number of hearty survivors from last year poking their heads above the soil: sage, tarragon, lavender, zinnias, and both crepe myrtles.
Jen was kind enough to pick up two rolls of 620 film I had developed from the antique cameras I bought last year; the results were mixed, mostly because of my limited skill in composing pictures. One roll was four for twelve and the other was seven for twelve. One of the shots is above: the south planter before we had to tear it up. The results are remarkable when you consider that the glass in these lenses was ground fifty years ago and made for much grainier stock film. The trick seems to be not to attempt any interior shots, period.
There is a new radio station here in Baltimore, a relic of a lost age, attempting to fill a void that is perhaps larger than the universe itself: a free-form college radio station spinning a mixture of eclectic and non-mainstream music (I have to use these dopey adjectives because the “alternative” moniker, as you know, has been co-opted by the Man.) This morning, flipping through the stations, I settled on the new single by Radiohead, and that was followed immediately by “Fight Test” by the Flaming Lips. God help you, WTMD; you’re a rookie welterweight stepping into a ring full of old, bloated Rocky Balboas. I hope you stick around for a while. And I’ll be pledging money to keep you going.
Apple has released the new iTunes, with a pay-for-music service integrated into the player, so people like me who don’t want to use file-swapping can actually pay a reasonable price for the songs we like on demand. Right on. Funny how the music business couldn’t figure out how to do this themselves.
Jason hooked me up with Dreamweaver MX, which is a fancy upgrade from 4.0 for OSX. Very nice; let’s see how it fits in with my workflow.
Because the camera is currently in Florida (I am a very nice guy and sent it along on a company trip), I of course saw two things that inspired me to shoot this morning: the 95 overpass against a really deep slice of blue sky, and a broke-down AMC Pacer by the side of the road.
Jen and I woke on Sunday, had breakfast, and journeyed to the Home Depot for supplies. We came home, donned our gloves, and began Backyard Patio: The Sequel. In about four hours we mixed, poured and set about 200 bricks back over the hole from the sewer repair. With three bags of cement, we got all the floor brick back down, the wall to the south planter rebuilt, and had just enough to complete the whole job. Sometimes things work out just right. We celebrated with an Easter dinner of steak and blue cheese, fresh green beans and a tasty Malbec from Argentina. I’d show you pictures of my backyard (as if you haven’t seen enough of those) but my camera… You get the idea.
There are days when software works right, and there are days when it doesn’t. Today, ImageReady is being a buggy pile of crap, and it’s adding hours on to a job that should only take minutes. Arrrrggghh! Days like this only exacerbate my potty mouth. Sorry, everybody.
I wrote a potential client back and provided my address, then went to check the Design section and realized the JavaScript for the Case Studies section was broken. A quick two-minute fix, but who knows how long it’s been busted?
The Home Depot in Glen Burnie has used brick in stock, so I’m stopping by tonight with the Scout to pick up a load. Whoopee!
Additionally, I did update the Scout page last night, for the first time in four years. Good grief! I have a bunch of other stuff I’d like to post there, including the lineset ticket and an updated list of links from the past four years. Hard to believe it’s been almost five years I’ve owned it.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Jen and I took a trip up to the Home Depot yesterday and loaded ten 80 lb. bags of pre-mix cement in the Scout. We got about 70% of the hole in the backyard filled, and returned for the other four bags to finish off the job. It turned out to be the perfect amount, and this morning our initials are inscribed in the hard-set surface. This week I’m going to begin loading in the ‘used’ brick up at the Lowe’s and bringing it home a bit at a time (we almost had to stop short for a blinkerless merge ahead of us with 800 lbs. of concrete on the back springs, and the Scout didn’t like that) so that we can take next weekend and begin replacing the floor.
D’oh. I forgot to pull about 30 shots off Jen’s camera today—I took a series of boxcar pictures down by the Harbor Tunnel while they sat idle on the rails. Many of them were tagged pretty heavily and the juxtaposition of the colorful paint vs. the faded lettering and rusted walls was very visual. I took them in sequence so that I can stitch them together later or view them singly, but they do me no good in her camera without the adapter card. Dangit.
I need to devour these pages this week and brush up on some old knowledge.
The Smartdisk USB hard drive I bought at Cidera three years back is not supported under OSX 10.2, but every iteration of the OS before that. I don’t know if it’s a vendor-specific driver issue or an OSX issue, but it’s damned annoying. I think I’ll have to definitely boycott Smartdisk from here on out, because that’s just ridiculous.
Now that I re-hung the bathroom door to be level, close correctly and open the right way into the room, I found that there’s whole lot more space in there for people and storage. I found a real nice cabinet down at the antique store down the street, so I picked that up today to replace the small Target-bought cabinet currently jammed full of towels and bath sundries. I think it will make the room work even better. Meanwhile, work on the hallway and living room molding continues. I’m shooting for getting the interior of the house cleaned up in time for spring, when I can focus all energies on rebuilding the backyard.
PS. My neighbor Dick was sent home from the hospital two days after the operation. Bless his heart, they can’t kill him—he’s too stubborn.
We got word a few hours ago that the roof of the B&O Railroad Museum collapsed, possibly damaging or destroying several historical and priceless trains and passenger cars. I only hope they are able to repair the roof and save some of the cars below it.
I’m going to post a gallery of pictures from the snowstorm a bit later on in the day; I still have to strap the mukluks on and shovel the walk outside (I’ve been avoiding it by painting the front bedroom.) Jen and I walked four doors down the street to Matt & Emily’s house to have dinner and watch some movies last night, which was really fun. Apparently the final tally has been a little under two feet, and the Governor has been on the news asking folks to stay off the roads today. Fine by me!
I was not aware of the problems some folks have had with original AirPort base stations, but a link from the estimable Nacintosh News Network details a fix for blown capacitors, which replacements are better than others, and how to solder it yourself. not for the faint of heart, but definitely cheaper than buying a new one.
I bought a Dayna EtherPrint off eBay this morning, in the hopes that I can get the amazing $7 printer working at Jen’s house this week. I also got the second half of the RAM for the LaserWriter 630, so that will be installed tonight.
We caught up with our friends Rob and Karean this weekend, inviting them over for a SuperBowl dinner and drinks. It was good to catch up with them both, because we’ve been playing phone tag since Christmas. They are bitten by the same bug we are right now—the pull to move out of the city is strong, and the recent tax hike is an even stronger incentive. With its dwindling population and shrinking tax base, the city government is putting the squeeze on folks like me—my assessment just doubled.
I spent the first part of this evening milling and installing new doorjambs in the kitchen/dining room with the new compound miter saw. Let me just say again, it is so much nicer to work with the right tools.
So Jen, myself, and probably every Young Urban Professional in a 300 mile radius of Baltimore City got an innocuous little postcard from Restoration Hardware, that purveyor of incredibly beautiful, retro, and stylish home furnishings. They were having a warehouse sale of all the stuff they haven’t been able to sell (and, let’s face it, when you charge $2,300 for an oak dresser out of a mall storefront, you’re not moving a ton of merchandise) and I think that they had the most successful return on direct-mail ever. We showed up at 7:15 and had to fight our way into the parking lot. By the time we entered the main warehouse and weaved through the throngs of people, the place had been picked over pretty well, but we found a chair that had been marked down to $500. (Check the site. It glibly sugests to “buy a pair!”) After hemming and hawing, and placing a ‘hold’ on it, we headed back to the house to grab the Scout, but we realized that there was no way we could return before the doors were closed. Retiring to our favorite restaurant, we consoled ourselves with plenty of DeGroen’s and filet. Walking through our new favorite antique store today, we found a retro black armchair for the kingly sum of $80 with our names on it.