Like most places, people dressed up for Halloween at work today. We, the larger UI team, held our weekly Design Open House and walked through a new Design Review process with a mock Halloween product. Of course, this was all in costume and there were several interesting people(?) in attendance - including a "new" design manager. Mike "hula lady" won. Here are the pics I shot with the PenCam.
Note: page crashes Netscape 4x on the Mac

 

 

Importing old Blogger entries as a test before moving Greymatter entries over. So far they give me a dialog of success but the posts are nowhere to be found. mmm. Also my style sheets are acting weird.

Flying home from the reunion I feel the waves of nostalgia rolling over me. Tears burn my eyes. I am sad and happy at the same time. I wonder about lost moments and missed connections yet am happy about the choices I have made.

This past weekend was spent back east in Virginia (for my hs reunion). While there I spend most of two days wandering around my old stomping ground of Loudoun County (west of DC) and in Washington DC. It was almost peak for the fall leaves and there were a ton of country festivals as well as the Virginia Gold Cup (steeplechase racing) going on while I was there. I shot the fall leaves and country side so I could have a bit of fall out here in California.

Note: this slideshow crashes Netscape 4x on the Mac

Seymour has taken over my red chair. He sleeps here almost every night rather than on my bed. The seat is down so it is very warm. He definitely makes himself comfortable. He looks cuddly, but beware all those toes with claws.

I leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow (at least for the airport) for my trip back east for my 20 year high school reunion. You would think that at this age, with my professional success and two advanced degrees that I wouldn't be nervous...

We rode today. A lot. We upped our mileage and our time and I thought I was going to die from the heat. Sheila and I did the Coyote Creek trail (trail map .pdf)- all of it - in a big loop from the car to one end, back to the car, out to the other end (only I didn't finish that leg) and then back to the car. For me, according to my new Odometer/Speedometer, it was 27.5 miles. That is 11-13 more miles than I normally do.

They say you shouldn't go out in the sun between 11 and 2pm. So what do we do? We ride from 11 to 2. In the heat, in the sun. Like I said, I thought I was going to die. Gotta get a new bike with slicker tires so I can go faster...

Need to get this book so we can find other trails to ride.

Redesigned my homepage and the photolog section using only CSS for positioning and formatting. Looks good on the 5.0 browsers and in NS 6.1. Is passable in NS 4.7 (barely). Let me know wat you think and if anything is broken.

Now working to setup and transfer Photolog a.k.a erinmalone.com to MoveableType for publishing and managing. Will keep you posted on success or lack thereof.

Lunch today with a bunch of friends from AltaVista - formerly from AltaVista. If nothing else, I learned a lot there and made some great friends. Lisa Chan, Kirstin Cruikshank, Rhonda Monroe(not shown - she lefet early because her boy was screaming), Natasha Calomese and her baby Brittney and I had mexican and caught up on where everybody is and what they are doing. Natasha and Rhonda are the power moms.

 

Brittney in her stroller

Kirstin

Lisa

Lisa, Kirstin, Natasha holding Brittney

Natasha and Brittney

Brittney

 

Biking out at Shoreline park today, I came upon the strange hill (that I have seen before but not really noticed) that was full of interesting elements. Pilings and concrete barriers guide you through the trails up and over the hill. All of this is on the descent path of the small airplanes coming into the Palo Alto airport. So you feel surrounded by the land elements as well as overhead by the airplanes and the birds. As always the Pencam provides an interesting and ethereal record to the landscapes.

 

 

The ride was great - if windy - and provided lots of views of many nesting birds. The last shot is at Starbucks where we went for caffeine replenishment after our hour long ride. Of course I only looked at the items in the case.

This is the month of reunions. Went to a Zip2 reunion last night. Was great seeing everyone again. These people were so much fun to work with and we did so much in a short amount of time. That time - 1997 - 1999 was definitely magic, the money was flowing and everyone was an optimist. We built some great products and made some money. Caught up with lots of old friends. Will post some pics this weekend.

My high school (20 yr) reunion is in 14 days. Yikes!