Where Did It All Go Wrong?

I actually wrote this a few days ago but I am posting it now.

Hello from somewhere between Salt Lake City and Philadelphia. I am typing this entry on the plane since thanks to my crappy Windows installer, I have newly installed DVD player software that didn’t bother to install the DVD decoder so therefore I cannot watch any DVDs on my laptop. I didn’t discover this until about 35,000 feet in the air hence making downloading a decoder impossible. But it has been a while since I last wrote, so I guess I should be giving an update on what has been happening. I’ll be uploading this entry to my blog when I get on the ground. The reason I am on the plane is that I am conducting some field studies in Utah and Pennsylvania. Which leads to me my first update:

Work has been a struggle this past month or so. Mainly because the super-duper project that I am on has decided to make life much harder. Quite honestly, I don’t care for how the project is being managed, which to me seems not at all. Case in point, I went to New York last week for what I thought would be all-day meetings only to discover that I was there for one meeting, that lasted approximately 70 minutes. Plus an particular engineer (btw, the vast majority of engineers that I have worked with are cool) has been more than a minor irritant because of his unyielding belief that the way you make a quality UI is to apparently release it fast as possible without getting any usability input. And apparently anything to the contrary makes me an enemy of engineering in his mind. You see, I have been accused of not being able to take criticism. I think I have improved over the years. But I guess I made the realization that I can’t take criticism from people who know jack shit about what they are talking about (essentially people like Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter). For example, I am pretty sure Steve Nash could care less of what I thought of his deficiencies in his basketball game were. Seeing that I am a terrible basketball player, I am not surprised say someone like Steve Nash, or a college player or a high school player or hell even someone who regular plays pick-up games would probably disregard my criticism and give it the low level of respect it deserves. Needless to say when I get criticized about user experience by people who have little or no background in it, it annoys me.

But enough griping about work, what else is going on? Weekend before last, I went to Tahoe with CWP$, DJ, Shannon, Doris, Jen, Joe, Amy, Jeff, Phill, Percy, Chris and a few other people I can’t remember off the top of my head. Again, we did a mountain biking trip, except this time at NorthStar. Actually, it wasn’t as much mountain biking as careening down a trail at fantastically dangerous speeds on a mountain bike. It was quite fun and this year I didn’t take a spill like last year. The weekend before that, Vishnu was back into town for one of this very little prior notice visits. We went to dinner and then to a club called Suede, which I recall going to except I cannot recall when nor who I was there with. But I remember going. It was one of those Asian club party thingys for someone’s birthday who I didn’t know who Cheng isn’t I did know until he realized it was not the person he thought it was. In other news, all of you who were interested in the “date” I went on from the last entry can stop holding your breath as in there are no more dates to report on. Ida says its my negativity that turns people off. I don’t know about that. Would people rather date assholes who are positive all the time. “Hey girl, I just cheated on you with your best friend but we’re definitely still on for dinner on Saturday night!” Its beyond me and I suppose will still be beyond me for quite a while.

Finally in noteworthy news, this August marks the seventh (7th) year I have been blogging. Which is quite an accomplishment. I no longer blog as frequently as I used to. However, it is nice to be part of a semi-exclusive club. I don’t think many people can say they have blogged continuously for seven years. I looked back on some things I wrote and I have to admit some of it comes off as really uninformed, way overdramatic, and some of it is just plain stupid. But it is seven years worth of stuff that I have written for mostly my own consumption but also the select few of you who bother to check-in on me over the years. So thanks for reading. And probably in the next seven years I will go to write even more uninformed, melodramatic, and narcastically stupid things with hopefully a few insights and witty observations interspersed in between.

Until next time, peace.

For all of those who are wondering, I am currently flying over somewhere in the United States which a few cities that have some lights. Looks kinda like that movie, Tron.