Wow...the demo at work is all done! And we actually got it to work!!! And work well :) So that was a happy end to the week! :) And even the CTO thought it was "wonderful." Too bad I've been so busy working on this demo that I'm totally not ready to go to California on Sunday!! Guess that means I'm working again tomorrow. But man, it was awesome to get that demo working today. Made all that work pay off. And CA will be awesome as always. Hopefully I'll have some free time to head up to Muir woods and see some redwoods and just go hiking a little bit. It'll be great for it to be warmer than -20 ;)

Not much else is going on here. Hopefully after I get back from CA things will slow down a little and I'll have some more free time. If anyone has ideas of really nice Boston restaurants or knows of anything interesting going on there the week after valentines day, let me know!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Hi all! Yes, it's just about midnight, and yes, I just got back from work. Nothing like a good 15 hour day :) We found out that in the end, we couldn't get our demo finished because of a piece of beta version 1 software running on our machine that we had to work with but was full of bugs. A bummer, but at least we can still do our demo in a different way :)

But you know, little things like that cannot possibly get me down today! :) I just made plans to be out in boston for valentine's day - well, not exactly on that day for a variety of scheduling reasons, but "for" valentine's day for sure. But who might I be seeing in Boston for such a day? Good question :) Some of you know :) Others might be able to guess :) :) Anyway, I am super super super excited about this :) :) :)

It's been a crazy busy week so far at work. That's honestly all I've been up to! But our demo is almost all working. So there's not much to say here...other than that I'm really looking forward to going to San Francisco and getting out of the snow for a little while. And a big thanks to Prashant for staying at work and hacking code with me when he totally didn't have to. You rock!

I have a new phone!!! :) No thanks to Amazon.com though! They finally told me that it would take another month to ship my phone, so I just walked into a T-Mobile store and walked out with one for like $30 more. But it was worth not dealing with Amazon any more :) And man, this phone rocks :) :)

Not much else new here...spent the weekend working and doing FIRST, I know, very exciting :) All this work is reminding me of MIT, which is exactly what I needed right now. It's wonderful to be so busy, and busy doing things that are cool and exciting! :) And it's awesome to be working with high school students from my old high school!!!

If anyone of my friends in San Francisco are reading this and are doing something fun for superbowl, let me know!! I'll be out there that day (and the rest of that week). Maybe we can hit up Naan and Curry again sometime - or another good veggie place!! :)

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't been blogging much, but it's been another super crazy busy week with FIRST and work. But things are going really well here!! We had out IAP Pub Night in Chicago on Tuesday and 30 people came!! That was exciting, because I haven't been able to get that many people to a happy hour yet this year. :) And Stacie came down from Wisconsin - ;) - so it was fun to get to hang out with her!!

And I found out that I won't get to be in SF for six weeks, but for one week in february and two weeks in march. Anyone who will be out in the bay area for the first week of February that wants to hang out, let me know!!

So I'm on this IDEO/Motorola committee - yeah, ironic, don't you think :) Anyway, it's going really well, and after today's meeting I'm actually really proud to be working for Motorola. There's a lot of cool stuff in our future if we listen to these guys!! And I get a little tour of IDEO SF when I'm out there in a few weeks!!

And FIRST is going really well too! Raul and Miten are CADing away and we should be starting on a prototype soon :)

Other than that, I've just been thinking a lot about what I want to be doing for the next few years. The more I'm involved with Moto people outside my lab, I realize that it's a pretty cool place that can do some pretty cool things. And this Moto/IDEO thing has really made me realize that we have some great people in the labs and in the company. So I think I'm applying for this masters thing at northwestern and seeing if I can get Moto to cover any of it. It would be fun to stay around Chicago too :) But who knows...if I get into IDEO, I just may change my mind!!

A final note, anyone who has ever ordered from Amazon and wished that they could actually speak to a PERSON, here is their hidden number... 1-800-201-7575

Yesterday was a ton of fun! :) After FIRST, my friend Stacie and I went to dinner with a friend that was in from Boston that I used to live with at Student House!! It was a great time, and we went to PF Changs!! :) One of my favorites for sure!! Especially the lettuce wraps! :)

Today was another long day of work, and then about four hours of FIRST. So now I'm exhausted and am probably going to head off to bed soon. The robot is coming along nicely and the high school students are getting a lot more involved, so I'm happy :)

Hey everyone! If you've never gone to see "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" you totally should!! It's a play by the neo-futurists - well, it's actually 30 plays in 60 minutes and if it sells out you get free pizza :) And believe me, it *will* sell out...long before the doors open! Anyway, it comes very highly reccomended...almost as much as chocolate vegan milkshakes at Pick Me Up cafe. It's been a good night :)

Two posts today! Man...see what happens when I take a day off from FIRST! :) Anyway, the Don Norman thing was cool and got me thinking a lot about big companies and design. He made one offhanded comment about big companies never being able to do "great" design. His point was that the traditional "user-centered design" focuses a lot on usability and solving common needs and problems - and he said that this makes for pretty "good" products for the masses. But the "great" design - the stuff that makes people go wow and reflect on their experience with a product comes from creating emotional reactions...which is a risky business, and with so many different people that react to things so differently, a big company can't risk doing a lot of this emotional design for a large-audience product.

I just thought that was a really interesting way to look at things. I mean just look at apple or bose or rolex or any other "well-designed" product. They appeal to a very limited market share for the most part (partly because of price, but partly because of how they are "different").

He also talked a lot about cell phones. Which was cool, well, because that's what I do now :) He talked about personalization in phones and how that would be how a company like Motorola would really get great design...in allowing for different experiences and customizable looks for phones. He mentioned this phone we have in Korea marketed towards teenage girls...it lets people hang little trinkets off of it all over the place and looks very "teenage girl" :) Interesting to think about as we design a lot of "all-purpose" phones and applications.

OK..enough about the talk! Laura came up from KY early so she could hear the talk, so it was cool to get to hang out with her again tonight! And especially cool since we're beyond the weirdness in hanging out stage. She's up to check out this new design program at Northwestern.

This weekend will be all FIRST FIRST FIRST...should be fun though! And I get to hang out with an old friend from student house on sunday with my friend stacie! That should rock :)

My MIT email account (and athena account) are now dead :( It's a sad day and a total reminder that I'm in the "real world" now! So use my alum address if you want to email me, since I'll have that forever!

It's been a super-busy week with FIRST, but we're getting some great ideas for the robot, so I'm really excited. It's fun to lead some strategy sessions again :)

If anyone is interested, Don Norman is giving a talk at the Evanston Library tonight at 7pm. It should be really interesting!!!

FIRST is here!! :) The game is great this year and has so many components of past games, but a lot that's new. Like a bar 10 feet in the air to hang on!! It's cool to be back on my high school team though, with a bunch of the same old engineers and a bunch of my friends from high school now as motorola mentors :) It should be a fun season as long as I don't get whisked off to CA before it's over!!

I went to a fun housewarming party at a friend's house yesterday!! It was great to hang out with her and her friends and she cooked some awesome vegan lasagna!! The kind I make myself :)

Other than that, it's been all FIRST all the time, which is what it's going to be for the next 6 1/2 weeks!! But FIRST season is always fun!

Hey! :) Not a ton new here. But after all this time I am proud to say that I finally got over Laura today. It was weird, we had this really long conversation and it just was so clear to both of us that there is never a chance for anything more than friendship between us. And we were just both at total peace with that idea. So yeah, life is good, life is free. Sarah, I now know how you feel :)

In other news, the FIRST kickoff is tomorrow down at IIT!! I'm so excited to be mentoring my old high school team! It'll be a good time for sure!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

So I found out today that I might get to go to San Francisco for a month and a half this year! For all of February and 1/2 of March!! :) I'm soooo excited! It'll be a great chance to just live out there for a little bit and see if I really like the area as much as I did during that week I was out there last month! It should be a really fun time!

Other than that, not much news around here. Have a great weekend everyone!!!

It's freezing cold here!! Well, way below that actually! With a -20 windchill (yeah, that's a minus) this morning and still a -7 windchill now it's just nasty outside. So of course what do I do, take a look at the forecast for San Francisco where it's going to be in the 60s this week. Man, it's sure nice out there.

I've been debating what I want to do these next few years. Of course it'll depend on the whole IDEO thing, but if I don't get into the CA office, maybe going to grad school part time at Northwestern might be a good idea. They have this new masters program in Product Design and Development that is a lot like what I want to do...and they have Don Norman, who is pretty cool in the design world. Anyway, we'll see what IDEO has to say in the next few weeks! San Francisco still would be awesome! Especially working for them! :)

Stay warm everyone!!!!

Hey! I hate to be boring, but not much is going on around here. So I'll leave you with a few interesting things to read...

100 ideas per hour at IDEO...

Paul Graham on "What you can't say"

And anyone reading this right now, Don Norman and Craig Sampson (founder of IDEO Chicago) are on WGN right now!!!

I just had a wonderful night with some old FIRST friends!! Thanks so much susan for inviting me along! It was great to meet everyone! :)

Yeah for good food and super mario brothers :) That totally made my day!!

Hey everyone! And Happy New Year!! I don't really know what to write right now. A lot is going on, but that's about all I'll say about that right now. It's long and complicated, so if you know me really well, just ask.

I'm really excited about this weekend though! A good friend of mine from debate in high school is coming over tonight and we're going to cook up a vegan feast :) Well, enough food for the two of us, but hey, it's still a feast. And tomorrow I'm heading to this play with a FIRIST friend who is down from Milwaukee. Her friend designs costumes and always has a bunch of free tickets to things. It's great! It's so good to have a busy weekend!!