I Am Abstract

I never thought I’d ever want a Chevy, but this new Camaro is making me reconsider.

Stand Tall, Boys.

A co-worker and I were leaving the Triad Center today after the conclusion of a meeting. He was kind enough to offer me a ride over the the COB to my next appointment for which I was already late. We headed down the elevator to the parking garage, and upon disembarking, found a group of people standing around in the basement. One suited man turned to us and said quietly, “Stand tall, boys.” I was not sure what he was talking about, and was very curious as we turned the corner. There, standing in the midst of a group of people and telling a story of how someone had earned the name of “Bucket” was our Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson.

Wow.

I stopped in my tracks and gasped, “Oh my!” We stood there for a minute as he finished his story and after doing so he was whisked away by his security guards. I have pondered that chance meeting for the remainder of the day today, wondering what would have happened had I decided to walk to the COB. I probably never would have known he was even there. Even though I didn’t get to shake his hand or say anything to him, I felt his spirit the moment I turned the corner. I knew I was in the midst of the Prophet of God. I am really grateful to be working for the Church and downtown near all these great men. Are we sure we want to move our department to Riverton?

This Saturday proved that the builders of our home work REALLY fast. The finish carpenter has been busy inside the home adding door trim, closet shelving and other little things here and there. We will probably have paint next week and then the floor goes in. All laminate and tile…no carpets! Yay!!! The outside looked a lot better, too, since they finished the stucco and the trim. Just soffit and fascia left and the outside will be complete!

We have stucco…

So our visit the the future Moore houshold today revealed a stucco and brick exterior, an installed garage door and opener, a driveway, porch, sidewalks, all this lovely scaffolding that prevented our entrance. Oh well, there’s always next week! :)

It’s comin’ along.

The house is wrapped and ready for stucco and the sheet rock has been hung. Looks like we may be in by the end of July…fingers crossed!

A nightmare...

So I have officially been working as an Interaction Designer for just over a year. And the night before last it showed, as I had a terrible nightmare about my profession.

I dreamed that I was tasked with designing an interface for some DJ mixing software. I was so excited, as I had several opportunities to DJ dances when I was younger (two turntables and a microphone, baby!) and have a tremendous passion for music.

I jumped at the chance. I spent time talking with users, the stakeholders, my dev team, and together we turned out an incredible product. It was beautiful and (so I thought) highly usable for something so complicated. We were invited to the launch party; a huge dance for about 500 young adults. I was so psyched to see my baby in action. A prominent local DJ was hired to emcee and run the board.

As he started up the computers, the crowd waited with anticipation to see how he would kick off the event. Suddenly, he put his headphones down and began to walk over to me. My heart jumped…what was wrong? He sidled up to me and said casually, “I can’t use the software. There is no ‘Cancel Track’ button.”

“Cancel Track?” I said to him. He explained to me what the button did, and it was so obvious* that I almost threw up. How could we have missed that? The event was cancelled on the spot and I had to hang my head in shame as the party attendees jeered at me on the way out. All of them. It was humiliating.

Then I woke up.

I spent today thinking about the situation, realizing that I am working on a project right now that is just as complicated. Something very similar could happen, as we are constantly learning about the process and requirements of the business and the application. I hope that I have covered my bases and we can ship something that is usable out of the gate. I know that we will have opportunites to improve it over the next couple of years, but the dream left an indellible impression on me to always pay attention to every detail.

* I have no idea what the “Cancel Track” button was supposed to do, but in my dream it made perfect sense.

And then there was a house.

So, a few weeks ago, we had a simple foundation. They sure worked quickly to get us a fully framed, HVAC installed, plumbed, and windowed home. I know that this is probably where it will slow down as they do electrical, sheetrock, and all the finish work. We hope to be in by the end of August as Cali starts Kindergarten only a few miles away. If they don’t finish by then, we will be forced to embark on a daily 90-mile round trip with gas at four bucks a gallon. Yuck.

Lowrider

I have seen a lot of fashion trends come and go and am generally pretty neutral towards them all. But lately, the one I just can’t seem to understand is the “pants hanging down south with underwear sticking out” trend. I mean, c’mon people, what is so cool about walking around like you’re wearing leg braces so that you can keep your jeans from falling to the ground? And the fact that most of the perpetrators of this “fashion don’t” actually wear a belt with their saggy-baggy trousers really puzzles me. I guess I am beginning to show my age, huh.

Goodbye, Twitter!

After several days of bugs, downtime, and general goofy behavior, I have decided to delete my Twitter account. Never mind that it was a colossal time-waster…I can keep the same stuff going on here. Maybe that will be incentive to post more here. Except no one reads this…

We now have a foundation where there was most recently just a hole.

This is beginning to get exciting. Except, we are not going to celebrate until we have the keys in hand and are stepping across the finished threshold.