kirabug’s idea files

I haven’t said much about baseball lately. I’ve been afraid to curse the game. (We Philadelphia fans have been known to be a little superstitious.)

I don’t have to worry about that right now.

I’ve known the names Schmidt, Rose, Carlton, and Bowa for as long as I’ve known the names of my own family… and in some cases, I’ve probably known them better. I can remember my father whooping and yelling when the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series in 1980. I’m not sure that, at the ripe old age of four and a quarter years, I really understood what was happening, but I knew that baseball was magic, and it was important, and that the World Series was all of that magic and importance wrapped into one package.

Over the last twenty eight years, there have been times that I have called them bums. There were times when I could’ve sworn I was the cause of their failures. There were times that I jeered and times that I cheered, and many many times that I’ve forgiven them and thanked them and throughout it all, I loved them.

Tonight, John Kruk explained on Baseball Tonight that the Phillies organization is a family unlike any other in baseball. Family. That’s what they’ve always been to me. Harry Kalas has sat at our dinner table, and our lunch table, and every major holiday. The tears we cried when Richie Ashburn, and Tug McGraw, and John Vukovitch died were real. The pride we felt when our boys won the MVP award, or made the All Star game, or hit in the home run derby was no less strong than the pride we feel when one of our own is accepting a diploma or receiving a promotion.

And of course we fight and we insult those who need insulting. But we stick together as a family, mock those who need mocking and we give without thinking of the consequences, because we’re family.

Tonight, the boys of summer finished the longest World Series game in history and came out on top.

For the first time since I was four years old, those bums came through, and I’m so happy all I can say is thank you.

Thank you for the summer days and the smell of grass, the taste of hot dogs, the feel of the sun on your back, and the crack of the bat. Thank you for long drives and balls that are outta here, for miracle plays and amazing defense. Thank you for making the cold winter that’s coming a lot warmer on the inside. Thank you.

Pitchers and catchers report on February 14, 2009. I can’t wait.

What happens when the Governor of PA promises a first grader a ticket to the world series 4 years ago? They go to Saturday’s game.

One more reason why Jamie Moyer is so inspiring.

Wow, I have been flat-out busy the last two days.

Yesterday, the conference session on Visual design for the web (check out the nifty podcast) I attended started at 8:30 and ran until 5:30 — with generous breaks to keep us all sane, but most of the break time was eaten by things like waiting in line to use the bathroom and waiting for the elevator.

(Quick elevator aside: I’m in a hotel with no less than 26 floors. I’m on floor 21. The conference is on floor 2. If you want to get on the elevator to go up, the easiest way is to go downstairs to the lobby via the escalator, and push the up button from there, because despite the volume of folks at the conference, it’s still easier to catch the elevator at the floor it almost always has to touch on a “down” trip. Once inside, we’ve been playing “elevator bingo” — we won earlier today by loading a full row (floors 5-6-7) on one trip. I’m hoping to see us win with a column sometime before we leave. As for catching the elevator going down, rule 1 is wait patiently for it to arrive, rule 2 is wait patiently some more, and rule 3 is once you’re on board you’ll be stopping on every floor, so wait patiently. Patience is a virtue I don’t have, so it’s been a challenge.)

The session was highly interactive and quite interesting, though, so it wasn’t a challenge to get through it. And I feel a lot better about the basics of visual design and the idea that I can have an intelligent conversation with a visual designer and not make quite as much of a fool of myself.

After the session, some of the guys I work with and I met some other PhillyCHI people that are also at the conference, and we went out to dinner at Cambridge Brewing Company. The food was good and the conversation was excellent. It was a relief that we didn’t spent the entire time talking about user experience, but instead spent most of our time on more pressing topics, like “Why hasn’t Anne ever been on a subway before this week?” and “How old do they potty train kids in Brazil?” and the weather in Chicago and how the Phillies were doing. I had a great glass of Riesling wine, some sweet and spicy wings, and a butternut squash soup that was just sublime.

The weather here has been crisp — definitely fall in the air — but not cold, so we’ve been able to walk back and forth to restaurants and the like without any issues. It’s been quite nice.

Anyway, got home to my ivory tower and turned on the Phillies game, and at the time we were winning 2-1, which was awesome. I talked to Nighthawk on the phone for a bit and then chatted with my sister online, and the Phillies were going downhill and more downhill, until the score was 5-3 and I was just waiting for a horrible loss. Not having the energy for it, I shut the TV off and instead did some desk work and fought to stay awake.

When I’d just about finished that, I decided to go to bed, but my curiosity about the game was killing me. I finally killed the cat and checked out the Phillies search feed on Twitter (which is filled with folks tweeting all throughout the games) and discovered that holy shit, the Phillies had tied the game. I turned on the extremely sexy flat-panel LG tv in my room just in time to watch Matt Stairs park one, putting the Phils ahead. Well, there was no sleeping after that until the game ended, that’s for sure.

I didn’t drag my sorry butt out of bed until almost 8:00 this morning and barely made the first of the 90-minute mini-sessions today, but once the day got started they were pretty damn awesome. And also flat-out. Watched a session, then a break, then another session, then a lunch with other information architects, then the keynote, then what was supposed to be an ice cream social, but my head said no. My sinuses said “hey, moron, we want water and pain drugs or you pay.” Two tylenol sinus, a bottle of water, and a power nap later, and I was back on my feet for the final session. By then it was 5:30, so we were done, right?

Wrong. After that, there was a really cool social down in the ballroom, where we ate totally excellent pasta and other foods (jerk fajitas, olive bar type doohicky, lots of little desserts, oh, and alcohol) and chatted with existing and new friends about what we’d learned and how everything was going. I had a great time and overate, of course, so when that finally broke up at 7:30 I was stuffed and feeling icky and exhausted.

I seriously considered hitting the pool but I’m not confident I have anything appropriate to wear over my suit and I’m 100% sure I don’t have the confidence to haul my fat ass through the halls and 17 floors down the stops-everywhere elevator in just the swimsuit. Plus, I was raised by a Coast Guard vet so I’ve got a natural aversion to swimming without a buddy because I’ve got the kind of luck that would make me the only person in the history of Information Architecture that drown to death at a conference.

But one of the great things I hadn’t really considered about Tang Soo Do when I first joined is that you can literally do it anywhere, so instead of swimming I cleared a spot in my room and did the basic stretches and kicks and punches that we do to open most classes. It was a little difficult to warm up without a kihap on the kicks (which I figured might freak out the other folks on the floor) but I pulled it off. Now I’m feeling a lot better, much less achy, and willing to sit down and be a geek for a little while.

So… my poor iBook laptop (the Dread Pirate Roberts) with its 933 MHz PowerPC chip and its 1.12 GB of RAM has been processing video and Dreamweaver downloads for me all evening and I think it’s about ready to throw itself out the window. I’m taking some down-time and reveling in it while I can, because it’s back to full speed tomorrow morning.

After arriving safely in Cambridge and dropping off our stuff at the big fancy hotel, the gang I’m traveling with and I took off for downtown Boston, where we wandered the streets following the Freedom Trail and generally being tourists for as long as our feet would hold out. We made it from the State House to the USS Constitution, and then had to double-back a good distance to get back over the Charles River and pick up the T (which appears to be the fancy name for the Subway system here).

After that adventure, I checked into my room, and went down to a very nice welcoming reception for UIE, where we were able to pick up our registration materials and meet other folks coming to the conference.

And after that, I went back downstairs a third time to watch the Phillies play the Dodgers on one of the TVs in the hotel’s restaurant. Munched some food with the guys and returned to my room because honestly, I’m flat-out exhausted right now.

(We’re currently down 7-2 in the 7th and threatening — as much as any team can threaten down by 5 — and I’m watching the massive flat-screen TV in the mirror so I can type at the desk, which is really breaking my brain. Ryan Howard tagged up and moved from 2nd to 3rd after a fly ball a moment ago and in the mirror it looked like he was booking it back to 1st base. Ow my brain.)

Anyway, I’m in a big fancy hotel with big fancy features far from home. I’m traveling with people I like and I’m going to learn a ton, if I can stay awake long enough to absorb any of it. I’m pissed that my team melted down in the 1st inning, and I’m pissed that we’re not batting better, but I’m too tired to stay up and finish the meltdown. At least I get to make a giant pillow nest with the 6 pillows on the king bed, which will hopefully rest me up well, because I’ve got to be up at 7.

It’s good, and not always good, but good enough to take.

Friday:
Came home to a holy couch.

Cleaned up the stuffing and tried duct taping the couch closed. (DISCLAIMER: I didn’t want to duct tape the couch. I think duct tape on living room furniture looks trashy. I was talked into it as a temporary fix and it did get us from Friday to Sunday, but dude, do not duct tape the couch.) Mopped the pee off the kitchen floor for the third time this week, cleaned up some other stuff, did some chore-like things.

Saturday:
Played me some Civilization IV most of the morning after getting up at 6ish with the terror twins.

Gave Chance a bath. He was less than thrilled and when all was said and done he voiced his opinion by peeing on the towel. Took Kaylee to get her lyme vaccine and discovered the back window of my car (which I previously learned no longer closes) now opens randomly when it feels like it.

Invited my brother and sister over for baseball, steak sandwiches, sushi, and Mario Party 8, then hung out with my husband for a little while and went to bed.

Sunday:
Got up relatively late with the terror twins, since Nighthawk got up with them for the 6:00 pee break. Cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned up the livingroom a little, helped with the laundry. Gave Kaylee a bath. She cried and cried and cried and I’m pretty sure the neighbors think I was killing her, but she was so dirty that the water actually ran brown for the first 30 seconds or so as the mud washed off her paws. She didn’t pee on the towels at the end, but that was about the only break I got on that front.

Then, some retail therapy. Bought a swiffer wet jet so I won’t have to drag the whole mop/bucket combination in the house every time Kaylee decides the pee pads don’t really apply to her. Bought some dog supplies for vet trips and the like as well.

Also bought a staple gun. Half inch staples hold the couch’s gaping wounds closed much more successfully than duct tape. Planning to have new livingroom furniture by the holidays. Maybe sooner if I have to keep sleeping on the couch in the morning because the dogs are up stupid-early.

Got a bean bag chair for $20 from K-Mart. It’s no Sumo but if the dogs shred it I’m only out $20. And considering that it’s relatively small, it’s still billions of times more comfortable than the floor.

More on my K-Mart trip coming later this week in Life is Odd comics if I get to it.

Mopped the floor with the wet jet and it’s much easier than doing the whole mop/bucket dance. Helped with laundry, did a KFC run for dinner, did the food shopping, came home, and bought a new camera, which ought to be here in a few days.

Now I’ve got a terror at my feet asleep and another terror in my lap who keeps resting her chin on the keyboard and typing (but “ttttt tttttttttttttttttttt” isn’t exactly riveting conversation so I’ve taken her opinion back out of this article at least three times now.) In a few seconds I’m taking them up to bed and then trying to get some sleep. Tomorrow is work, of course, so it’s back to the grind.