Moving - Home Sweet Home

Well, this is it, finally. Pictures of my place. I’ve been meaning to get these pictures posted for a while now, but life has just been too busy.

Here we go. First off, a couple shots of Frenchtown. This is my street. Hover over the pictures to read an explanation of what you are looking at:





Now for a look at the outside of my building:









Now, inside my apartment. These photos were shot at night, and some are a little out of focus, but they give you the general idea. Have a look:























And finally, a view of the dinning area and bookshelf off of the living room area from my bedroom loft.

Moving - Almost Home

Almost to my new home. As I neared the boarder of Pennsylvania and New Jersey the mountains change a bit. Rather than riding this rollercoaster of a hill, the roads are carved into the sides of these monstrously sized mountains. It is absolutely beautiful.




I am not sure if it is a combination of temperatures, river moisture or elevation, or all of the above, but as you can see here, there is a cloudy mist floating right at the top of the edge of the mountain that holds the road we were on. This is a fairly amazing view in real life (pictures just can’t quite capture it.)



We are heading into the Lehigh Valley here which is where the road carves directly through the mountain and at this point it is most appropriate to play the Billy Joel song Allenton, since Allentown, PA, is just down the road (which we drove through.)
A short time later we arrived. We met up with my cousins wife, Lisa, in a town called Quakertown, where she lead us through a canopy of beautiful tree laden roads. From here we were soon across the Delaware River and pretty much into Frenchtown (my new home.)



I am amassing photos of Frenchtown and some of the surrounding community, but for now I will show you a few photos from day two in the apartment. Day one in the apartment was impossible. We arrive late in the day, and exhausted, we took naps. After that my cousin and his wife and child wanted to go have dinner at a local restaurant and then we headed over to the new apartment to unload the truck. This became a fiasco.



I should mention that I rented the apartment have never visited it. Lisa visited it for me and took a metric ton of pictures and based on those amazing photos I rented the place. What you do not get from the photos is the fact that the apartment is I the loft of a three story building made of very tall stairs. After two waves of generous friends assisting in the move (even after it had started to rain) into the apartment, my new place was packed like a storage unit. There we not a single ounce of floor space to be found. I began to get worried that I would have to start holding yard sales in my apartment to pear it all down.





Eventually it all fit, but here are the photos of a slightly more sorted apartment on day two and the view out of one window in the apartment. In the coming days I will show some photos of the apartment from the outside to put it in perspective and then show how the apartment looks today. I can honestly say that I am loving every minute of it (except the small cold I am fighting off at the moment.)

Moving - Across the Country (or at least across half of it)

Driving out of Illinois had it’s own little twist.



Just outside of Chicago not long after the town of Gary, Indiana you will find a crisscrossing of highways. There amidst road construction 80, 90 and 94 cross each other is subtle and significant ways. I figured this out at around 9:00am when suddenly while the roads were lined with distracting trees changing colors all around me a sign telling me that I should feel welcomed to Michigan hinted to me that I was not on highway 80.


We (me and my father, who was riding along) stopped off at the “welcome” center where they had small maps that outlined exactly how I missed the connection and how to backtrack. Amazing how money is invested in these little maps to give to unexpected visitors, but not on better road signage.





Back on the road we proceeded through Indiana and Ohio. By early Indiana we were ready for some breakfast, but wanting to “make time” we grabbed food to go and hit the road again.



By mid Indiana I had been awake for about 30 hours with a 2 hour nap (I am calling the sleep on Wednesday night a nap at this point, because I was completely exhausted!) A few more hours of napping and I was ready for the road again (my father drove for a number of hours to accommodate.)

Ohio in the fall is beautiful but surprisingly wide (you might not realize that by looking at a map.)

By the time we hit the edge of Pennsylvania on Thursday evening, we were both ready to call it a day. Here is the thing about Western Pennsylvania. It is hilly.



And it is also very beautiful and when you first cross the boarder, there are a ton of places to stop and catch a nice hotel. Have you ever been out West in the United States? You know how they have those signs telling you that it’s the last stop for automobile fuel in hundreds of miles and if you don’t stop now you will be using the name of the state as a swearword in a few hours? Well, Western Pennsylvania should do the same thing about hotels.



Well on into the dark we drove looking for a hotel and a number of times we talked about turning back, but after an hour of driving it feels like such a waste to do that. At about two hours of driving, you really want to turn back but you know it is a complete waste of gas and time.



Finally, we came to this Oasis of a community where we found a Super 8 motel.



Outside of being a very welcomed hotel experience, I found two things worth mentioning. One, it was around Halloween and so notice the ornamentation on the door picture below. “Stay Out” exclaims the message. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I would put up holiday messages that invite people to not enter your business. Hello!?



The second interesting thing was the supposed apartment. At first I wasn’t sure if it was an apartment but then I noticed the little garden associated with it. Interesting. It is stuff like this that makes me want to know the back story.




We got up early (before the sun) and hit the road again. I am really glad I drove this, at this point. How often do you get the time to listen to good music and chat with your father about a million things as an adult? Trust me. It doesn’t happen and I am thankful for that opportunity.

Moving - Leaving Wisconsin

Leaving Wisconsin! While these first photos don’t do the packing job justice, the scattered items that are not yet in boxes in these two photos feels reminiscent of the way the back of the truck looked once I closed the door for the big ride. My Wisconsin apartment had (1) a bedroom, (2), two bathrooms, (3) living room, (4) eat-in kitchen, and (5) two walk in closets. Not to mention, I had an indoor parking spot which had a few large items in it and a secured locker in the basement of the apartment. All in all, you could say I had a lot of crap and you would say right!


I finished my last day on the job at Air Wisconsin on a Wednesday and that night a bunch of Air Wisconsin and Experimental Aircraft Association folks showed up to help me load up the truck. While I am incredibly appreciative of everyone’s help, I have to give a “shout out” to my homie Ryan who loaded up the heaviest full-sized Rubbermaid boxes (easily a dozen) before anyone else even showed up! Thanks Ryan!



After packing we went over to Boston’s for some excellent pizza and beer(s) for a little chill time. About two hours later the apartment was all clean and I headed for my dad’s place in Neenah (from my apartment in Appleton.) The truck was a 14 foot truck which pulled a flatbed with my jeep on it.

At 3:00AM we got up and hit the road. The goal was to make it through both Milwaukee and Chicago without hitting any impossible morning traffic. Mind you, I just finished my last day on the job on Wednesday, the truck was loaded up on that Wednesday night, and we are now on the road at 3am. Can you say tiring? I had to remind myself a number of times that I was young and able to do this.

Take a look at a few early morning Chicago pictures on the way out of the area. Good bye Chicago,… here we come New York and Phili!

Moving - Introduction

Well, as promised I am finally starting to blog about the move. I had a few interesting suggestions about stopping and taking pictures of myself next to “welcome to” state signs and blogging about certain details, but the fact is that I wanted to make time and pull it off in the least amount of days possible.

First and foremost you have to know the distances involved. America is big and equally so, half of America, Mid West to East is still big. By the map below, it takes about 14 hours to make this trip. Now, imagine pulling a jeep in a loaded truck full of everything you own in your life.

One of my favorite features of the location of my new home will be its proximity to Philadelphia and New York. By the map below you can see that I am about an hour outside of both New York City and Philly, which is very exciting to me. Some of my favorite TV shows and films are/were made in the area, or pretend to be ( CSI-New York, Law and Order, Die Hard 3, You’ve Got Mail, Sixth Sense, The Village, Lady in the Water, the Rocky movies, and the TV show “House.”) Notice just above Trenton on the map below is “Princeton” which is just a few minutes from where I work.

The next blog entry will definitely include stories and photos from the move, pics of my new place and the town I live in, and the amazing drive to work I “endure” every day (incredibly inspirational view and I get to take it in every morning.)

The Cost of Doing Business (formally or informally)

A lot of deals go south these days between people trying to do business with each other and someone recently asked me if there was a new norm for dealing with people who seem to be acting flaky with regard to a perceived deal. I think a lot is at play and some of it is the current state of affairs.

I think the game is changing a little but I think the change is that people are becoming keenly aware of the already established sets of rules about how it works. A lot of times we can dodge the formality of the rules, but that is the exception to the rule these days and hardly ever the rule itself. Back in the day we could depend on perceived intent. That is no longer a reasonable expectation.

The "rules" in my opinion are established around the ideas of legal partnership, contract law and legally defendable intellectual property. This doesn't mean that we have to run off and only work alongside of people where we have established a legal partnership and a defendable boundary and agreed relationship about intellectual property or a written contract. I think what it means is that we have to understand what those legal boundaries actually are, in all three cases, and each time we get into a situation where we are operating with respect to a perceived partnership, a social contract or intellectual property, both parties should understand and set expectations - at least verbally. This is the old law and the new norm: if no expectations are verbalized, then the assumption is the boundaries established in the law, forget handshakes or unspoken intent or "a good vibe." If someone wants to walk away, then the law establishes their right as well as the expectation to do so. Any other expectation assumed is only personal and not considered a social contract, defendable intellectual property or a partnership.

Having said all of that, when I was working with one company not long ago we brought a group from Madison up to work on a project with us. They were simply going to finish the project. Once we hired them it seemed that they were unable to do the work and needed us to show them how to do their job. I was put under pressure to teach them how to do it. I told my company that what we did (our implementation) should be considered intellectual property and if they said they could do it but brought nothing to the table outside of interest, then they were actually in breach, not us. The vendor preemptively fired us (which was funny, since they were the ones getting paid.) Here is my rule of thumb on this stuff:

1. Is the partnership established or am I still pitching?
   If we are still dreaming and not working on a work order, then I am still selling and not partnering.
2. What do they/are they bringing to the table?
   If we are still talking about ideas and not implementations, then I am still selling. If they are discussing more than project ideas, then I should be past selling and working to establish a contract.
3. What do I/ am I bringing to the table? If I think we are in a partnership and we both understand the ideas at hand, but I am already hashing out implementation ideas, but without a contract, I might do better to switch back to establishing a contract. Otherwise, they could take what I have said and go with some other vendor (who is cheaper/crappier?) and the law would absolutely defend their right to do so (and I would feel like they were violating some unspoken social contract, partnership and/or my intellectual property - and I would be to blame for that; I would have decided to assume the risk.)

Put the "golden rule" into action: Proactively establish reasonable and understood boundaries in partnership, contracts and intellectual property, as you would have someone do with you (and if you do not have that, then you shouldn't expect people to act as if you do.)

I think I like the idea that people could just let their "yes" be yes and their "no" be no, when it comes to talking about doing business with you. But I think that is what a contract actually does for people and anything short of that is OK to get excited about, but not go put money down on a new swimming pool with regard to it. We are working with the world and just because I said "iguana-flavored popsicles" out loud first doesn't mean they weren't thinking the same thing and now violating my intellectual property (that is a common misunderstanding of intellectual property rules.)

I also think stuff doesn't work out all of the time, the law defends their right (my right as well) to decide that, and I also reserve the right to simply be disappointed about it. I think that is OK. But in short, I think a familiarity of the law with regard to legal partnership, contract law and rules about defendable intellectual property are worthy of reading and letting those realities establish the boundaries of expectation in me. I think that we can reserve the right to convince people of more informal contracts and expectations, but they reserve the right to disagree (and likely would.) But I think it is OK to be disappointed about that.

Check out Wikipedia (for a free starter resource and I am likely preaching to the chior here):

Contract law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract
(as well, check out http://www.cei.org/sections/subsection.cfm?section=43 )
Intellectual property: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
Partnership: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_partnership

If someone isn't at the point of establishing any of the above three expectations, and something doesn't work out, it is OK to be disappointed, but their expectations and communication skills should be adjusted to establish this stuff (at least verbally) earlier in the process. Heaven forbid, if you are operating as if these things are established (especially in terms of intellectual property), stop right now and fix what's clearly broken.

You need to do this to be fair with yourself and the ones with which you are working!

Usability is the new Aesthetic

As someone who is regularly employed to "build" the functionality of stuff on the web, I am faced with a number of variations on the typical requirements specification. From a large folder filled with interrelated documents outlining every nook and crany of the project, to a loosely coupled set of semi-formal "conversations" about the "needs" of a project, it is clear and obvious that people are regularly and comfortably opperating at a number of levels with regard to the idea of defining work. The amazing thing is that no matter hwo much detail you get from people, a little or a lot, there is one thing people battle with in a project: it is not so much "what" the solution does, but "how" the solution does it. I can sum that up in the key phrase that we all often hear, "I get how that works, but I don't know that my customers will."

So we ebb and flow with the project sponsor and try to churn out the best match to their somewhat vague comments that we can excavate from the brains of those involved, to get the very best usability that we can with regard to the requirements that rightly constrain us. The sad reality is, outside of marketing projects, that businesses don't want to invest in Usability the same way they typically don't want to invest in aesthetics.

"You don't have to make it look pretty. Just make it work."

The truth is that once you get it to work in the most raw sense, people begin to battle with the efficiency and intuitiveness of the workflow involved in the functionally accurate process, and then usability and aesthetics suddenly become an issue. The project manager is fairly behind in the project management schedule and so they toss in the trusty opinion "You don't have to make it look pretty. Just make it work." But the truth about pretty is that while their isn't a definitively positive correlation between aesthetics and usability, the point at which something beautiful becomes a sumbling block to usability is much higher than many will be willing to imagine investing in. The fact is, there is a positive correlation between "pretty" and "pleasant," and pleasant is a close cousin of "natural" if not "intuitive" (if done well) and so we find we are not far from "usable."

The issue is not that "usability," "Aesthetics," or a "refined workflow" are waisted effort or a tack onto a project that can create a savings in the cost of the work if left out. Rather, ignoring those things typically means a reduction of effiency and productivity. We are really facing a mis-management issue when those important things are left from the project. Think about how car manufacturers would collapse if the people designing the engines built them as functional as they could, per the requirement, in their "engine design project" but those engines would not fit into the cars they were designed for? We would still be spending a majority of our time on horses.

So the next time you are faced with planning a project for the web or a traditional desktop app, be sure and factor in time to define the user experience, because the industry doesn't support making time for it later.