anneconnell

On our way into school this morning, Christian informed me that he will perform a play for me tonight *provided* I take on the role of ’starscream’ and he will be ‘megatron’.  I am thrilled that I will be entertained later this evening by taking part in my son’s first play.  A play in which he scripted by watching the Transformers cartoon many, many times. Since I have absorbed some of the cartoon as well I ask:

“But what about optimus prime and bumble bee?” Thinking he can include his little sister in the play…

to this Christian responds:

“Mommy, I tell you what to play.  Dietrich will be ‘optimus prime’ and Ben will be ‘bumble bee’.  They are coming to my house tonight. We are going to have chicken and chocolate milk and play Transformers.  You can watch or you can be ’starscream’.”

“But what about Mary?”

“She can be ‘bulkhead’.”

It turns out that when we arrived at school, Christian had invited his friends to our house the day before.  Quite the social butterfly.   I’m so glad to be included, but will have to cut short the invites not cleared with parental units.  Hopefully he’ll still want to perform.  Perhaps Nala and Doe can be the understudys for Dietrich and Aeden tonight…

For the past four nights our son, Christian, has been waking up at either 1:30am or 5am and robbing us of at least two (but usually 3) hours of sleep.  Mary, our daughter, who is 20 months old, doesn’t do this.  Why does he have such terrible sleep patterns?  When will this end?  Why can’t someone make a device to keep kids in their beds until 7am that isn’t *quite* a jail cell?  I’d pay cash money for anything that gets me even 15 minutes more sleep per night.

And to think I wanted a third child at one point?  See?  I am sleep-deprived.  ‘Cause that’s nuts.

I was just told a cute story by Judy Abrams (Director of Cyert Center for Early Education) that President Cohen visited the school yesterday and Christian was the only child in Pre1 who would talk to him.  Since he was tall and no one had seen him before all of the other children just looked down or away.  But our Christian walked from across the room right up to him and said:

CC: “Vrrroommm, vvrooommm…”
PC: “What’s that you got there?”
CC: “It’s a boat.”
PC: “That’s nice.  What’s your name?”
CC: “I’m Christian Connell.”
PC: “Well it is lovely to meet you.”
CC: “Peace to you.” While shaking his hand.

So proud of my little future politician…

finish and post short story “4130 Murray Ave”

run the Pittsburgh Great Race and beat last year’s time

Complete a mini-triathalon

finish Project course for MHCI

go visit Aunt Margie

do a better job of recording the things my kids say & do (video,pix, writings)

Mary has made up her first song, it goes:

“Night, night, baby

night, night, baby

night, night baby

it good to see you safe.”

I helped a little, but the ideas were [truly] all hers.

So proud of my little Mary.  Budding songstress.

The validation I’ve been seeking, Mary saying ‘Mama’ happened today.  Even though it was said so that I wipe her nose, I’m over the moon about it. Twice in as many days, my heart is captured.

My heart has been captured.  Christian, my son, told me yesterday, Sunday, October 5, 2008 that I am his “best sweetheart”.  Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

Took a break from reading for a while, trying to get a groove with a new job and two kids, but just got back to it with “Blindness”.  What a book.  No spoilers here, but it is so well-written and makes me believe this is exactly how society will break down if such an epidemic were to occur.  Acts as a visual metaphor for the many victims of Hurricane Katrina, the only parallel that I can draw from my lifetime and real events.  Well worth the read.

Really liking the new job in many ways — the people, office, windows,  proximity to my kids at Day Care and Starbucks [hee-hee], but I’m wanting to add value to my new position right away.   Unfortunately, I’m not feeling comfortable yet.  I’m really hoping this is one of those learning experiences I can look back on in six months and laugh at myself for feeling so awkward.

Notes from Hugh Dubberly’s Talk:Design education must change and change quickly: 

• The sensor web
• The mobile web
• The video web

Really cool products will evolve even more and have impact:Nintendo Wii/Wii-moteWorld of Warcraft (truly bazaar)Macs have accelerometers in themWalmart is requiring RFID tags in every productSensor revolution in micro-harvesting of grapes (put sensors on the vines to track where best growing trends are)500K surveillance videos in London aloneSnowboards have sensors in them so they can make music What does this sensor proliferation mean for us?6 different sensors in the iPhoneSensors in medicine will be huge (bio-metrics)Results of this, imagine losing your keys, go into Google and find your keysYou’ll be able to go into Google and find your dog.Johnny Lee from CMU and his alteration of all video games and head tracking using sensors (you don’t have to buy a Nintendo Wii, but can play 3d video games physically and in the VR way cheaply).Mobile devices are opening upiPhone changes everything (not only looking at the design of the object and interactions).  Mr. Jobs has created a platform for the mobile Web. 80% more search requests than the next mobile platform1 in 10,000 web pages in viewed on an iPhoneGoogle has introduced its own mobile platformFlickr has zone-tag, released about a year agoAmazon Kindle is creating a new device like the iPhoneNikon CoolPix is even going to have a service as wellThe idea of having a seamless hard-off from one device to the next identity Tagging – comes from the word etiquette – tags from everything linking in the physical world to everything in the virtual worldXerox Parc is putting RFID tags in everythingSamsung, too, many more comingVideo is converging in the world (In 1978 MIT researchers made an interactive video – the Aspen movie map. In 1992 Mosaic happened and everyone forgot about CDs, Amazon and Google maps have street views (3D visual representations of the actual world)iChat and Skype are going to be the new ways to communicate Video is going to explodeLook at the size of screens, it is just astonishing.  Everyone is going to have (or demand) huge screens to get their work done.We’re going to see ‘flexible’ screens, and be able to print out flexible screensThe interface is surreal, we need to have random access to the interface and not a procedural access pointA new video web is going to emergeThe current web links text pages, which embeds bits of videoA new web will link video segments and embed or overlay itImagine fantasy sports fanatics combining the TV and internet access togetherCollaborative computing will be important in this new video environmentTouch-screensMulti-touch displays (apple is coming out with a number of new productsWhat do these changes mean for design education?

1. Sense making and story telling don’t change
2. Managing complexity is a new problem (systems theory provides a body of knowledge designers should use)
3. Design is the exclusive province of designers 

A broader set of trends, the 3 ways from the Industrial era to theInformation era

Mechanical – > Organic, Top-down, Bottom-up, Development-> Changing economic paradigms

Continuous->Updating, Designers and Audience

More ‘facilitated’ view of participantsThe role of users from followers

Meta design thinking

We need to go from products to thinking about tools, to people making with tools, to systems

The grammar of objects is changing

Why are we stuck? We are about to enter a new era of technology; text web adds sensor + mobile + video webs 

Designers will have new tools and media which will change the way they work which suggests changes in design education 

Designers will focus on systems not objects, embrace complexity, and move from form-giving to conversation-managing