Where the Sidewalk Begins ...

News from Disney - UPDATED

The conference is, as expected, wonderfully overwhelming.
Just a couple of things  -
If you order a Maker's & Coke, Tall, at the bar at this hotel, they give it to you in a pint glass!  That's more than a double - that's like a quad ...
The wake-up call is Stitch and Mickey! This was adorable, but will probably get old by the end of the week. Still, it thrilled me to no end.
The TV has NBC and about 5 Disney channels and a bunch of Spanish channels. I didn't even know there were 5 Disney channels ...
The hotel grounds are gorgeous - and HUGE! I'm incredibly far away from the conference center, but several of my friends are even farther. Not a big deal unless you have luggage or its raining.
There is a guy wandering around the conference on a Segway.

UPDATES:
Actually, there were several folks wandering around the conference on Segways. I wonder how you score that.
I won a copy of Captivate (macromedia) today, so that made me very happy.
I'm staying at the Coronado Springs Resort, as that's where the convention center is. The convention center is huge - you think you're at the end and it just keeps going. Because we got a great conference rate, we're going to continue staying here through the vacation part of the trip as well. (Got a great conference rate on the park tickets too!)
The toiletries all have Mickey on them - they're so cute! My stepmother decorated her bathroom in Mickey, so I'm bringing back some of these for her.
Spent money in the gift shop. Oops! But there was Tinkerbell stuff and I do love Tink...
Conference is still overwhelming. Interestingly, I'm having fantastic, learning conversations with folks when I SKIP sessions. Plus, I may be picking up some new clients in the process. Very good.
Steven Johnson spoke tonite. He wrote Everything Bad is Good for You. I spoke to him for a little while and he signed my book. What a great guy - very accessible!
Off to bed now so that I can learn more about Learning tomorrow.

Overbooked

I've had some deadlines get moved up. I now have two large projects due on Thursday - that's THIS Thursday and a positively huge project due Dec 12 (which isn't that far away, esp since I'll be gone over a week). It's doubtful I'll post again until Friday. I also hope to post a bit from my trip. I will blog to the Write-Tech blog, recaps of each day's conference festivities, Sunday - Wednesday. Thursday- Saturday I'll blog, maybe, to this blog with our Disney adventures. Of course, there is the whole drinking around the world thing, so maybe no blogging ...
Anyway - off to work and blog silence for a bit.

My Favorite Frog

The Muppets are most definitely BACK, although they never left our house. This news article from E! is late with some things (Statler & Waldorf have been reviewing at Movies.com for months - if you have any love of the Muppets or Star Wars, you must catch BoBo Bear's audition for Revenge of the Sith). The rumoured reality series is something I've heard rumblings about on various Muppet sites for a few months as well. I'm not sure if the reality genre (or reality-spoof genre) is exactly the best vehicle, but I'm not going to complain for a chance to see my favorite green banjo-playing frog on a weekly basis. Maybe Rowlf, my favorite piano-playing dog, will also show up.
Oh, and we've already got the stamps. :-) Expect to see those on your holiday cards this year. I'm not sure which stamp is the coolest: Jim Henson, Kermit, Rowlf, or Fozzie. Probably Jim Henson.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Kevin!

Halloween Photos

You can view new photos at our web site. Alternatively, you can view them directly:

Our Halloween (we went to a party over the weekend)
Steven's Homecoming

For the Halloween party, I was Minnie Mouse and Kevin was a guy wearing Mouse ears.

My Next Computer

Most likely, I won't be buying this until 2006 (unless there's a spectacular holiday sale or I land that gigantic client in Indiana). But this will definitely be my next machine (or one similar). I went to Best Buy and played with this one yesterday and was really blown away. Assuming I eventually buy it, it will most likely come from Best Buy so that I can get their replacement warranty as well. This laptop would replace my 2-year old Windows laptop that I love but is starting to show it's age. I'm extra hard on laptops...

I love that the screen on this laptop can be flipped around and used as a tablet. I love that it has a built-in digital pen, that it reads my handwriting, and that it has a built-in media reader and DVD-burner. It's so useful, as I could take notes on my machine at a client site. One of my documentation projects is for tablet-based software as well. I can't stress how much easier that software would be to understand if I had a tablet.

We went to Morehead with Steven on Friday. (Great school, by the way.) Morehead is now offering these computers to their students for $425/semester, including replacement, support, and software.

Flock

I'm exploring Flock, which is a new, very beta (almost alpha) browser that makes the Web As We Know It more accessible than ever. I'm still trying to learn what all you can do with Flock. Right now, I'm blogging straight from Flock, and the interface is nice, allowing me to do a few things Typepad doesn't provide options for, such as adding a target tag within my hyperlinks.

Flock also functions as an RSS Reader, although I haven't been able to activate that function just yet. Flock ties directly into your Flickr account and your del.icio.us account. I don't use my Flickr account, preferring SmugMug, but it would seem that I will eventually be able to access and pull things from my SmugMug account directly into a blog post using drag and drop. Eventually. I believe that function is currently there for Flickr, based on what I've seen others do.

I only acquired a del.icio.us account today. I admit that I was slow to adopt it, mainly because I can't see the advantages. My bookmarks are available to me anywhere thanks to .Mac, so that's not an advantage for me. I also have several bookmarks, such as banking, that I certainly can't post for the world to see. I understand the tagging of the world is cool and all, but I'm still slightly blind to the advantages of del.icio.us. Regardless, I now have an account so that I can test it with Flock.

Flock would appear to have dozens of functions I have yet to discover. I am testing it on my iBook, which is not my primary machine but which I will be using full-time in Florida at the conference. I intend to blog a lot from the conference (but not live-blog) to my Write Tech blog as well as this one. I'll also be exposed to a lot of new web sites, so it should be a good test run for my use of Flock.

**I'm now blogging directly in Typepad - my usual method. The above text was entered in Flock. I love the way it adds Technorati tags. I don't like the fact that I can't assign categories in Flock. But it's new - a problem will be that all blogging apps are different and Flock allows you to blog to whomever your provider is. Maybe Blogger doesn't have categories, but Typepad does. How will Flock handle the various discrepancies? It will be interesting to watch as this browser evolves.**

Technorati Tags: Flock, web/tech, blog

RSS Chaos

My apologies. If you read this blog via RSS feed, and depending on your reader settings, you may have gotten a bunch of old posts. I went through and updated some of my categories (since categories are now used as tags, I thought a few should be more detailed). By doing so, your reader may or may not have registered the associated posts as "New." Sorry!

Cool new things: Wikis, Learning 2005, Reading

Some cool new things to mention:

There's a cool little application (not sure if that's the right word) out there called EditMe, available for $4.95 and up per month from Editme.com. It's a flexible online writing tool. It works incredibly well for wikis, as well as an online notebook, blogs, and so on. I also think that it would work nicely as a Knowledge Base (Of course, I think Knowledge Bases should be Wikis.)

My upcoming conference now has a Wiki. This is fascinating to me. Each session and topic has a page in the Wiki. The facilitator and the users can all add comments and questions. This allows the discussions to start BEFORE the conference and allows the facilitators to direct the conference discussion in a direction that interests the participants. As a note, PPT presentations and darkened rooms are not in use at this conference. It's a "1-Pager" Model that enables discussion and interaction. My conference also built a social networking site that I've been using. It is built, interestingly, on the back of online dating software, yet re-purposed. You fill out a very interactive online profile and then you're presented with a giant pincushion (using ASP) that displays you as the center pin and everyone with similar interests around you. Every pin is clickable. You can send messages - through the site - to others, and add and delete contacts. Your email address is never given, so there's no outside-of-the-site stalking. I've already "met" several people that I hope to meet up with at the conference. The use of ramp-up technology for this conference is amazing, but I have to say - it's almost too much. I'm overwhelmed by the staggering amount of podcasts, blog posts, books, PDFs, Wikis, and so forth that have come at me, from this conference alone, since July. In fact, I'm sort of overwhelmed by the sheer number of sessions from which to choose and I'm not quite sure how to pick just one per hour.

Finally, I picked up two new books. I was interested in the books anyway, but the authors are keynote speakers at the conference. Maybe I can snag an autograph or two ... Anyway, I'm now reading Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Both of these books demonstrate new styes of learning that instructional designers need to acknowledge as technology changes the learning landscape.

Corporate Merger

Yep, this has us a little worried. However, whenever there's a bank merger, there's also much federal approval that has to happen. That takes time, which buys us time in case it looks like Kevin's job is going to go away. In the meantime, cross your fingers that everything stays at the status quo for a little while. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous though.

Brrrr....

ASTD, a professional organization of which I am a member, is holding its TechKnowledge Conference the last week of Jan/first week of February - in Denver!  What are they thinking? Brrrr!!  I suppose it's a sneaky way to get people to the conference instead of skipping sessions. It's too darned cold to go outside. 
I suppose if you ski, it would be a great time to skip the conference. Despite having been promised skiing numerous times by various people, I've yet to go. So I don't understand the thrill.
Still - a conference in Denver in the middle of winter. I'm debating on attending, plus a friend of mine is one of the presenters. ASTD holds a different conference in May in Dallas, so I'm debating on that one instead.

Moleskines & Storyboarding

(cross-posted from the Write Technology blog)

I recommend everyone should storyboard before they create a course. It's amazing how many people jump right into eLearning creation without pre-planning, and it takes them twice as long to create their course.

If I'm turning storyboards into an SME for review, I'll generally create them in PowerPoint, in Notes view. If I'm just creating them for myself, I'll scribble them out on pieces of paper. Usually I follow this step anyway, to gather my thoughts before transferring them to the computer screen.

I'm a big fan of Moleskine notebooks. So imagine my happiness when I discovered that they make a Moleskine that is perfect for storyboarding.

An additional note for the southpaws out there (like myself): Moleskine now makes reporter-style notebooks as well. The binding is at the top. Moleskines don't usually cause too much trouble for lefties, because they are not spiral-bound, but it's always nice to see a solid notebook with top binding.
 

Plotting

... the ways I can possibly come up with $399 to acquire a new 60 GB Ipod w/video. It's the size, more than anything else, that intrigues me. The fit-in-my-purse and sit-lightly-on-my-arm-while-at-the-gym size.

Of course, I picked up my 40 GB, color, iPod Photo LESS THAN A YEAR AGO! It was not that long - sigh. I understand why Apple must continually reinvent. The competition is really getting fierce out there, mostly recently from the PSP I would think. But it still frustrates me that within a year, my products are obsolete.

Acquiring one right now just isn't plausible. But I'm working on it.

Not so smurfy

The test was painful. They tell you it won't be, but it is. Really. Many many needles. Like acupuncture, but with pain. And electrical shocks. Ugh. I'm typing with one hand. Slowly. I'm bad at this hunt - n- peck stuff. Anyway, I'll talk to dr at the end of the month to find out what all the electrical mumbo-jumbo really meant.

I'm posting because I saw this and wanted to share - this is not so smurfy. I get the point just reading it; seeing it would probably make me cry. (It doesn't take much, you know.)

Technorati: elbow, ulnar, ulnar nerve, elbow surgery, cubital tunnel, EMG

Electromyogram & Nerve Conduction

Remember how my fingers were going numb? Well, I saw a hand specialist a week ago and he confirmed the diagnosis of Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. Anyway, we don't yet know what to do about it as we don't know how severe it is. He doesn't think it's very severe - I think that I lose feeling in my fingers and THAT'S A BAD THING! Or at least, it's a really really freaky thing.
So today I go for an EMG and Nerve Conduction Test. Then we'll apparently know if it's severe or not and the Hand Dr will plot our course from there. I return to him, test results in, um, hand, on 10/28 - right before I head to Florida.

Technorati: elbow, ulnar, ulnar nerve, elbow surgery, cubital tunnel, EMG

Tragedy and Triumph for Wallace & Gromit

Wallace and Gromit did exceedingly well at the US Box Office this weekend, coming in at #1!

Sadly, this is a short-lived celebration. A real tragedy occurred as Aardman Animation Studios burned to the ground. Everything is gone - sets, props, character molds ... It's really sad. :-(

Brisco Finally on DVD?

Finally - The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr may be coming to a DVD near you:

Read the news flash here.

Stupid airlines!

The cost of air travel is getting outrageous now. Back in July, I was able to pick up our tickets to Orlando, non-stop from CVG on Delta, for about $200 each, round-trip. That's a pretty good deal considering that Cincinnati is a stupidly expensive airport with a Delta hub that is generally outrageously priced, especially for non-stops.
Here's the thing - we were very generously given (Anniversary/Christmas/Birthdays combo gift) a fully-paid Cruise to the Bahamas the first week of January. The ship sails out of Miami. Our problem now? Getting to Miami. I've been searching airfares for weeks. I check neighboring airports - various combinations of SDF, LEX, IND, CMH, and DAY flying to MIA, FLL, or PBI.  I can't find a rate LESS than $270 and that's generally at inconvenient times or days. I've used flexible days, moving the arrival or departure day up and back. Still nothing. Hell, Delta's lowest price is over $400! 
I follow the links for the cheap fare sales via Travelocity or Travelzoo. When I select my dates, suddenly that whole week is sold out of the fare. What - did they put one seat on sale and call that a Sale?
Kevin is at a point where we're figuring that even at $3/gallon, it would only be around $300 for the two of us to drive down and back - yep, about 21 hours. Sad, really, that we're even considering it. I'm so frustrated with the airlines!

UPDATE: As Steph reminded me in the comments, discount airlines like Southwest are only available through their own sites. I tried Southwest, Air Tran, and USA 3000. I found a flight on Air Tran that leaves out of Indy one day before the cruise and returns one day after for $207/person, r/t. That works out to $415 total. We figure if we drove, it would cost around $300 for gas, plus food and wear/tear on the car. In the end, the difference isn't all that grand. We're flying. I still say it's sad that finding an airfare had to be so difficult. Indy isn't our home airport, and the cruise leaves out of Miami, not Fort Lauderdale. It's a shame that you have to be so creative in order to be able to grab an affordable flight.

Drinking our way around the World

Around the World Showcase that is. I'm attending a conference that's actually in Disney World the first week of November. Kevin is flying down that Tuesday. Now, here are all the good parts:

• We're staying on Disney Property at the Coronado Springs Resort, where the conference is held. Disney is all about conferences and gave a fantastic rate on the room! I paid more last year and we stayed in Downtown Disney! This is so much better! (Did you know that wake-up calls are made by none other than Mickey Mouse?!!)
• The conference itself, Learning 2005, is sponsored by the Masie Center. It's an incredible conference with no exhibition hall, interactive sessions focused on peer discussion instead of presentations, wikis, blogs, eLearning, social networking ... it just sounds amazing. Anyone who is in education - be it corporate or academic - should really think about attending. And through October 15, registration is only $1095. I'm rarely excited about conferences - they make me sleepy. This one, however, I'm incredibly excited about. Oh, and just to make it better - Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, The Tipping Point) is going to be one of the speakers. Woohoo!
• The conference has bought out Disney MGM for that Tuesday night. It will just be us conference attendees (only 1115 right now) and our families. Wow! (I'll get the spouse admission for Kevin, which is discounted.)
• Wednesday, after the conference, Kevin & I are renting a car for the day to drive out to Tampa (only around a 90 minute drive or so) to see Pam and her new baby (Pam will be induced tomorrow morning).
• I'm buying 3-day Park Hopper passes for Kevin & I to use on Thurs, Fri, and Sat. These are at a super steep discount because Disney wants conference attendees to visit the parks. (There are caveats - they must be used by 12/30/05 and they are only valid for 10-days after the first use.) We're spending the three days in Animal Kingdom and, primarily, Epcot.
• Here's the best news of all, and the reason Kevin & I will be broke, well-educated, and drunk the entire time we spend in Epcot: The 2005 Epcot International Wine & Food Festival. Yep - right when we're there! It's amazing - there are all these extra booths full of wine, beer, and food. There are seminars on Wine and Wine Tasting. It's insane. We're drinking our way around the world. Oh, and the champagne bar opens at 9 am. We'll be lucky if we make it to Animal Kingdom.

I fully admit that I'm a Disney addict. I love Disney. It makes me happy just reading about Disney. In a month, I'll be immersed in Disney Magic for 7 days. I cannot wait!

Hey Indiana - WTF?

Unbelievable.

Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do
become pregnant "by means other than sexual intercourse."
According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother throu gh assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation,
and egg donation, must first file for a "petition for parentage" in their local county probate court.

Only women who are married will be considered for the "gestational certificate" that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the "gestational certificate" will only be given
to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.

As it the draft of the new law reads now, an intended parent "who knowingly or willingly participates in an artificial reproduction procedure" without court approval, "commits unauthorized reproduction, a Class B misdemeanor." The criminal charges will be the same for physicians who commit "unauthorized practice of artificial reproduction."

So, if you want to have a baby in Indiana and you're having some trouble, move far far away from the state before they analyze everything about you and tear apart your privacy during what is already an emotional time.
I cannot believe this proposed law. They are effectively making it impossible for a gay woman or man to have a child, they are penalizing women who have reproductive issues, and they are penalizing single women who are incredibly competent and want to have a child. Two parents are only better if both parents are loving and contributing, but they didn't mention that in their new law.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

UPDATE: State Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, issued a one-sentence statement this afternoon saying: “The issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn from consideration by the Health Finance Commission.”
Okay - I"m just scared that it even came that close to being considered. Egads! What is this world coming to? What is it that will differentiate us from, oh, the Taliban if we start legislating what women can do with their bodies? Oh I know. They would kill her for unauthorized reproduction. We'd just fine her and throw her in jail.

My ALternate World

Somewhere there is an alternate timeline (I remember learning about these in Philosophy class in college) where Al Gore was elected President and not Bush back in 2000. I would rather live there.
Al Gore gave a speech this morning on the decline of the media, and therefore the decline of democracy. Read it here.
(Thanks John!)

Project Alternative/Bad Days

First off, I found an Open Source alternative to MS Project. Yay!  Check out Open Workbench. It's free. I haven't played with it yet, but it's definitely worth a look-see.

I've been fighting through a bad couple of days. I had my hair color done on Wednesday last week and it was bright. I've washed it and I had just started to like it. Then today I wore black and had 2 people tell me I looked like a Bengals fan in my black outfit and orange hair. Saturday night I had a waitress compliment my outfit because it looked comfortable, which wasn't exactly what I was going for.  So, minor self-esteem hits this week - I'll recover though.

Had to teach training sessions the last two days. Today couldn't have been worse.  I had one student who didn't remember anything, anything at all, from the pre-requisite class. I spent so much time with her that I had another student actually reading the paper. Why don't people read directions and show up with the necessary skills? Not paying attention like that hurts the entire class. I think even she got frustrated after lunch and stopped asking questions. I was frustrated to a point that although I suspected she was having problems, I forged on ahead with the rest of my well-prepared class. Probably not the best alternative, but I'd really lost patience with the whole situation (which was slightly  more in-depth than what I described here). I had one machine crash 3 different times during today's session. To top it all off, we had a fire drill and evacuation (all a test) at the absolute worst possible time. My entire class had to high-tail out to the evacuation point to be counted. The whole exercise ate about 45 minutes.

Argh! Bad day!

Take my love, take my land ...

Very rarely do we see a movie on opening weekend. Very rarely do we pay evening prices as opposed to matinee. Today we did both.
Would everyone who reads my blog please please please go see Serenity because it will really kill me not to talk about it ...
Much Whedon-y goodness. And the series theme song can get stuck in your head.
"You can't take the sky from me ..."