Heading to Los Angeles today for a convention. I’m just an attendee on this trip so it’s a low stress trip for me. That’s not to say it won’t be an interesting trip based on some of the people traveling on the plane with me today.
Here’s just one example of the strangeness that’s beginning. (they’re stretching.)
Posted from my iPhone.
Not to dwell on toilets here, but when I was renovating my bathroom I mentioned how the water saving dual flush toilets are so plentiful in Europe. While traveling to Barcelona last week I took the opportunity to document some of the toilets with this feature. (And no, I’m not in the habit of taking pictures of toilets).
While recently in Spain, the hotel where we were staying had terrible internet. Most of the problem, I think, was due to it’s provider as opposed to the hotel’s wireless network, as I always had strong signal. The issues were with the log in page and the pass codes.
This network seemed to be PC centric, so tended not to play well with those of us on Macs during this trip. The first issue was that Apple’s Safari browser would crash on start up while trying to connect to the network. I was able to use Safari after connecting using Firefox or Chrome, but it was still iffy. The network also wreaked havoc on my iPhone, cuasing some software to crash repeatedly until I turned off the wifi. Never had that happen before.
Anyway, the point here is that while using Firefox and (for a while) unable to start Safari I wanted to import my bookmarks. So I went to the Firefox help menu and attempted to follow the directions provided for importing. The screenshot below shows how far I got.
On the right is the Firefox browser showing the instructions for importing items. Their help document even circles the menu item I’m looking for (in case the blue highlight wasn’t enough). So I go to the menu displayed in their image, and in the Firefox drop down menu on the left you can see that this option does not exist. I did eventually discover how to import my bookmarks on my own, but suffice it to say that it was well hidden. Had the above document been correct, it may have earned the name “Help Document”.
Nothing quite like a quiet Sunday morning making pancakes with the kids, especially when they’re Star Wars pancakes.
Here are the molds being filled.
Golden!
Cuts like a knife.
Evil Empire on a plate.
Looks just like his actual face when you remove the mask.
Posted from my iPhone.
I’m in Barcelona, Spain this week working on a relatively small meeting. It’s a pretty simple job, but made more difficult due to slow communication from the hotel where we are holding the meeting.
As with all of the meetings I am responsible for, the first thing I do is go to the property website for where the meeting will be held. Most every hotel and meeting space these days has a page for floor plans & capacity charts, and this one was no different. What was different is that even with a web page titled FloorPlans & Capacity Chart, there were no floor plans. This isn’t necessarily a show stopper as most of the drawings available on line from hotels are wildly inaccurate – omitting columns, door locations, chandelier locations, etc – and I usually request better drawings from someone at the hotel who can provide me with more accurate information.
At the very least, even a poor drawing will give me some idea of what I am dealing with, but in this case all I had to go with was the dimensions listed on the capacity chart, 62 ft x 56 ft x 13 ft. That would be length, width and height. No idea where doors might be or what other obstructions may be in my way.
Twice I called the hotel and asked for some room drawings. The first time I called I was told that they don’t share the floor plans except with people who are contracted to hold a meeting there – which is pretty stupid because we can’t always tell if the space will work for us or not without a floor plan. I would be hesitant to commit to anything without getting some idea of the room. (Some of the meeting planners I work with are famous for sending me requests like “How many people can I fit in a room that’s 5,200 square feet?” Well that depends, are we talking about a square, a rectangle or a hallway?) I managed to convince them to agree to email me something, but after a few days went by with nothing from the hotel I tried calling again.
For two days I couldn’t get through, and then when I did I asked for their email so that I could send a request directly. (At this point I didn’t have a hotel contact, as my company hand’t actually signed a contract with the hotel, so no one was assigned to our meeting.) A few more days and a weekend went by and I called again and was told that they had my email, but where too busy with other clients to respond right away.
Then it turned out that files they were trying to send kept bouncing back to them so they had to save them in a different format. Two weeks before the actual meeting I finally get an email with about 11 attachments. We’re using most of the rooms for breakouts, but it is the large space I am mostly concerned with, so I go directly for that file and open it. Turns out that the image that was labeled as the large room was instead a floor plan for another floor in the hotel with six of the smaller rooms. Then I looked at another file that was sent, and it is the same image. Turns out all of the files were of the same thing, even though they were all named differently. Obviously they had some issues while trying to convert the original files.
Another weekend goes by, and then the Monday before I am scheduled to fly out I get a .doc file with an image of a CAD drawing pasted into it.
Obviously this is not your standard rectangular room. Now I have to figure out where the hotel got it’s dimensions that it posted online as it’s obviously not a simple rectangular room. To be fair, the hotel was conservative in it’s published dimensions, as it essentially listed the dimensions for the “square” section to the right of the drawing, but even those dimensions are off. This drawing I did makes the meeting space a little clearer. I took my own measurements of the dimensions once I arrived, so this is an accurate room drawing.
So now a week before flying out I have a real idea of what the room looks like and now I can begin laying out where staging, screens, audio, lighting, and seating will go and can let the meeting planner know how many people they can realistically expect to fit in the room. What a lot of people don’t take into account, especially when dealing with just the square footage, is the ceiling height. Sure, I might be able to fit 300 people in your room, but the ceiling height will only let me put in 7.5′ x 10′ screens, which means only the first 200 people will really be able to read the text on the screens – everyone in the back rows will be squinting and struggling to read the content.
So I sent my list of requirements and a floor plan of the set up I wanted to the hotel about 3 hours after getting their drawing. Now this was an amended list of AV requirements as I had sent a list the previous week so that the hotel could give their AV supplier an idea of what we would be needing and to make sure they had it available as we have a total of 17 breakout rooms in addition to the main meeting, each requiring basic AV gear. My amended list took into account the limitations of the actual room and scaled back some of the gear as final details where falling into place.
It was another two days before I heard back from the hotel, but only to find out that my email had been unread and I still had no idea what, if any, gear I would be getting. Finally, a week before the actual meeting I received a photo of the room (the first after many requests for one) from a previous set up to show what they were proposing to provide. I made a few adjustments to their proposal and told them to send me an updated list and price quote.
Finally, on the day I was flying out, I got a list confirming my gear request and an incomplete cost quote. A few more emails later to confirm that I would have at least one technician who spoke english and I was comfortable that I could pull this off.
Here is our finished set up, and it’s ok for what it is. Had we more time I would have done something different, but this is strictly a medical meeting, so it’s low on the glitz and flash that we provide for some sales meetings.
Ordinarily we contract with a different AV supplier while in Spain (Grup Jaume Muntaner who I’ve used before) but this was a short notice meeting and there would not have been time to get proper payment in place for an outside supplier, so the hotel’s provider was what we had to deal with. This is often not the best option for us as they usually don’t have the resources to support some of the larger shows we do, and often don’t have the skilled staff we need. Fortunately this group is pretty good, but because they are the hotel provider I had to go through the hotel for all communications instead of being able to go directly to the vendor. Had I been able to communicate directly with the AV supplier I probably would have had all of my stuff in place weeks before.
But it hasn’t been all bad. On my last trip to Barcelona my friend from Grup Jaume Muntaner told me about his favorite bar to go to, but he warned us to get there early.
This is the Cerveceria el Vaso de pro, roughly translated into Brewery of the Golden Glass. On that last trip we got there too late to get in the door (around 9pm), so we found another place for dinner, then came back later. We managed to squeeze in closer to midnight, ordered a beer and then watched them prepare some of the most amazing food that even after a large meal we had to order. We ended up closing the bar that night and enjoying some fantastic tapas.
You can see here how small this place is. The wall on the left is the outside wall shown in the previous photo and we were against the side wall.
We were determined to make this our first stop once we got settled in at the hotel, and it did not disappoint. One of my favorite items on their menu (besides the beer) is their Brave Potatoes, which are spicy potatoes.
Other places in Spain serve these, but about half the time it’s french fries with the spicy sauce, other times it’s a form of spicy ketchup. These are the best spicy potatoes I’ve had in Spain – they are wonderful. But we didn’t just have potatoes, we also had some other traditional tapas before leaving.
The only challenge to this place is that it’s a neighborhood bar a little off of the tourist path, so it doesn’t cater much to English speaking customers. They are very welcoming, though, even if we do have a hard time deciphering their menu.
About a year ago I read a blog about how to best manage time while working on ambitious projects or tasks. The entire article was interesting, but how the author defined Ambition has stuck with me. I can not remember what the blog is where I read it, which is why I can not provide a link to it, and which is why I am paraphrasing here, but essentially what the author wrote was that working on an ambitious project, by definition, means that we are working to the very limit of our current abilities. Over the past several months I have been working on multiple ambitious projects, both for work and personal interest, and it has prompted me to create the following graphic.
The inner circle represents what we Know. It’s our cumulative knowledge to date – our comfort zone. This Circle of Knowledge grows as we take on new tasks and duties in our life.
The outer, darker circle is the Unknown. These are things we have not done or tried before.
Then there’s the zone of Ambition. This is the edge of our abilities where we stretch our knowledge and skills by tackling new things. Every time we enter into this zone it results in our Circle of Knowledge expanding.
The interesting thing about this graphic is that it can apply to any part of one’s life. A baby who is learning to walk, a child starting at a new school, learning to drive, getting married, a new job – all of these things are new to us as we grow, and they’re all testing our abilities. These aren’t necessarily always Ambitious items, but they do grow our circle of knowledge. This graph also works on a smaller level, say someone who is learning how to use some new software, or creating new software. All of it pushes the limits of what we know.
An ambitious person will spend more time in that transitionary zone of Ambition, growing their circle of knowledge. I find that as the Known circle grows, the zone of Ambition is ever more challenging, thus requiring a greater ambition and effort to expand into the unknown.
Last week I wrote about how we were renovating our first floor bathroom, so I thought that I should write about the results and a couple of choices we made.
Saturday night we had everything painted and had gone out and picked our new fixtures. I had the new toilet in by the end of the night.
The next day I installed the new vanity and top along with the mirror, faucet and a new grate for the heat vent and trim kits for the light fixtures.
So while renovating a bathroom is generally a fairly straight-ahead process as far as selecting fixtures, there are some interesting options out there. One thing we did was go with a dual-flush toilet.
This is a toilet with two flush options using different amounts of water depending on what’s being flushed, and shown to save up to 60% of water in a year. The surprising thing about this toilet is that it was one of the more inexpensive models where we shopped for our fixtures, and it was the only one with this feature.I always see these when I travel in Europe, but never anywhere in the US. I do not understand why these are not more common here in the US.
The other choice we made was to install LED bulbs in the light fixtures.
I’ve been looking at LED bulbs for some time now, but the price has always prevented me from buying. With this project I figured that I was already spending a couple of hundred dollars, so I may as well do it right and jump in the with the bulbs. Two of these cost me nearly $80, but I have to say I am really satisfied with them. For years I’ve been using the compact flourescent bulbs and have been less than satisfied with them. They often power on too dim, taking as long a s minute to get to full brightness, the colors are wildly different and often not as advertised, and their lifespan in everyday use is dramatically less than what is claimed. All of these factors are vastly different by manufacturer as well.
After a week with the LED lights I have found the experience to be quite the opposite. The lights come on nearly instantly to full brightness. I have noticed a slight lag from flipping the switch to seeing light, but by the time you’re aware of the lag, about a half second, the light is on. I find it to be a non-issue. Since I put these two in my bathroom, I’ve purchased another, smaller, LED lamp by a different company for our kitchen. It too comes on to full brightness instantly. It also appears that these LEDs run a little brighter than advertised, which is a good thing. Their color temperature is very close to the incandecent lights we’re all used to, so it’s a very comfortable light. The only thing I can’t predict yet is their lifespan, but if it’s even half of what they claim, then I will be very happy with these.
The good news is I see these getting cheaper and more prevalent as they become more popular. I’m hoping to see models that are small enough for some of our ceiling fans but with greater brightness. They have some out now in the right size, but they’re still too dim for my taste, which is the main problem with my current lights.
So, I’m a fan of the LED lights, and I’m happy with our new dual-flush toilet. Time will tell if the cost savings will offset the initial costs, but at least we’re doing our part to help the environment, even if it is just one flush at a time.
Update:. I forgot to mention that there is one thing that I don’t like about the new LED bulbs – their excessive packaging. I hope that this, too, changes as these bulbs become more popular.
In the town where we live, the Kenosha Unified School District (KSUD) offers high school students the choice of choosing which school they want to go to. There are three main high schools in the district, but there are a number of charter schools, that they call Schools of Choice, that offer more focused education opportunities in some subjects, or alternative methods of teaching.
A lot of these schools pride themselves on their focus on technology in the classroom and the advanced science and math curriculums they offer. There’s a Technology Academy with a focus on technology systems in manufacturing, aviation or medical, and another school with a track in communications technology.
To get an idea of what these schools have to offer we have attended several open houses where the school administrator and several instructors give presentations about what the school has to offer as we try and make a decision about what will provide our son the most opportunities and benefits.
Without fail, each of these presentations I have attended has been teeth-grittingly awful. Not the substance of what they’re presenting, but their use of what is some of the most basic presentation technology today is embarrassing. Videos where the audio is out of sync and/or distorted. Presenters who can’t find their way around Powerpoint. Multiple presenters trying to switch between presentations on one laptop and not knowing where anything is or which mouse button to click.
I will admit that because this is the business I am in, I am more sensitive to this sort of un-polished presentation that most. But if you’re going to stand on stage and explain to me how you’re going to prepare my child for a future in a technological world, you should be able to set a better example of how to use the technology in a real world situation.
So I am attempting to take this web page in a slightly new direction. I am now experimenting with hosting on WordPress.com in an effort to make updating and maintaing my webpage easier.
For the past 5 years I have been using RapidWeaver to create my website. For the most part, this software has worked well for me. But over the course of time, as my needs and situation have changed, I am finding this software to be less useful for me. Following are some of the issues that have driven me to try something new.
RapidWeaver uses absolute paths instead of relative paths. What this means is that when the application looks for a file it starts at the top level of the system starting with the hard drive name. If the software used a relative path it would begin searching for files in it’s own file folder and then go into sub-folders from there. This has created multiple issues for me over the years. The first of which was when I wanted to start updating my site while at work or traveling. In order to do this I had to move my source files to my work computer. When I did this I ended up having to rebuild all of the pages with media on them as the software couldn’t find any of the resources since it was on a different system with a different name. That was a pain, especially because I had to select each item individually instead of the software realizing that all of the missing assets where in the same folder.
This became an issue again recently when my work computer was recently migrated to a new server, and the user system folder relocated on the hard drive. Again, RapidWeaver lost the ability to connect to all of the assets. File permissions have also been messed up in this recent change to my work computer, and I can no longer save the files I’m working on, instead having to choose Save As… every time I want to save what I am working on. This is especially annoying as I tend to to save my work frequently while working on it as opposed to just once when I’ve finished.
So for these reasons my current way of maintaining a website is in need of a change. I do not expect to be able to replicate my old site exactly, nor do I want to. I am hoping I can get my old site more or less migrated to this new system relatively quickly (a month, maybe) and that it will enable me to make more frequent updates. The old website still exists, and I will keep a link to it in the sidebar for the foreseeable future.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
✧ ✧ MidWestMyers ✧ ✧ 
Masterpiece
My sister-in-law is a veterinarian with a wry sense of humor. Tonight she emailed my wife about a new client who is bringing in their whippet for a check up. The name of this dog is Devo. My sister-in-law’s exact words:
“I have to meet the owner of this masterpiece.”
Posted by larvamoose on January 26, 2012 in Comments