Month: March 2014

Here is a tale of poor user experience in two iPhone screenshots.

I clicked “It’s Okay.”

My first reaction was, “Well, fuck you! It’s not my fault you’re sorry! Thanks for the various options you gave me.” I don’t think that’s the user reaction they are looking for.

This whole problem could have been avoided with a non-binary choice. Or, it could have been avoided by not forcing me to click one of these buttons in order to use the app. I’m a Flickr Pro user so any “you get it for free” argument does not apply to me.

I do not choose to for-free help you improve your product. Instead, I’ll give you the name and contact of my wife who will be happy to do it on a professional basis. Instead of giving me “Later” implying that I’ll do it and “Sure” implying that I’m a teenager, how about “Yes” or “No.”

Just for reference, Griffin’s people are the Nazgûl.

The plague recently struck the Jenn-Bill-Griffin household with everyone having gastroenteritis one after the other. I can state with confidence that my bout with it was one of the two or three worst illnesses I’ve ever had. While I’ve been sick for longer, in the past, this one hit with the subtlety of a bat to the back of the head. I was needing people to fetch me water because I literally could not make it from the bedroom to the kitchen and back.

Every dark cloud has a slightly less dark cloud outside it, though ((You know, near the edge, where the sun can shine on it.)). Once I was up and around again I discovered that I was down a good five pounds ((Most of which is back now, thank you. It was all the water I couldn’t keep inside.)) and I had a stark reminder that due to my back issues, I’ve been a sessile creature for the past year and a bit. This had contributed to a gain in weight and a redistribution of what weight I had from nice firm muscle to less firm flab. Thusly, things ain’t fitting so well around here at the moment.

As usual, the first place things get tight are pants, but for me that doesn’t have the mental “Oh, No!” factor as not fitting into my favorite t-shirts. So, we have a plan.

I’ve gone through my drawers and pulled out all the t-shirts that just aren’t very comfortable anymore. These are now in the bag you see in the above picture. ((Except for some that are going through the laundry cycle, but I’ll throw those in later.)) To remind and motivate, I’ve got my official Worship the Pizza Gods shirt on display and I will now make efforts to reduce the overage that is causing me to be a bit more plump than I like.

Am I unhealthily large? No. Is this the sort of life-altering decision and stuff that people who go on juice cleanses and 12 month sabbaticals have? No. But it’s a concrete reminder that I need to get a move on. I’m forty and it’s only going to be harder to lose it the longer I leave it. For the time being, significant aerobic exercise isn’t going to happen so I have to start at the intake end. I don’t have a plan yet, but I will.

And it would be a shame to get rid of those t-shirts. I like those. ((The date on that package is 9/18/14, but I don’t plan to hold myself to an arbitrary date. As long as I’ve seen some improvement by then, I’ll keep holding onto the bag.))

Taking pictures of yourself can be challenging. Taking pictures of an infant is also challenging. I decided to address both of these issues using a piece of equipment called Triggertrap.

Triggertrap is a connector you attach to your camera that lets you use your smart phone to set various camera shutter functions. I bought it so I could do time lapse photos. Not specifically so I could make time lapse videos, but so I can set the camera to take a picture every two seconds and sit there with the baby trying to get a smile out of him.

Last night’s dry run seems to have gone fairly well. I also made a time lapse video yesterday of me cleaning my garage. I may put that up for entertainment value. I may not.

Other images from that photo shoot can be seen at my Flickr site