So what else is new you ask? Let’s see, in a matter of 2 days, we went from being a 3 car family to a 1 car family. So we kissed Al’s off roading jeep goodbye, and we sold my Pontiac Torrent to Carmax. So long $286 a month payments! Whoohooo!

Gas is super low right now, but Al & I aren’t going to count on it. It’s silly for us to have 2 SUV’s. So now after my surgery we’ll shop for a nice gas efficient car for Al to get to and from work. Ultimately, we’re taking the time right now to reduce the family clutter.

But speaking of family clutter. We have just a ton of stuff to do this week. We need to finish the nursery, and get the house ready for Baby Y’s home coming. Nesting is a real pain in the rear, simply because you can’t seam to clean enough, fold enough, or straighten enough. Even our poor, but feisty cats have been forced into a life of reorganization. I’ve already had to fight the urge to vacuum them, and steam clean them. So help me God, I will give them a Pine Sole bath if they cross me this week.

We even went as far as cleaning our electronic clutter. We called Comcast, and reduced our services to basic cable. So we went from 400 Channels of useless entertainment to 75. Hmmm..I see a connection though. I’ve been more productive, because I have less distractions. Plus we get to save $100 bucks a month on the freaking over priced cable bill.

So you see, you don’t need a new President to help you through bad economy. You only need the hormones of a pregnant woman to drive you to reorganize, straighten, declutter and reduce cost.

Digital documents and distribution methods make more information available to more people. At best, this information is highly available and readily update-able. This was the promise of the internet and I believe it continues to deliver on this promise. Partially out a want to be more Green™, but, mostly for efficiency, I seek out ways to make my life void of paper clutter. When I come across smart folks working to help me achieve this goal, I get giddy like a school lad. Insurance/banking giant USAA has done just this type of thing, again.

A while ago ( years ago, actually), USAA instituted paper-less distribution of insurance cards. No more need to get your whole insurance packet snailed to you- you’d just log in an print the card sheet with it’s cut lines and all…clip and save in the glovebox. I use this feature and all of their other electronic methods and they are awesome. Well, today, I needed to fax over said proof of insurance cards to someone. Facing having to download the latest version of the cards, printing them, then, manually fax them, I logged in only to see a few new options for getting the document: Download, Email, and FAX. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. The UI is so well thought out as well- just choose Fax, fill in recipient name + number and hit Send.

Aside from the convenience factor for customers, imagine what USAA has saved in staffing by spending a little up front to make it virtually human-free for a customer to get direct access to their stuff. Win is abound here, folks.

On November 18th, I will be trading in my swollen ankles, & my raging hormonal glow for unlimited sushi indulgence, and a monthly trips to Babies R Us for bulk purchases of diapers.

It has been a wonderful 9 months. Some VERY stressful. But at the end of the day, Al and I have enjoyed every last minute of it.  It has solidified our family all the more. 

Not just because we will have a child, but the experience of this pregnancy has reminded both Al and I how much of a team we really are. It has not been an easy pregnancy, and I have had to lean on Al more than ever. I have felt so loved, and I’ve see every day, why it is that we will make it through anything the next two years of infancy, and toddler-hood throws our way.

It’s been a wonderful journey.  We’ve been smothered by the support of our family and friends. Ethan & Jenny threw us a beautiful shower, and we were overwhelmed with excitement from our friends, and family members.

Both of our jobs have been so supportive. When Al needed to help me while I was at home for days on end, with nausia.  Or when I couldn’t come into work because of my blood pressure, or debilitating migraines.  We simply can’t get over how wonderful everyone in our lives have been to us, during a very long 9 months.

What I’m trying to say is.  It hasn’t been easy. BUT thanks to all the support of everyone around us, and the ultimate ending reward, you could gladly sign us up to do it all over again. Well maybe not just yet…but come talk to us in a year or so.

Stay tuned on the 18th…Al will post on Livingdriving.com how the c section goes…and we’ll be answering the 9 month old question “Do you know what it is?”

You probably heard on the talky box or ear-hole unit about the 16 year old Baltimore-area resident that is on trial for murdering his mother, father, and 2 siblings when he was 15. They say he “just snapped” and shot them all, then, calmly sat down and played video games, or something to that effect. This week, the lad’s lawyer’s had him plead guilty to get some sweetheart deal- something like two 25-year consecutive terms where he could get the possibility of parole is 26 years, I think. This horrific incident and subsequent case aren’t my, point, however. What is at hand is the folks that are coming out saying “well, good…there is a chance he will be rehabilitated and become a productive member of society.” WTF?

When it comes to criminals and rehabilitation, there is a very fine line. Rehabilitation, in the “justice system,” can curb behaviors, and that’s it. Much in the same way that your golf swing sucks (mine too) because you are doing it wrong- bad form/behavior-, you can be taught to do it better or even correctly and become a local link legend in your own mind. If you injured your knee (probably in a fight after bragging about your now sweet golf swing), you may walk a bit funny. People would probably say you “lean to the left a little” and wouldn’t be talking about your political views. Hearing this, you’d get your knee rehabbed and be good to go. People “in the system” for stealing cars, being a chronic litterer, and even the business person that burned his losing restaurant down for an insurance write-off can be rehabbed. As a society, we say to them “that was uncool- sit in this dry, comfy place and get free food for a while to think about it” and we call it a day. Murderers, violent sex offenders (is there any other kind), etc., that’s either a lifestyle choice or a brain misfire (or a lethal combination of the two); they can’t be rehabbed.

Who in their right mind sits around and says “John X may have murdered someone, but, in a few years, he will have great wisdom to impart to society about why you shouldn’t kill people.” Seriously, what does this type of criminal offer us as a society? Why would we want this type IN SOCIETY at all when they have told us by their actions that they do not agree to the very rules that keep society in place. Maybe it’s just me, but, if someone does something I don’t like, I don’t hang around them anymore.

So, help me understand.

Niche sites, which are, at most, glorified blogs with a few writers, by and large, derive income based on traffic. They seek to provide content that will keep users coming back and to, hopefully, attract new users. The more volume a site has, the more the site can demand in ad dollar percentages. Most sites stick to the tried and true ad serving methods of banners and Google Adwords. Sites in this model will serve up a new set of AdWords and/or a banner on each and every page on the site with the hopes that you will click on one of these retarded ads, as it is one $ tier for simply serving up ads in bulk numbers vs. how many were actually clicked on (and to a further degree, which clicked ads even converted to a sale,etc.). So, in this model, the more pages served up = better chances at big bucks. Ok, what’s the point?

In this day of Digg.com, Reddit.com ,etc., content owners try their damndest to get linked into to really drive those numbers up. Hell, I want the same thing! (but not for money, more for ego!) What the offenders do is to bait a user in with what seems like decent content and, mostly, it actually is good content. Where they go wrong is by pulling a content bait-and-switch; you visit the article and it is either broken up into several “pages” when it could really just be one page (Cracked.com is famous for this), or, it contains an “image gallery” that is stretched out over pages upon pages when a simple, self contained image gallery can exist on a page without the excessive clicking.For shame!

Here’s a great example- an article today on the car/truck niche site, Jalopnik.com. Jalopnik.com, I suspect, started as a site to post cool stuff about cars and such, but, has grown into a revenue blog and with it, absolutely horrible UX. The site not only gives you a big banner in the top right og the site disuguised amongst it’s content call-out, it hits you again mid-way down the page, and pimps the blog network that it’s in on the left side. So bloated with bullshit this site is, the most simple thing they can do to retain users and gain new ones- a subscription button- is buried beneath the diarrhea of spam enveloping the site on the bottom left instead of being top, right and prominent. Rather than trying to cast such a wide net to account for (what I’m sure is) a high bounce rate, they should concentrate on better UX to keep users and build fans, despite what their ad network tells them.

On the web, you get one shot with a user. If a user is coming to your site because they connect with your content, you have them. Why not keep them?

Post iPhone edits: Not liking how the image gets inserted after the post…had to fix that…might switch to writing a custom PHP filter to pull it out at render time or use jquery…stay tuned…

The preceeding is more of a pre-amble; what is at hand is how to explain to designers used to a print world that the web is living and breathing. Fonts may be spec’d to be X size, but, users can and will choose preferences. Design must scale, physically, and that is a hard concept to begin with, however, the real kicker is scaling the purpose to begin with; the solution must be flexible. This is where core creativity comes in- the rest is just production/implementation.