I thought there were standards for this sort of thing? I understand that the better they make us feel, the more likely we are to keep them in business but why make it so frustrating?  Unfortunately, some places are starting to make it so difficult that they’re losing business…or, at least losing some of mine. I don’t want to “feel better” about the size I’m wearing. I want to know exactly what I’m wearing so I can a) easily find clothes that fit and b) finally say “whoa! it’s time to do something about this!”.

Daffy is currently on doggy anti-anxiety meds (yes, we’re under advisement of a vet AND behaviorist and yes, they’re necessary – for now). The last few days, she’s not been interested in eating her dinner, which is a side effect of the meds. The first few nights, we’d give her some out of our hands and then try to get her to eat out of the bowl. She’d eat what was in our hands but wouldn’t touch the bowl until around 7:00 pm. Saturday and Sunday, she didn’t eat it until almost 10:00 pm. Today, I tried putting her food into a Buster Cube and it worked for a little while. I think she ate about 1/3 of her dinner but hasn’t touched anything in the bowl.  Again, I know this is a side effect of the meds and she’ll eventually eat.  Here are my questions:

1) Should we leave her bowl of food out so it’s there when she’s ready for it?

2) If so, how do we keep that from becoming a habit? (normally, we feed her around 5:00 every day)

A few times in the past I’ve taken her food away if she’s just being stubborn and won’t eat. Then, I’d put it back down later and if she still didn’t eat it I’d take it away again until the next day. (I’m not evil – I’d give her abt. 1/2 a cup in the AM so she didn’t starve waiting for dinner time). Because she’s not being stubborn and just not ready to eat due to the meds, I’m concerned about taking it away from her. What are your thoughts?

I had a meeting with my manager a few weeks ago and he gave me homework for our next meeting.  We’re working on mid-year reviews and he asked me to think about what I would like to do. Sounded simple enough, right? Then, I began to think about it. I had no freakin’ idea! There are so many options! Everything I could think of that I liked to do had nothing to do with my day to day job. I began to feel overwhelmed and a bit panicky.

One evening, my husband and I were talking about it and I said, “You know, I really love writing process documentation and creating flow charts and creating forms and just generally making things easier for people.” He looked at me and said “Jenn, why aren’t you doing what I’m doing?” I just looked at him. Holy crap! He was right! All the stuff  I love to do at work was related to User Experience! Not from a web perspective, but that’s OK since I wouldn’t be able to apply that in the current organization I’m working in.

So, that is why I had asked for everyone’s recommendations on a book or a site they found very helpful. As I’ve been thinking about it more and doing a bit of reading, I really think I’ve finally found what I’d like to do!

The next step was to talk to my manager and get his buy in. My next meeting with him was this past Monday and it went great! I told him how the one thing I’m working on already is directly related to UX. He said he thinks we could really use someone in that type of role on the team. So, it’s all working out perfectly!

Now my next step is to learn as much as possible and, something else I would really like to do, go back to school. We do have a degree assistance program at work and my manager said to work up a plan and we’ll talk through it to see what we can do.  What I’m working on now is trying to determine the best track to follow. I’m thinking that communication and psychology should be included, but not sure what type of degree would be the best. If anyone has any suggestions, please, feel free to let me know!

Earlier this morning, I sent out the following message on Twitter:

UX friends: If you could recommend 1 book &/or site to someone thinking of getting into the field, what would it be? PLS RT

I’ve received only a few so far but I also received a message from someone else interested in the list, which is what prompted me to add it to my blog. As I receive recommendations, I’ll add them to this list.  Feel free to leave your own in the comments, or, send me a tweet!

Without further ado, here is the list so far:

• A Project Guide to UX Design by Russ Unger & Carolyn Chandler || http://tr.im/puhe ~ 3 recommendations
• Sketching User Experience by Bill Buxton || http://tr.im/qu5K ~ 2 recommendations
• Communicating Design by Dan Brown || http://tr.im/px90 ~ 2 recommendations
• Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites by Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville || http://tr.im/pugo ~ 1 recommendation
• Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter) (Paperback) by Christina Wodtke || http://tr.im/qtWx ~ 1 recommendation
• So You Want to Be an Interaction Designer 2006 Essay by Dan Saffer || http://tr.im/qtYn ~ 1 recommendation
• IxDA mailing list || http://www.ixda.org/ ~ 1 recommendation
• IAI mailing list || http://iainstitute.org/en/ ~ 1 recommendation

Thank-you to those who have give recommendations so far and thank-you in advance for those to come!

First, these are NOT the reasons I’m green:

• I am NOT green because I think that Mousavi should have won the election. Nor do I think Ahmadinejad is the right choice. I don’t know who should have rightfully won. They didn’t ask me to count all of the ballots.
• I am NOT green because I believe the US, UK and whoever else are evil. I don’t. I love my country and the freedom and rights I have.
• I am NOT green because I believe that Islam is the one right religion. I don’t believe that there is ONE ‘right’ religion. I believe there’s one religion that is right for you as an individual. I have my own set of beliefs that encompass many religions and am still searching for my ‘one’.

So, why AM I green?

• I AM green because I believe that we should all have the right to disagree with something or someone. If everyone agreed with each other, what would we talk about?
• I AM green because I think it is unfair to beat or murder someone because they think differently than you. People are different. I can’t think of one relative or friend who is exactly like me. Can you? It’d be a pretty lonely place if we killed all those different from us, wouldn’t it?
• I AM green because I believe peaceful protests should not be met with violence. I saw a video from Tehran on YouTube the other day of a man handcuffed with his shirt pulled off. He was not resisting, he was not fighting, yet, the cowards hiding behind ski masks beat him. I cried watching it and it brings tears to my eyes now just thinking about it. How can someone treat another human being like that?
• Finally, I AM green because I am a human being that doesn’t believe other human beings should be treated the way those protesting in Tehran are being treated.

Again, these are just my answers to ‘Why is your avatar green?’. You may agree, disagree, have answers of your own or just not care, which is fine because, well, that is your right.

So, yes, we have a new addition to our little family! Before anyone gets too excited, we adopted a dog! Daffy joined our family on December 14th. She was kind of a birthday/Christmas present for both of us.

We’ve always wanted a dog but were not allowed to have one in the apartments we’ve lived in. One day, there was a note on the front door of our building about a missing cat. I thought it was weird so I called the office and asked if we were allowed to have pets now. Apparently, we’ve been allowed since August! So, my search began. I was scouring petfinder.com for that special pooch. The one that just called out to me. Then, there she was.

Her name was Jenny and there was just something about her.  The shelter had just had a visit from Santa and her letter really tugged at my heartstrings (I’m tearing up just reading it again!):

Dear Santa – Hi, this is Jenny from Camden County Animal Shelter! Thank you so much for coming to visit all of us good boys and girls. I loved the yummy treat you brought me!

Santa, I was so sad when my new family had to leave me back at the Shelter. I loved being in a real home and I was a very good girl. Can you please bring another family for Christmas, one that will never leave me? I will give them kisses and love every single day!
Merry Christmas Santa!
Love,
Jenny

I knew she was it but wanted to go see her before I got too excited. I sent her info to Michael and we made plans to go and see her that Saturday. We fell in love almost immediately. She had been in the shelter twice. Her first owners starved her and the 2nd returned her even though she “didn’t do anything wrong” (we found out later that this wasn’t true). So, we filled out the application and waited.  While waiting, we went to PetSmart to get all the supplies we thought we’d need and decided to re-name her Daffy.

It was the longest 24 hours EVER! We hadn’t heard from the shelter so I called them just to make sure we didn’t forget anything on or application or something (It was a ruse, really. I wanted an answer!). The woman checked and said “I have you down as picking her up today.” I never got dressed so fast in my entire life.

It was difficult adjusting to having Daffy with us at first. She wasn’t trained at all – I think she knew sit and that was all. They said she was housebroken, but apparently, she had forgotten. She pulled on the leash so hard I had sore shoulders for a long time (she actually pulled me down once!). I was so frustrated and just didn’t know what to do. And, beneath everything else, I was a little scared because, even though we didn’t want to admit it at first, she was part pit bull. Since she was so unruly, I didn’t know what she’d do.

We ended up getting a personal trainer for her. He had been coming for 5 weeks and we’d hardly made any progress. Finally, I decided that we needed to look into the training facility recommended by the shelter. We went for our free demo and evaluation. By the time we left, we had signed up. It was really expensive but the training is for as long as Daffy is with us and we can go as much or as little as we want. After just a few lessons, we saw a dramatic improvement in her!

So, now we’re pretty used to having her around and are still attending training classes. Even though the shelter said she was “good with other dogs, kitties and children of any age”, she really isn’t.  She very dog aggressive and we’re not sure about children so we’re being very careful.

I can’t imagine my life without her now. Daffy’s finally found the family that will never leave her. And she does give us puppy kisses & love every day!

I have some new photos to add but, if you’d like to see some pics of Daffy, you can check out my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcarvin77/sets/72157611220490365/

I received an email from a co-worker/friend that had been forwarded from one of their friends that had been forwarded from one of their friends and so on. One comment in the message really struck me [copied with grammatical errors and all]:

“I have always had a problem voting for someone that was born with an American name but changed it to not another , more appealing , American name, but to another Islamic appealing name. Thats OK ,UNLESS, you choose to run for THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and not choose to change your name back to your American given name to prove perhaps,love for your country.”

Let’s just get this out of the way. The name given to him at birth was Barack. It was his father’s name. His nickname was Barry. Based on an article in Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/id/128633), Barack is an African name, not Islamic.

So, last time I checked, none of our Presidents had an “American” name. Let’s go through the list, shall we?

(looked up at http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com)

Hmmm…I didn’t see one name with an American origin.

When I looked for names with an American English origin at Baby Names World, I found names such as Bubba, Fable, Kodiak, Scout and Seven. I think I’ll name my kid Tron…it was a cool movie.

Apparently this person has some insider information that I, or probably most of the country, wasn’t aware of. When did one of the requirements of Presidency become “You must have an American sounding name”? Here’s a snippet of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution (the part that talks about the Election, Installation, Removal of the President):

“No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.”

Nothing in there about the person’s name…or their religion for that matter. (by the way, he’s a Christian, not Islamic or Muslim. Not that it matters, though. Right?)

I’m tired of the fact that most Americans shrink in fear or violently lash out because of the Middle Eastern, or Muslim, or “someone different than you” family that moved in down the street or next door. So what? Did they do anything to you? Did they hurt you, torture you, kill your cat? No? They just moved in and live quietly? Just because they are Middle Eastern, or Muslim, or different than you, that doesn’t make them terrorists out to get your family. Maybe if you actually take the time to know them you’ll find out they’re really not much different from you and want the same things out of life.

I guess that, in the end, my question is: Does it really matter? If someone came along and they were the perfect candidate…could solve all the worlds problems with the blink of an eye. No more taxes, made money and food appear on every table. Rid the world of homelessness, starvation, acne. If someone could do all that, would it still matter if the person’s name was Yasir or Rafiki or Abdul or even Helen? I’d like to think it wouldn’t, but something tells me it would.

And yes, Governor Palin, I do thank the veterans for the fact that I have the right to protest, bitch, moan, groan and vote for someone based on their qualifications, not based on their name or religious affiliation.

So, I signed up to get updates on Brett from the Care Page that was set up for him (http://tinyurl.com/3p4s94). I just got another update today that was a sad reminder to not take the people in our lives for granted. Here’s a portion of the post from Tanda (Brett’s mom):

Brett’s birthday is October 9th. He’ll be 10 years old! I hope he will feel up to a little party here. There were plenty of times in the past few months when I didn’t think he’d make it to his birthday. It’s hard not to get angry knowing that this will be the first birthday when he couldn’t eat his own cake, blow out his candle, open his presents or get to play with his new toys. Last year he wanted a Ninja Turtle birthday. I made him a green cake with the turtle shell design and he got, like, ten thousand Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys and accessories. And we bought him a footlocker to keep his favorite toys locked up so his brothers couldn’t lose or break them. Now, I’m going to use his footlocker to keep all the things in that help me to remember what he was like before he got sick and became the silent shadow of himself. I miss him. He used to drive me absolutely crazy because he wanted to do everything his own way (which was usually the opposite of mine) and we clashed ALL the time. But now, I would do anything to hear him argue with me. I would welcome his sarcasm and I would not say a word when he came in the apartment with wet, muddy clothes. If I got to hear him say “mom” one more time, I would be the happiest mother in the world.

Oh, god. How did we get here…?

So, thank your children for yelling at you or throwing a fit, because they’re still able to. Thank your mother and/or father for asking you the same question 50 times, because they’re still here to ask. Thank your husband for coming home late without calling, because he still came home. And thank whoever that you’re still able to be a part of it all.

I want to preface this entire thing with the fact that I would not change one single thing about my life growing up. My mom (really my grandmother) is one of the best things that ever happened to me and I wouldn’t change being raised by her for anything in the world.

For those who really know me, the short story is, I found my mother on Facebook. Yes, my real mother.

For those who don’t know me (or don’t know the whole thing), here’s the story: I think I was about 5 years old and my mother and I were living with my grandmother (parents were divorced). One day, I was up in my mother’s room, looking out the window. I remember seeing her (my mother) walking out across the lawn and I believe she was on her way to work. Little did I know that would be the last time I saw her.

Fast forward a few years…I’m still living with my grandmother (who I started calling ‘mom’). I was getting ready to leave for dance class and the phone rings. I answer it and it turns out to be an administrator from some hospital (I don’t remember which one). This was the day I found out I had two half-brothers. The call was because there were some hospital bills that weren’t paid for and that was the contact number she gave. I remember hanging up the phone and just crying. I didn’t know why at the time. I think it may have been overwhelming at that age to find out that I had two half-brothers that I didn’t even know about.

Now, fast forward many years (to about two years ago). I was looking through pictures at my mom’s house and she says something like “Hold on a second. I guess I should give you these.”. It was pictures of one of my half brothers and another picture with him, their dog and my mother’s husband. I sat and cried. I was sad, hurt and jealous.

It’s funny. Even when you know you didn’t do anything wrong, you still wonder. Why did she leave me? Why did they get to be a family? Did the boys and her husband even know about me? (don’t laugh…my father’s 2 best friends didn’t know he had a daughter…I was about 17 at the time. Not exactly new to the world.) Man…no wonder I have abandonment issues. Two parents that left and wanted nothing to do with me.

So, tonight I was just messing around on Facebook. Looking up old friends, co-workers and family. I decided “What the hell. I’ll look her up.”. Very. First. Entry. Now, I don’t know what to do. Should I contact her? Should I just leave it alone?

I want to know why. And, honestly, I feel like I deserve an answer. I want to know my two half-brothers. Growing up, I wanted nothing more than a sibling and now here are two that I may never know. I’m afraid that if I contact her, she’ll want to be a part of my life now. I don’t know that I want that. I don’t know that I don’t want it. I’m afraid that she’ll want something. From what I’ve heard, she’s a taker, not a giver. And I have heard or seen nothing to contradict that. Basically, she’s a complete stranger to me.

So, that’s where I’m at. Tired, torn and a bad headache. This sucks.