Picture My World

This blog’s inactivity is interrupted to ask you to say a prayer for Matt’s mom and family during a difficult time.

I had forgotten just how much poop babies produce. There’s an amnestic quality to parenthood where certain, usually less… ummm… favorable, aspects of babyhood are forgotten.

At least I know I’ll soon forget this stage again.

Born December 18 at 1:14am after one of the nicest and driest days in recent memory.

She was a health 8 lbs and 21 inches long at birth (that’s 3.6 kg and 54 cm for the metrically inclined).

We had a home birth for this baby. I can’t tell you how much better this was compared to the hospital birth. Highly recommended if you’re a low-risk pregnancy.

Finally, the new baby experience is significantly different the second time around. I’m finding it harder to fully appreciate this new life when her older sister still requires our attention (and rightfully so). On the plus side, new baby is already getting used to Shula’s noise.

Captured on my recent trip to Vancouver Island. This bus has some handy driving tips stenciled on it. I’m calling it “Suicide Bus”.

As with most “helpful” signage, I have to wonder what prompted them to put that on this particular bus.

Luckily they didn’t have to add the sign “It’s suicidal to take pictures of me on snowy highways.”

…this is a reminder to get tables with smooth surfaces.  The counter example is the Esquires Coffee in Ladysmith, BC that has these broken tile mosaic table tops (what do you call these things?).  I dragged my very tall and very full cup towards me and the edge caught on the grouting.  Luckily, the spill was minimal and I’m glad I had cooled the coffee somewhat with milk or my hand would have been scorched.

If you produce a product and people buy it but don’t use it (but also do not return it), is that a successful product?

Since superior usability can only come from superior design, I was happy to find this list of interaction design books that Luke Wroblewski compiled.

Now I need to finish reading a bunch of books so I can justify updating my bookshelf.

One of my daughter’s favorite library books the last few weeks is The Gardener by Sarah Stewart. It’s a touching story about a little girl who goes to live with her uncle during the depression.

I found this book on chapters.indigo.ca and was taken aback by one of the recommended books.

“If you liked The Gardener, then you’ll love Still as Death!”

I can see how the site got confused. I mean any book by Sarah Stewart someone has got to be good, right?

This Is Broken is a site that captures people’s frustrations with products and services. You can submit a picture a relate a short story of an experience that was “broken” from your point of view.

It sounds good in principle and I’ve subscribed to its RSS feed for a number of months now. But, I’ve come to the conclusion that This Is Broken is broken for me. I had hoped it would provide an entertaining stream of stupid product designs and customer service experiences better read about than experienced. Instead, it’s a constant list of boring blather.

Yes, there is the occasional post that either teaches a lesson about bad design or is funny. But, then we hear from somebody who sees a company’s logo with an acronym they can’t decifer. Who cares? Why did that person even think this is a broken experience? As far as I could tell, they weren’t even a potential customer!

Now, admittedly, I am not the target audience of the site. As the site’s header states, it is a “project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience”. But, as Seth Godin says, if it’s broken for you, it’s broken. (Or words to that effect.)

I am live-blogging from a huge line at the Air Canada counter at Narita Airport. My flight home has been cancelled. I was as surprised as anyone, especially considering the Air Canada web site shows the flight departing on time.

I have no mobile phone anymore (my work phone doesn’t work in Japan) but my colleague in Israel is on the phone with the travel department trying to figure out what’s going on. I am instant messaging with him through the wonder that is the internet. This is the one bright point.

They just announced that the flight was cancelled “due to aircraft maintenance”. I’ve got news for you, Air Canada. You do “maintenance” to prevent this exact problem.

They are putting people on a Northwest flight to Seattle, but there are less than 30 seats left and there are more than 50 people in front of me.  Not good.
More later (if the line ever moves).

Arrived in Tokyo yesterday around 6:30 pm local time. I was exhausted and didn’t stay up much past 7:30 and then, of course, woke up at midnight. I haven’t been able to sleep very well after that and gave it up around 3 am.

I was expecting an utterly foreign land, much stranger than anywhere I’d been in Europe. So are, things are different but not what I expected. Maybe I feel this way because I already knew about the many-buttoned toilets? I suspect things will take on a more alien feel once I leave the confines of the hotel today.

I’m staying at the Tokyo Dome Hotel that shares its location with the Tokyo Dome stadium and a large amusement park (here’s a satellite view from Google). As I was ascending in the elevator, I saw someone descending across from me on one of those faux-parachute drop rides at about the same speed!

The airport (Narita) is about 60 km from Tokyo and I took a shuttle bus in. The surrounding area is quite industrial and, frankly, quite ugly. It didn’t get much better in Tokyo proper as we took an elevated roadway snaking through the dense city and every descent to street level (to get to other stops) led to a collection of dark and dingy viaducts. For some reason I was expecting everything to be shiny and new, but the architecture I’ve seen so far is clearly post-war and not so pleasing. Again, these are first impressions only.

Here’s a night shot from my window (I couldn’t kill the reflections):

The lit curve is one of the elevated roads. It seems every single building has red lights and they form the night horizon. Most of them slowly blink, giving the appearence of a red, roiling sea.

Our first hint that our neighbour is a creative tool user came a number of months ago as her house’s full reno was nearly complete. Unfortunately, she had run a little short on money and needed to finish some of the project herself before she could get a living permit.

One day she started leveling the front yard (which was very uneven, packed-down dirt). She was wittling away at the dirt with a cleaver. Yes, a kitchen knife. She worked for hours on the yard, every day after work.

After a number of days at this, a friendly passer-by suggested she rent a rototiller to do the job properly. She accepted his advice and continued to chip away with the cleaver. He stopped by again a week later and reiterated his suggestion. She thanked him and continued chopping dirt.

(Common sense eventually kicked in and she rented that rototiller.)

Creative Tool Usage #2 — A cleaver (and a little time) can level mountains.

An interesting analysis of modern day anti-semitism.

Ron (who still doesn’t have a blog) and I went shooting at Queen Elizabeth Park on Monday. Picture this:

The Bloedel Conservatory. Home of tropical plants and birds.

A close-up of the dome where you can see the trees straining to escape. One day that dome is just going to pop off.

The dome again, but with a funky B&W look.

Finally, there were lots of flowers and a few bees.

Hey, business people!  If you offer an email contact address on your web site, you should actually respond to emails from your customers.

That means you, Kerrisdale Cameras (no response to a simple question after  4 days).

I think I have the makings of a series of posts here. Our next door neighbor has to be one of the most “creative” tool users I’ve ever seen.

For example, just today I saw her attempting to open a paint can with a gardening spade. She went around and around, trying to get the shovel under the lid’s lip. It eventually worked.

Creative Tool Usage #1 — In the event you don’t have a screwdriver, open paint cans with a spade.

(This one is nothing.  Stay tuned as we crank creativity up a notch!)

I just applied for a new Canadian passport and was in and out of the local passport office in 35 minutes. Really!

Here’s the trick: fill out your application online. Online applicants get preferential treatment and I only had to wait about 5 minutes after I had registered (that line took 15 minutes). I felt bad for all those people that were waiting the whole time I was there. Actually, I didn’t.

Why are online treated differently? As the officer that helped me succinctly put it, “We’re not data entry people. Our primary job is security.”

Note that the online application only works in Internet Explorer on Windows and the whole registration and application is a little clunky, but it’s worth it.

We’re returning from California tomorrow.  We were on vacation, supposedly, but the horrendous heat (causing over 100 deaths) and dealing with my wife’s grandfather’s continuing health problems really sapped that relaxing feeling.

I am so looking forward to the 20 degree temperatures at home!

I just finished one of the best science fiction books I’ve read in a long time, reminding me what an incredible author Dan Simmons is. Ilium is one of those books you can’t put down yet hate turning each page because it takes you closer to the end (but, luckily, there is a sequel — Olympus). It’s an intelligently written book set in the future and the past with characters from Homer’s Iliad and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. If you’re familiar with either of those works, you’ll probably enjoy the book more than I did (being semi-literate, I haven’t read Homer or much Shakespeare ). Simmons also keeps three parallel threads going through the novel — a technique that I particularly like.

I first read Dan Simmons’ Phases of Gravity about an ex-astronaut struggling for meaning in his life ever since walking on the moon. I barely remember it, but now I want to read it again.

It’s not often that software has this kind of power over me, but Outlook really makes me feel stupid sometimes.

My wife and I share an email account. We have this unwritten protocol where one of us might reply to an email and leave the original one in the InBox for the other’s information. Outlook screws up this workflow because of a small bug.

My wife likes to open emails in a separate window and then reply from there. She often leaves the email window open. What happens then or, rather, what doesn’t happen then is Outlook doesn’t update the email shown in the InBox with the new status. In other words, the email in the main Outlook window doesn’t get marked with the “Replied” graphic until the email window is closed. When I come and look at the email, it looks like no reply has been sent.

Naturally, I reply.

If my wife and I said the same thing, I feel mildly stupid. But, if we say contradictory things, I feel like a complete idiot.

Thanks, Microsoft Outlook!