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In which we try to be less boring
Dec. 14th, 2004 09:03 pmEverything I've written here since Thanksgiving has been really dull. I read it and I want to un-friend myself. I think it's just been a rough couple of weeks, but now things are looking up a bit.
I did some usability testing for a J2EE software vendor with offices in Burlington last night. They had me talk through interactions with a Powerpoint prototype of an admin tool that I could actually see myself using if I had to maintain servers again. I was curious to see how they did usability testing because it's been a while since I worked on a project where we bothered. I didn't learn anything really spectacular, but it was interesting and I could see doing it again.
Afterwards, I wanted to go to the mall. I took a wrong turn and got lost in Woburn. I'm no city planner, but if you have an intersection where one could go left and enter an enormous maze of poorly-marked residential streets (half of them cul-de-sacs) or go right and return to civilization, shouldn't there be a big sign that says "THIS WAY TO CIVILIZATION"? Not to mention all the times I almost turned into someone's driveway by accident because it was wider than a Somerville side street. On the bright side, I managed to get lost in a neighborhood with some very pretty (but generally tasteful) Christmas lights.
Christmas shopping was moderately successful. After 4 years of shopping for Kelly, I can now go into cosmetics shops without twitching. On my way out of the mall, I stopped at Sears and very seriously considered buying 300 Christmas lights (on sale) and using them to decorate the windows after Kelly left for work so she'd be totally surprised when she got home. I scrapped this plan because I realized that I have no idea how one goes about putting up Christmas lights and I might just make a big mess. [Don't tell Kelly about this, I may come up with something better next year.]
Lots of good stuff happening this week. Tomorrow night, we're going out for dinner to celebrate one of our friends becoming a US citizen. I get to play basketball on Thursday and Saturday. Work is entertaining too, and this is the last full week before the holidays start.
I did some usability testing for a J2EE software vendor with offices in Burlington last night. They had me talk through interactions with a Powerpoint prototype of an admin tool that I could actually see myself using if I had to maintain servers again. I was curious to see how they did usability testing because it's been a while since I worked on a project where we bothered. I didn't learn anything really spectacular, but it was interesting and I could see doing it again.
Afterwards, I wanted to go to the mall. I took a wrong turn and got lost in Woburn. I'm no city planner, but if you have an intersection where one could go left and enter an enormous maze of poorly-marked residential streets (half of them cul-de-sacs) or go right and return to civilization, shouldn't there be a big sign that says "THIS WAY TO CIVILIZATION"? Not to mention all the times I almost turned into someone's driveway by accident because it was wider than a Somerville side street. On the bright side, I managed to get lost in a neighborhood with some very pretty (but generally tasteful) Christmas lights.
Christmas shopping was moderately successful. After 4 years of shopping for Kelly, I can now go into cosmetics shops without twitching. On my way out of the mall, I stopped at Sears and very seriously considered buying 300 Christmas lights (on sale) and using them to decorate the windows after Kelly left for work so she'd be totally surprised when she got home. I scrapped this plan because I realized that I have no idea how one goes about putting up Christmas lights and I might just make a big mess. [Don't tell Kelly about this, I may come up with something better next year.]
Lots of good stuff happening this week. Tomorrow night, we're going out for dinner to celebrate one of our friends becoming a US citizen. I get to play basketball on Thursday and Saturday. Work is entertaining too, and this is the last full week before the holidays start.
