Somehow, in my internet-soaked life, I have managed to miss finding this website until tonight.

A must-read.

The following quote was taken from an India Times article I found referenced on Metacool. I totally agree that the experience you provide to your customer, client or user is sometimes more important than the service you actually provide. In this competitive world it is not hard for others to catch up to whatever “innovation” you might have “discovered”. In fact, they can probably do it better. Design of the product, customer service apparatus, support structure, internal design and programming teams and so on, need to be fostered in a creative and free environment. I feel that being in a prototype stage where you are not afraid to engage your customers to learn what new things you can add or create or, better yet, how you can improve your product or service based on their experience. We can look at Apple, Google, Dell and others that are design innovators in overall experience.

Nonetheless food for thought…

Sutton says that the prototyping process is inherently design thinking. Once a promising idea has been spotted, one can build on it by a drawing, model or film that describes a product, system or service. These models need not be perfect, as the goal is to elicit feedback, and then rebuild. That’’s exactly how product design takes place and how organizations, too, can develop their strategy. When one rapidly prototypes, one is actually beginning to build the strategy. Organizations can then unlock one of their most valuable assets — people’’s intuitions.
Says Sutton, ““Design thinking is one of enlightened trial and error wherein one observes the world, identifies the patternsbehavioriour, generates ideas, gets feedback, repeats the process, and keeps on refining.”” — excerpt from India Times

Till next time, stay good.

There seem to be some bugs in the system. Until I figure it out I’m not going to try editing the last post. Every time I try to fix it it seems to get more messy.

Clearly… the opossums have inflitrated the system…

Peace.

Problem Fixed!

And the moral of the story is… Microsoft Word sucks hard with tongue of yak… and don’t even get me started about the pillow talk!

Peace.

Time to Raise Virginia’s Gas Tax and Amend the Va Constitution

It is time to raise Virginia’s gas tax. We face a crisis in transportation in Virginia that threatens the economic vitality of the Commonwealth. The gas tax which is a fixed amount should be adjusted for inflation to the level that would put it back to where it was in the early 1970’s. This would free up enough funds to fix many of the pressing problems and maybe start some pre-emptive planning to prevent new ones. The only restriction that needs to be put place is an amendment to the Virginia Constitution to restrict the use of these funds to transportation projects whether road, rail, air or sea. The General Assembly and the governor have in the past proved themselves too eager to raid the trust funds when it keeps them from making tough choices. All the past robbing of Peter to pay Paul has done is to push the pain elsewhere and moved the tough choice into the future. If the politicians are kept from raiding the candy store then the transportation problem may be solved in the near future.

Okay… so I’ve returned from the hideously ugly state of Texas and am now back at work… finally! I did have a wonderful time… but I love Virginia!!!! CMT is definitely guilty of mis-leading this girl over the past few years. This is about as much of a cowboy as I found down there…

What sucks is that my luggage actually did more traveling than me since United Air decided that it should switch tags with another bag in Dallas. So it ended up in Denver, Colorado and someone else’s bag was delivered to my house!!! You would think that the airline would get all this straightened out but no, it was me. Being the stealth 007 agent that I am (riiiiiggghhhht) I did a reverse phone look up for the number on the suit case and called it… but no answer. So then I did a neighborhood search of the number on the suitcase and called the next door neighbor who just happened to know where their neighbor had gone and gave me the number. I called that number and found the owner of the bag on my patio and successfully located my bag… in Colorado!!! After doing the airlines job I called United and let them know where my bag was and to please have the correct bags delivered. Pretty easy, eh? Apparently not… they couldn’t even locate my bag after picking it up from Colorado until Friday evening… I had called and told them where it was Thursday morning! Morons. Frigg’n morons.

Anywho… so I will be 25 years young in January and Ginny and I have decided to rock Cancun like no other. I turn 25 on the 25th and then we fly to Cancun on the 26th for 4 days and 3 nights. Can you say “STOKED”?!?!?! Because that’s what I am!!!!

Must get back to work now… haven’t been here for two weeks so I really shouldn’t be blogging right now… Toodles!

merry christmas everyone. if you don’t celebrate, well then happy holidays with a leaning towards whatever holiday you do celebrate. i’ll keep it brief because i have a lot of stuff to do this next week. so be careful, stay warm, drive safe, drink your milk and all that jazz.

^_^

Vote at Photo Friday.

(click to enlarge)

On behalf of WillowTree Interactive, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! We hope you all have a safe and enjoyable holiday season with your families and friend and get all you wished for.

It is hard to believe that 2005 is almost done. It seems like yesterday we were just getting started with our little office trying to build a software company. Amazing to see how fast time flies. Let’s enjoy it while we can and let’s also make 2006 an even better time.

Till next time, stay good.

If you like stories where you're rooting for the underdog, you've got to check out Ball Don't Lie by new author Matt de la Peña. Sticky Reichard is a phenomenal basketball player, and he's become that way because he works harder and longer than anybody else. But basketball is about the only thing he's got going for him. He's lived in four foster homes over the years, which means he's been kicked out of three of them. And he's never done well in school, just well enough to stay on the team. He's a skinny poor kid in a dangerous world, and as we get to know him, the tension in his life is all building up to a single critical decision. What will he decide? Can Sticky make it in a world where everyone and everything seems pitted against him? Even if you don't usually like sports fiction, read this book for Sticky's powerful story, and if you do like sports, the great basketball action is an added plus! Have you read this book? Let me know what you think by adding a comment!

Democracy to Dictatorship in 5 years or less…

Charlottesville, Virginia
December 19, 2005

Brothers, Sisters, Citizens, Comrades!
    I think by now that my thoughts on freedom, democracy, respect for individual liberty and the inherent, inalienable rights of all people, not just those lucky enough to be born in our great country would be plain for all who are regular readers of this blog (all 2 of them). Alas, the news that the continuing criminal enterprise that constitutes the administration of George W. Bush has engaged in blatantly illegal domestic spying on our own citizens comes simultaneously as no great revelation and yet another outrage against our constitutional form of government.  It’s not enough that George II conducts illegal wars of aggression dressed up in the language of democracy and liberation, or that he bankrupts our country at the expense of his rich buddies, or that his environmental policies will make the planet an unlivable place to live for our children and generations to follow. No, apparently that is not enough. It’s not enough that “terror suspects” are captured off the streets of other sovereign nations, and sent to secret prisons to be mercilessly tortured (is there any other kind?), whether or not they actually had anything to do with terrorism or even have committed any crime at all.
     No, now it appears that we are living in a dictatorship, where the actions of the political elite are now considered above the law. I am not sure which is worse: The cheap political hacks that are running this country into the ground, or the mainstream media that eagerly does its bidding. My outrage and indignation at the level of incompetence, mediocrity and outright lies of the current administration is matched only by my disgust of the whores of the media-industrial complex, all too eager to please the powers that be for “access” to the highest levels of idiocy that now constitutes our federal government.  How could such a state of affairs exist in our once grand democratic republic?
     Now comes the news that our own government is now spying on us based on not on the legal findings of a judge (as set forth in a rather quaint document called The Bill of Rights) but on the capriciousness and whims of one man. And a rather stupid one at that. To those who say that we should let the president do what he thinks best in the “Global War on Terror,” my response is, would you feel the same way if Bill Clinton (or, God forbid, perhaps even Hillary someday) decided to engage in the same type of criminal behavior? Why, the pundits and pinheads at Fox News, Newsmax, Free Republic , The Wall Street Journal and others of their ilk would fall into fits of apoplexy of such anger and derision as to require the administration of large amounts of tranquilizers, administered at short range with a dart gun, to prevent the amassed  blowhards of various stripes from running amok in the streets, spewing out their collective hot breathed rantings at the blatantly illegal and unconstitutional acts of the Commander in Chief.
  I pulled the following article off the MSNBC/Newsweek website. I think it speaks for itself:
BUSH’S SNOOPGATE
Dec. 19, 2005 - Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.
The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.
No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law (emphasis mine…SKDRED) and the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.
What is especially perplexing about this story is that the 1978 law set up a special court to approve eavesdropping in hours, even minutes, if necessary. In fact, the law allows the government to eavesdrop on its own, then retroactively justify it to the court, essentially obtaining a warrant after the fact. Since 1979, the FISA court has approved tens of thousands of eavesdropping requests and rejected only four. There was no indication the existing system was slow—as the president seemed to claim in his press conference—or in any way required extra-constitutional action.
This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974.
In the meantime, it is unlikely that Bush will echo President Kennedy in 1961. After JFK managed to tone down a New York Times story by Tad Szulc on the Bay of Pigs invasion, he confided to Times editor Turner Catledge that he wished the paper had printed the whole story because it might have spared him such a stunning defeat in Cuba.
This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason—and less out of genuine concern about national security—that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc. Jonathan Alter, reporting

     So then. What is a patriot to do? Write my congressman? Pen a letter to the editor? Confront those in power and tell them to go to hell? Have a protest? Refuse to pay taxes? March on the White House leading an army of White Trash and Proud Negroes, Freaks, Geeks, Stoners, Nerds, Aging Hipsters, Angry Young Punks, Brothers, Sisters, Gay, Straight, Unaffiliated, armed with slingshots, baseball bats, motorcycle chains or perhaps shotguns loaded with rock salt and bacon fat, take over the reigns of our government and restore our once grand constitutional democracy by mob rule? What is the course that we must follow? Are we to let our great nation, founded by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison (fine Virginians and patriots all, despite their profound faults and prejudices), protected and defended at great cost in blood and treasure over the past 230 years, only to be turned into a parody of a brutish police state by a cheap, two-bit authoritarian regime, who’s efforts would be laughable if they weren’t all too real?
    Friends, I don’t know what the answers to these questions are. I think we are all going to have to look within ourselves and find our own course of action to take. But I want to end this short communiqué with a quote from another great American (and Virginian) Patrick Henry. “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

Your most humble servant,

Subkommander Dred

http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot?m=2374

If this isn’t one of the cutest pictures you’ve ever seen then I seriously recommend popping a couple happy pills and realizing that you and I will never see eye to eye…

If there was an award for procrastination I can assure everyone that it would be easily awarded to me and I would thank my friends, agents, attorneys, accountants and last, but not least, that darned social calendar of mine that usually seems to take precedence over things that just aren’t fun!!! I’m flying to Texas in less than 48 hours and I haven’t done anything to prepare for my trip. I don’t even know what I’m going to wear… big decision there!!!! I don’t even know where I’m staying… somewhere about 30 miles north of Dallas… uh, right. Is it the country or the city… warm or cold… metro or boon docks…? Anyways….

‘Tis the time of year of parties, socializing, egg nog, and apparently random trips to Texas that make it one of my busiest times of the year… outside of work… because real estate is slow as poop right now. However, one of the worst things that can possibly happen to the social butterfly that I am is to lose her phone!!! And yes, that happened to me. Over 120 people’s numbers in that thing and I manage to misplace it somewhere in a one block radius between Rapture and my car. I don’t care so much about the phone as I do about all of those numbers!!! Those were my social life life!!! I didn’t even know Ginny’s number… I had to call her salon and get it. That’s sad! What is worse is that now I have to answer all of my calls. I am a card carrying screener of phone calls. A good third of the people that are/were programmed into my phone were there for the sole purpose of giving me the opportunity to avoid talking to them. Yes… that isn’t very nice but at least I’m honest about the whole thing. I even broke it down for some dude (James?) at the bar the other night. I am finding it much easier to be honest with dudes and tell them that if I give them my number and they call me that I’m just going to turn around program their number in my phone so that I can avoid their calls from there on out. Wow… I’m evil. On the upside, I got to get the camera phone that I’ve been craving forever and a day… as you can see here is a picture of me at my office… I’m not to hard please!!!

Anyways… I must go to the post office and buy a butt load of stamps. Christmas Cards… need to send them out before I leave. Procrastination… should have done this last week.

i dont consider myself to be the most organized person to ever roam the earth (i suppose organized people dont really roam… i bet they stay settled, but i digress…) but i had my entire weekend planned as of about 2 weeks ago. plans quickly became unravelled (i also dont consider myself to be the best speller) but this past weekend ended up being pretty awesome.

i finaaaaaaaaaally got my new wheels and snow tires on, which tore up some of that icy weather we had last week. although my ordeal isnt done yet, i’ve received 9 wheels via UPS, returned 4 wrong ones, kept 4 correct ones (after receiving 3 which is as good as receiving none) and waiting on the last one to be picked up. the impact gun finally got delivered as well, just in time to change some wheels out and scratch the shit out of the new wheels. as for the miata, the driver’s side window is no longer working. the fuse is fine, the connections appear fine, so i really hope i dont need a new window motor. i didnt feel like playing with multimeters today though.

i also had my christmas party at my apartment last friday night, which is the only thing that went as planned. it was incredibly fun, but thats perhaps because i drank way too much red bull and vodka. i didnt get to talk to everyone i wanted to and as host, i probably shouldnt have gotten hammered, but damnit, i think everyone had a good time. brown honda sent me some certificate to pick up a free xmas tree which is fake and tiny, but still good enough to decorate with colored lights, red bull and beer cans and a corona huggie as the star. damn this is a classy apartment.

i got up saturday morning hungover as fuck to spend the day in richmond which turned out to be a good time. i was hungover most of the day and felt like crap and hadnt really planned on going to richmond, but it was worth it to put in some quality time.

happy birthday to all like 45 people i know with birthdays this week, including mom.

i’m just now realizing that a lot of my musings are more complaints. its like the c-ville rant line which by the way is filled with morons and i’m sure 90% of which are joke rants. atleast i hope they are cuz if not, this damn town is full of fucking morons. and yes, i understand the irony of my complaining about the complaints in the rant line. bah fuck this, i need to get my ass to bed.

ha!

Vote at Photo Friday.

(click to enlarge)

Interesting comments from Sun’s CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog. I am very curious as to what they are planning since it sounds like a new Sun offering which will be faster and cheaper than Dell or HP with an “open market for parts”!

A computer that runs five times faster than Dell and HP’s fastest Xeon systems. A computer that’s one quarter the size. That runs Solaris, and will run Linux and *BSD (and even Windows isn’t out of the question). Based on a 9.6 Ghz 8-core Niagara chip available in volume, and compatible with the $120 billion dollar SPARC installed base. A computer that runs the internet like it was purpose built for search, for voice over IP, for video streams and web services and database transactions.

I am not going to even try to speculate but this is interesting to read nonetheless.

Till next time, stay good.

I would imagine I probably wrote my first email back in 1995 or 1996. I can’t hardly believe that it has almost been 10 years since I first discovered the internet. Or is it the internet discovered me?

Nonetheless back when I was first emailing, chatting, usenet-ing and writing HTML pages for my band I never thought very much about the information I was putting out there. Now, I realize that the internet is truly a public forum and once you type anything into the keyboard it enter the virtual datastream. The information highway for those old enough to remember that one.

And so it begins. The pro’s to this datastream is the fact that anyone can become a star to thousands of people around the world with very little effort. It does not take a million dollars in advertising and PR campaigns to get your message out. Never has this been possible.

The con’s what you say can come back to haunt you. Take a look at Enron or Worldcom. I bet Lay never thought an email could help put him in jail!

So with all this information that may and can be related to you, your life, business, well being as well as your mortal existence, how do we sort it so we can understand it? It is no longer possible to simply “file” these into folders or bins. Or to even find them all to “file” in the first place.

Thank you Web 2.0. Are you the answer?

To be continued…