September 11

I will be travelling by plane this coming Monday. Although I will make a conscious choice to not live in fear, the memories of five years ago will be closer to the surface than normal.

In fact, I haven't really thought forward to Monday until I watched Ze Frank's the show where he blogged about his memories of the day from a perspective of one living in Brooklyn. His comments are simple and profound.

So in the last week, President Bush has called on Americans to use the five year anniversay of September 11th as a chance to recall the unity that we felt in its aftermath.

It was a pretty amazing unity. We were certainly bonded together by fear, but also by a kind of hopefulness. It was a hopefulness from the experience of the amazing strength that we have when we decide to help each other. That unity was not about the government. It was a shared determination among us to make things better.

The president seems to think that unity implies supporting him and his policies. In my personal opinion the president has no right to attach himself to that part of our experience. He already had his shot

While every other aspect of 9/11 is defiled this Monday,
let us at least keep in tact the memory of what that unity meant to us.

Ze, I salute you for thinking for yourself.

How to create a LEGO mosaic

Who doesn't want a portait of themselves made from legos? This tutorial shows you all the steps you need to make one!

Cardmeeting

Thanks to James Webster, I have stumbled upon yet another collaboration tool, Cardmeeting. You and your team can create and rearrange index cards in real time. Using index cards is a great way to quickly get ideas down and arrange them in a stack for priority or in a sequence to show workflow.

Hikaru Dorodango

I just found another way to spend some quantiity time with my children
making shiny mud balls. Apparently, Hikaru Doradango, as it is called,is quite popular in Japan.

Reading through the instructions this morning made me nostolgic for a simpler time. What kid didn't try and make his mud balls as round as possible? I will definitely be trying this.

Online Collaboration Tools

Living a thousand miles from your co-workers presents quite a challenge for designing software. Thankfully, there has been a small explosion of very useful tools that I am using to ease the process of collaborating with my team.

Whiteboard
www.imaginationcubed.com

Flash based with all the essential tools. Begin a drawing, invite one or more friends. Updates made by any contributors are almost immediately displayed on all screens. Save your white board - even replay the drawing! Very slick.

Flowcharting
www.gliffy.com

Seems to work exactly like Visio.

Chat
www.campfirenow.com

Gives you the ability to have multiple chat rooms where the transcripts are available until you clear them. Something your team can just keep in a browser window throughout the day.

Not just me

Apparently, I am just following the trend here.

Northeasterners are moving South and West. West Coast residents are moving inland. Midwesterners are chasing better job markets. And just about everywhere, people are escaping to the outer suburbs, also known as exurbs.

"It's a case of middle-class flight, a flight for housing affordability," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

At least they are not all coming to the same place

The states that attracted the most new residents: Florida, Arizona and Nevada.

Interestingly, Michelle and I discovered that three or four families from our son's school have also moved or planned to move to Colorado before the end of the current semester.

More Loveland Photos

Two photos from the gazebo down the street from our new house.


 

Loveland Photos

Here are some photos of our walk through the Loveland Sculpture park

Who knew Marcel was a member of the Red Sox Nation

Refugee

Imagine, if you will, a lake. You are standing 10 feet from the shore, feet surrounded by damp grass, bent in every direction from a dozen barefeet. Looking towards the horizon, past the southwestern end of the water's edge, you see the Rocky Mountains rise up to relfect the the first kiss of then sun. Breathe in the crisp air deeply. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Repeat. Feel the energy surge through your body. Morning has broken and this is your first day.

I am a refugee. I am free!

In less than two weeks, I will drive across the California border and not look back. The wide open spaces of the Front Range of Colorado are my new home. This exodus, if you will, has been a dream too long stifled and the anticipation of it coming true is giving me great cause for joy.