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Last Friday El and Jan flew in from Berlin to visit D.C. for the weekend and prepare for the OSDL Printing Summit in Atlanta the following week. They were only here for two days, but we did manage to get in a trip downtown to see some of the monuments and do the ‘tourist’ thing. Unfortunately we picked the wrong day to go, it was 50 (F) and raining all day so we didn’t stay long.

Another friend of mine and Justin’s was in town from Boston who may have given El and Jan the wrong impression about Americans. Trust me, Morgan is one of a kind (re: we are not all crazy like him! :).

The flight to Atlanta was uneventful, although the meeting was way on the other side of town from the airport. I could only stay for two days, but we got a lot of good work done and perhaps will have a printing dialog and workflow standard! This is extremely important because currently different distros and desktop environments do them very differently, and often not in the most logical and usable manner.

Jan also got a good taste of our crazy Americaness (is this a word?) by going to Dave and Busters one night with a few other developers from the Printing Summit. If you have never been to a Dave and Busters, it is a great wonderful place to be (if you are in to this sort of thing). It is basically a giant arcade, bar, and restaurant and has so many cool things for young adults who like to drink, play video games, and have money. Definitely American.

Regardless of the drinking and eating we got done, we did get some work done. Some of Saturday afternoon was spent working KDE and discussion the goals and vision for KDE4. Also, I recently got approval to work on the KDE4 Human Interface Guidelines as an independent project for my Master’s program. I hope to get a significant portion, if not most of it written and put together this summer.

Work has been crazy busy lately and I dont get to blog as often. I will go through the day and think “wow, thats a cool thing” or “I should write that up” and never get around to it. Perhaps I should start scheduling for it just as I do for clients. Until next time…

seele :: Apr.14.2006 :: DC Metro, General, KDE/Kubuntu, Usability :: No Comments »

This and next week will be busier than average. Tonight I met up with pmax (who was in town for biz) with Justin to drink some beers and play some darts at a local bar. Its too bad pmax wont be in town long enough to visit downtown, the cherry blossoms are in full bloom (last night’s storm had spared them for yet another week) and its always nice to go site-seeing in the nation’s capital.

I’ve been running back and forth between client offices and I have a long day in Baltimore tomorrow. The day will be even longer in York, PA on Thursday as I complete on-site user surveys. Travel doesnt normally bother me (unless it is via plane), however I feel like a chicken with my head cut off (how many of you understand this expression?) this past week.

Later this week El and Jan will be in for the weekend to do some usability geeking before we head to Atlanta for an OSDL meeting. A friend from Boston will also be in Thursday for the weekend, so it will be quite a time. After the short trip to Atlanta things should slow down for a bit for a well needed breather. Perhaps I will be able to go back to blogging on a regular basis then

seele :: Apr.05.2006 :: General :: No Comments »