good day!

So today has been a good day and it's only 1pm! My parents called to let me know that they're building a PF Changs at Woodfield (like a block away from work!)!!! It should be open in the spring!! Yay!

And then I find out that the new version of iTunes works through our corporate firewall...meaning I can listen to my music at work now!! Yay!

OK..yes, that last comment means that I'm at work right now! So I should do some work now :)

boston fans...

from SI

The New York Post doesn't seem to be handling the Yankees' defeat and the Red Sox's world championship very well. On Thursday, the Post ran a "news" story about a Staten Island couple's wedding night on Saturday at a hotel in Salem, Mass., being ruined by a Sox-loving busboy. Peter and Dianna Mercuri say that busboy Derek Lojko, upon discovering that the bridal party was from New York, chanted "Yankees suck!" and allegedly threatened to beat up the groom and guests. Peter Mercuri claims his sister-in-law was so frightened that she spent the night in the not-so-happy couple's room. A spokesperson for the hotel called the story a "whole pack of lies."

Parade

Watched the parade over the internet today. Funny to see red sox players riding around in Duck boats. Yes, for all you midwesterners, duck boats like in the Dells. The "parade" was a bunch of duck boats driving from Fenway to MOS down the street. And then the "secret ending" that Mayor Menino wouldn't tell anyone about as they rode into the charles (to the "hallelujah chorus") with cops on jet skis! Very very cool to see!! Yay SOX!!!! :)

Best quote from the manager of the red sox: "They may not wear their hair normal, may not dress normal, but man, they can play the game of baseball!"

EDIT: As they roade down the charles past MIT, some students were out there playing the Emperor's Theme from Star Wars on the bag pipes. Yeah MIT :)

Crazy fans...

So they did it! The Red Sox won the world series last night!! Woah! Anyway, check out some crazy fans in my old neighborhood of Kenmore Square! Yay Sox!! Next year is the year for the cubbies!!!! :)

Sox and LA

Sox Win!!!! 3-0!!!!! YAY!!!!!!

And who's going to be in LA for new years? Or wants to be in LA for new years??? I may be there! :-D

Awesomeness!

Red Sox v. Cubs at Wrigley Field next June 10-12!!!!! How awesome is that!!! Thanks Stacie and Kelle for the info!!

iPod with photos!!??

here

The Onion

The Onion is awesome.

Fun Sunday!

Sunday was a ton of fun!! Went up to Fright Fest with Stacie!!! Rode a ton of fun rides, talked a lot, ate cinnamon roasted cashews :) Then went back to Stacie's with some Uno's and some Corona to watch the game! And oh yeah!!! Boston now has a 2-0 lead in the world series!! What a weekend!!! Friday night stories still to come though. But Sunday more than made up for any lack of fun from friday :)

Go Sox tonight!!! Hopefully I'll be home to watch the game! Work has picked up again as we have a new demo for next week!

Sox Win!!

11-9!!! What a game!! So many times I was concerned, but the boys pulled through and won it!! Yay!!! Game two tomorrow!!

Free wifi in san fran...

Why can't Chicago (or evanston) be this cool???

60 minutes!

Jon Stewart is going to be on 60 Minutes tomorrow! Set your tivos! :) He's taking them on like he did with crossfire last week!

DST

Did you know that Daylight Savings Time was implemented to help save energy? I was lied to in school when they said it was a relic of farming culture. Damn midwestern lies ;) Just one of many facts I learned at 43 Plays for 43 Presidents last night :)

Stories to tell, but not right now.

done!

Yay! We're done interviewing for our user study at work! Thanks to friends who helped or provided friends of friends to help out!! It was a ton of fun, but a lot of long nights so it's nice to have some time back again!! And our pre-demo happened last week too...so it looks like there might be a trip in my future this winter. Yay for travelling in the winter! Amber, Allison, and Helen, if you'll be in LA, I may be over in Vegas like mid-janunary!!

Not a whole lot else new. TOTALLY excited for the Red Sox!!! If people want to come over to watch games, I'll certainly be around for them!! I wish I could be in Boston right now to join in the celebrations and see the craziness that is Boston right now. Except I think I'd have to keep my distance after this. Stupid cops. Be careful Susan!!!

I'm going to see 43 plays for 43 presidents tonight!!! Yay!! I've wanted to see it forever and it's back for this weekend only!! And I may stay for TMLMTBGB and see 30 more plays. 73 plays in one night...awww yeah!! :)

OK...off to get ready to go downtown for work today!!!!! :-D

busy busy week!

It seems like it'll be another super busy week here. We're still finishing up that study at work, so it's late nights again this week. But it looks like this will be the last week for that, so I'm excited. And things are going really well with my other project at work, so that's all good news!!!

There's not much else to talk about. Work has just been consuming my time. Although if anyone missed the daily show last night, oh man, you missed a good one! Jon Stewart talked about his appearance on crossfire, recapped the 2nd and 3rd debates, and had a skit on the sox. (The good sox, not the bad sox for all you chicagoans you may not understand) :)

jon stewart on crossfire!

Check it out!

finally...

Wow...I've been super-busy this week! It's been crazy! Two more user studies at night and then helping stacie with her database after the debates last night. So needless to say, not much time for blogging. But as promised....

- how stacie's church is like motorola ACS

So I went to church with my friend Stacie this Sunday down on the South Side. And I almost busted out laughing durning the service. They were talking about their change inititives. Like ACS, the church realized that today's younger generation is very different from the older generations and many ideas have changed. So they had a survery to understand basic engagement with the church, held focus groups to understand better, hired an external consultant to help them figure out how to change and execute on that change.... Anyone see some parallels?? In the end, they basically ended up segragating those that are different...having a more traditional service early sunday morning, a more modern service with a band playing later in the morning, and a 20-something service on saturday nights. I guess we all just can't get along after all :)

- relationships being replace by "technology" ??

So one of these "recent changes" the pastor was talking about was that "relationships are being replaced by technology." Of course this got some whispered boos out of me and Stacie :) (Other ones were modernism being replaced by postmodernism and religion being replaced by spirituality) But the relationships one really got me....especially since my JOB is to help foster human relationships through communication technology! I need to find the study, but there was a study that showed that even with email and IM and cell phones and everything else, people are still meeting face to face even more often. It makes sense...if it's easier to get in touch with someone, it's easier to meet up with someone in person. And also much easier to maintain a larger circle of friends all over the world. I mean there's no way I'd be able to stay in touch with my friend Helen in Cambridge if I didn't have IM, and that means I wouldn't have known she'd be in LA this January, and I probably wouldn't have met up with her in London this coming spring because I wouldn't have kept in touch as much. Anyway...moral...technology helps us with our relationships way more than it may hurt :)

- random thoughts on being too busy to write blog posts :)

Yes. Been way to busy to blog. I'll try to be better about it next week. Or maybe the week after that. Or sometime. Just too busy now!! :)

Have a great week everyone!

coming soon...

this is more a placeholder for me than anything else...but things coming soon to a blog near you...

- how stacie's church is like motorola ACS

- relationships being replace by "technology" ??

- random thoughts on being too busy to write blog posts :)

weekend on the south side

So I spent the weekend on the far far south side. It feels like a different planet down there. Or at least like Kentucky. I'm serious! Bush signs everywhere, lots of 23 year olds married with children, little independent restanrants selling lots of meat :) Anyway, I was down there to go to a wedding with stacie so she didn't have to go by herself. Fun times. Although a wedding without alcohol?? What's up with that?? OK...so maybe the south side isn't all that much like the real South after all ;) Anyway, fun weekend, which ended with watching Aladdin in spanish :) :)

I'm bummed I can't make it to Lauraf's burning festival tonight. I have a lot to burn. But we have user studies again tonight, and just about every night this week again. Even washing dishes will have to wait another week. :(

homecoming!

Yay! So I just got home from an awesome night with LauraJ. After a wonderful veggie dinner at Pita Inn, we went over to watch the WHS homecoming game (where they got killed by RMHS for all you mustangs out there). Sat around and talked for hours, watched some awesome fireworks, and then went to totally relive high school days at IHOP! Such a fun night for sure and *so so* good to see Laura again! Totally excited that she's teaching at wheeling now!!

It's just so awesome to hang out with friends that you can just totally know and connect with. I totally feel that way about Laura even though we hardly ever get to hang out anymore. It's like you start to explain something and the other person just goes, "yeah, I know" And that's awesome. Because they do know. Like wanting to write on paper or print things out to hold them and read them. Or drawing ideas out on paper...sometimes of things that aren't pictoral at all. She gets it. Which is awesome. She's doing a lot of awesome things with her class too...and she's in Mr. T's old room!!!

OK...well I'm off to bed here tonight. The busy weekend continues tomorrow with a wedding. Hope everyone had a great Friday night!!

laugh at bush

For a good laugh Not as good as Bush or Chimp though.

busy busy week!

It's another super-busy week around here. We've got interviews for work every night! Which is totally fun, but I can't figure out the next time I'll have time to go to the grocery store while it's still open!! Got home around 10:45 last night after a fun interview in the city! And I have so much work to do that it's not like I can just not come in to work in the morning and get shopping done then. Oh well, having a ton of work is totally better than not having any.

I was talking to Nancy and some of my other friends this weekend about what a great job this gig at motorola labs really is. I mean in how many other big companies will the typical engineer/worker get to meet with the CTO a few times a year or get their work visible to the CEO or get to present for Presidents and VP's of business sectors all the time, or get to influence corporate strategy. It's pretty amazing actually. And although it's not in some flashy office in Kendall Square or in Downtown Chicago, what we do is pretty darn cool. I mean where else could you have a job where you can take things from a seed of an idea, to user studies, to prototyping, to evaluation, to writing product code. It's pretty cool. Of course I wish we were in a better location than Scahumburg (like our downtown office maybe!), but it's still a great job!

OK...there was one other thing I wanted to talk about...but I don't remember now. So I think I'm gonna go get ready for work! Have a great day everyone!!! :) :)

woah!!!

OK..lots of posts today! But man!! Are Chip and Steve leaving WGN???? More here. Now I really do have to make my Tivo record radio too!!

stata

stata
Originally uploaded by frankieb.

a blurry stata center - a friend of stacie's wondered if there was an earthquake in boston :)

no I-93

no93
Originally uploaded by frankieb.

looking at the fleet center from long wharf. what happened to the 'green monster'???

more fun in boston!!

Today was a crazy day around boston! Spent the night at Katie's place in central square. It was so great to be able to sit around and talk for a while in the morning. I hardly ever get to see her anymore! Then it was off to the MIT Chapel to hang out with John and the old crew (who are all still there - crazy phd students!). It was really great to see everyone again! Including Heather who I haven't talked to in ages!!!

It was so fun to walk across the bridge again. Just reminded me of old days walking back to student house. And what would a trip to Boston be without Burrito Max?? Yay for BBQ Tofu burritos!! They are the best ever!! Chiptle and Qdoba should learn from BM!

Then possibly the best part of the day...I met up with Amber for some coffee. Amber rocks and everytime I see her it just gives me all this energy and desire to totally do awesome things. It's just crazy how much she does, and how happy she is when being so totally busy. Truly something to aspire to! :)

But after that I had some time to spare...so I decided to enjoy the *awesome* weather and walk around Boston...well an hour or so later I found myself at Long Wharf after hitting up Newbury St, the Garden, the Common, Govt Center, Quincy Market, and the former site of I-93 (which looks SO weird!) And then went off

Then a nice flight back. Oh, had a kinda scary flight out to boston...apparantly the navagation system needed a "software update" which took them like 20 minutes before we left. Craziness...hope that thing's not running windows ;)

big dig!!!!

OK...I'm such a dork. It's raining out and well, for fun we decided to drive through the big dig, both ways, and across the Zekin bridge. And yes, it was awesome!!! Totally mind blowing though that a tunnel like that could cost 14 billion dollars and be the most expensive public works project ever (in real dollars, even more than the TVA or Golden Gate or anything like that). But SO fun to dive through it! And *so* great to see my friend Katie again!! It's been so long!!!

I'm coming back to Chicago tomorrow! After meeting up with some old MIT church friends and having a nice lunch at Royal East :)

gehry and vision

So when Chuck Vest asked Gehry how he got from his initial designs for the stata center to all the intricate details in a room that they were standing in, his answer: I went through 27 models of this *one* room :)

One other interesting tidbit (to paraphrase chuckv): At a place like MIT, the vision doesn't come from the leadership, it comes from within. The faculty and students. It's more like a jazz jam session than a symphony.

Boston fun!

Hi again from Boston!! I'm having a *great* time out here!! Last night was awesome....Kailas and Susan came out to Grasshopper with me and we got some No Name. Mmmmmmm. Kinda like a sesame chicken dish, but obviously vegan :) Then we met up with a bunch of people at Roads, played some darts, and then went back to Susan's. Fun times, fun times!! :)

Boston's changed a bit since I've last been here. There's now a *subway* to lechmere, B line trains go all the way to North Station, there are a bunch of new buildings at MIT, Star Market is now officially Shaw's, there are a bunch of new road signs (probably put up for the convention) so maybe it's not so hard to get lost anymore, and BU is building new buildings like crazy. I almost didn't recognize Comm Ave near St Paul.

But yes, all in all a *very* fun weekend so far!! Pour House tonight at 7 if anyone in Boston is interested! Give me a call!! :)

in boston!!!

Hi from Boston!!! :) It's been a great day so far and it's only getting better!!! Got in this morning, took the T over to campus, ate lunch at the food trucks (mmmmmmmmm), went over to the Motorola Design Center here in Cambridge (which is awesome!!), and then wandered around MIT for a bit. The new Stata Center is amazing. Ghery did a fantastic job with it. Tons of twisty passages and plenty of room to customize the space. Lots of unfinished concrete and random movable walls and funky couches. So cool!

Well, I'm about to meet up with some friends and head over to Grasshopper for some yummy vegan food! So I've gotta run!

Oh, one last note..totally not going back for my PhD. Explanation later :)

OK, a final final note...MIT now allows visitors to DHCP on wireless!! Yay!