Blogging since 1998. By David Wertheimer

Month: January 2009 (Page 1 of 2)

Under construction

I’ve been twiddling with the Ideapad’s sidebar to make it more intuitive and useful. Outbound links are now organized by function: written, fed, and connected, more or less. Timely Demise now has a home over there, where it belongs. (TD is turning into a great little blog, too; I encourage you to visit.)
Next up is a long-contemplated overhaul of the home page, which will probably resemble the Ideapad sidebar, since the themes of this era are connectedness and, er, publishing in six or seven different places. At least they’ll be easy to find.

links for 2009-01-28

But Cape May is kind of pretty! Honest!

I’m leading a project at work that has in it, among other things, teenagers talking about proms. (It launches next week–stay tuned is now live, take a look.) One of them wrote up a little ditty on Seaside Heights, where, nearly two decades ago, I too spent my after-prom.
Apparently Seaside is still the dirty, low-budget youth destination it always was, fully worthy of the “Sleaze-side” nickname it had in the 1980s, as are its neighboring towns. Some things never change.
Which led to this exchange with my colleague Jim:
wertheimerdavid: the Seaside post completely mirrors my prom weekend experience
jim: hehe
jim: times don’t change
wertheimerdavid: nor does Seaside
jim: i was down there once
jim: point pleasant?
wertheimerdavid: yes that’s the nicer town next door
jim: that was nicer?

links for 2009-01-26

The fuckup

And so it came to pass that I found myself in Miami Beach, with the rest of my company’s senior staff, a full day ahead of schedule.

You see, we’re at Internet Retailer’s Web Design ’09 conference. IR had asked us to give web design consultations–we are among two dozen organizations selected and vetted by the conference as worthwhile partners.

The way the conference agenda is laid out is as follows:

Monday–Design and Usability Consultations
Tuesday–Main Conference – General Sessions
Wednesday–Main Conference – General Sessions
Thursday–Post-Conference Workshop: Case Studies and Critiques

And as part of the line items on Tuesday and Wednesday, the agenda says the following:

9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Web Consultations (concurrently)

What I assumed, and what I failed to clarify, and what the conference never elucidated, and what was in the consultation appointment spreadsheet but glossed over by me repeatedly, was the fact that Alexander Interactive is part of the (concurrently) and not the Monday. Which turned out to be quite a discovery at 9:00 this morning, when we were rendered temporarily useless.

So here I am at the swanky new Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, thoroughly annoyed and self-critical, while my colleagues are off visiting grandparents, fighting colds and otherwise missing in (in)action, all of us frustrated–pretty much at me–while I spin and hope the perfect Miami weather can make up for a lost day.

I have this incredible urge to say, “It could be worse. It could be raining,” but something tells me I’d better not.

The year in cities 2008

Fourth annual! Here’s where I’ve stayed the past 12 months. As expected, it’s a very short list, thanks to the little guy, although we did manage to get out of the country (sort of). This list would be a lot longer if it included day trips. Cities with multiple visits are denoted with an asterisk as usual.
New York, NY * (home base)
Miami, FL
Livingston, NJ *
New City, NY *
St. John, USVI
St. Thomas, USVI
San Francisco, CA
Beach Haven, NJ
Palm Beach Gardens, FL
The coming year is shaping up to be more robust for travel, what with two business conferences already committed and a probable return to the annual Massachusetts trip. Nathan proved himself an excellent airline traveler this week, so he’ll be learning to pack his bags sooner than later.

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