jennblog

Dot Dot Dot

I’m in NYC! And as always, I’ve forgotten to mention the fact that I’m giving a short talk tomorrow night at the White Rabbit in the East Village, for the last of SVA’s MFA in Interaction Design‘s Dot Dot Dot series, “the Service Designers.” I’m going to be talking about how our data-rich web habits have come to affect our experience of real-world services, and what we might  (or might not?) want to take away from living among so many services online.

It’s late and I can barely type. I hope to be more coherant tomorrow. If both eyes stay open, it’s a plus.

Update: There’s a video of the event:

oh joy.

Bay to Breakers

Or, yet another reason for San Franciscans to don costumes.

Yesterday, Ben, Erika and I ran in San Francisco’s 98th annual Bay to Breakers race. B2B is a 12K (7.5 mile) run from the San Francisco Bay to Ocean Beach. It’s known for being a party disguised as a race.

Highlights include crazy costumes, a tortilla toss, a school of salmon who wear fish hats and run upstream from finish to start, centipede groups of 13 who compete in a connected line, giant floats lots and lots of naked runners. It’s unlike any other race I’ve ever done, and I’ve only seen the costumes that passed me on their way to the start.

I tried to get back to a suitable spectating location once I finished the race, but the roads were so packed (80,000 runners + crowds) that I couldn’t get close. Next year I’ll run in costume, I swear.

Erika brought flowers for Ben and I to carry since
we were under dressed (as runners).

Erika, on the other hand, was well dressed in her
Burning Man BumbleBee dress.

Token naked guy photo, because, well… there
are a lot of them. And they all carry bags.

There were a lot of Elvii at the race – this one
finished up just in front of me.

I LEGO N.Y.

I’ve been meaning to write something about my first week in SF but I keep putting it off. In the meantime, this is the best (and very appropriate) use of Lego I’ve seen in a long time:

I LEGO N.Y.

T- 2, said goodbye to my stuff

My stuff, loaded in the snow, heading off to some storage unit somewhere before it gets shipped out to CA.

T-6, thinking back to the last time I was here

Well okay here I am again in my last week in NYC.

I say again, because I’ve left New York before – in September 2003 when I left to go to graduate school in Ivrea, Italy. In 2003 I was a freelance designer working for a startup, making mobile websites for magazines. I was training for a half-ironman, and had recently ended an on/off again relationship for (what seemed to be) the last time. I was ready to leave, and I wasn’t planning to come back. I wanted a different kind of life that didn’t feel like a treadmill, where I wasn’t always running in place to keep up with the pace around me. That was easy to say since I was heading into a two-year program that was subsidizing me to be there. I had no plans to come back, but I didn’t really need to think beyond the program itself at the time. So I moved to Italy, and then to England, and then flash forward 3 years (and a slew of unrelated events), I found myself back in NYC.

This time it feels a bit different. This move is more self-motivated, as there’s no program I’m going to or promise of a degree; and it’s more open ended — there’s no time frame or end date in sight. For those reasons on most days it feels a lot more abstract: “yeah, I’m moving to SF — more time outside” and “well, I started a company and that’s where it is” are typical thoughts that run through my head.  When it starts to feel real though, it’s a fair amount scarier. Mostly because this time it’s a more solitary and adult thing — it’s my decision,  I have only myself to count on to make it work, and if for some reason it isn’t everything I hope it will be it’s just me on the other end who will have to figure out what’s next. In Italy I had a school and a program to blame everything on. This time, it’s just me.

I’ve moved around quite a bit over the past 10 years. Hell, I’ve spent more of this decade in Europe than I have in the US. But as it turns out moving across the country is a bigger deal than moving across the Ocean.  The common assumption is that I’ll settle down in San Francisco and never come back east. I once thought I was allergic to California, and was told, “it’s okay Jenn, you don’t have to die here” the last time I considered SF (in 2005). So the thought of never coming back, while it suggests a life that definitely works — at least well enough to keep me out there — is almost as scary as the idea that it doesn’t work out. I’m an east coast girl — I always assume that wherever I go there’s a sticker on me that says “If lost and found, please return to Philadelphia.” The whole one-way ticket west thing is more intimidating than any trip to Europe, because there’s no built in expiration or return ticket.

So yeah, this time I’m not making any promises. I’m moving to San Francisco, and we’ll see where I take it from there.

“The State of IxD Today”

This coming Wednesday, December 10, I’ll be joining a panel discussion about the state of interaction design today, hosted by the  Interaction Design Association at Bloomberg in NYC. The conversations will be led by Dave Malouf, Ted Booth and myself, and the evening has the potential to be a lot of fun. We’ve enjoyed talking  amongst ourselves about what we might talk about, and now all we need is other people to talk to! If you’re in NYC, please come join us to share your thoughts on what’s going on in IxD and where it’s all headed from here. RSVP to get on the list, as they only let you in if they get to mangle your name at reception.

I remember

This is what I remember about Sept 11, 2001.

• I remember that I set out to go running that morning, down my usual path along the west side highway to the World Financial Center. I started out my apartment and ran toward the highway, and then for some reason changed my mind. I’d done the same run the day before and decided I’d rather to go to the gym instead, so I turned around and headed to NYSC on 7th Ave.

• I remember watching the local elections on TV at the gym and thinking about whether or not I would vote.

• I remember that I left the gym and ducked in the Gourmet Garage beneath it to get a cup of coffee, and was in there for about 3 minutes. When I came out there was lot of commotion the street. People seemed agitated — lots of running to and fro, and a bunch of folks congregating around the stairs to the subway platform.

• I looked around and didn’t see the cause of the chaos, and remember thinking to myself “I’m going walk all the way home have no idea what’s was going on over there.” As I passed a news stand I asked someone what happened, and he pointed up toward the towers.

• I remember thinking that it never would have occurred to me to look up.

• At that moment the fire from the impact of the first plane’s collision exploded, in clear view of all of us on 7th avenue, all standing still, all looking up.

• The next thing I remember is that my friend Adam Kline and his visiting mother approached me as I was standing on the corner. They were walking north, and had no idea what was going on behind them. Adam’s mom started talking to me about her visit and upcoming plans, asking me for advice about something or other, and I stopped her and pointed over her head at the burning building.

• I remember rushing home and waking up my roommate Jun as I turned on the TV to find out what what was going on. My mother called after hearing there was an accident at the WTC and somehow got through. I was standing in my living room, with my mother on the phone, when I watched the second plane hit the south tower.

• I watched the news for a while, packed a radio and my camera, and headed out to work. I remember thinking that “I was distracted by the World Trade Center” might excuse being a half hour late, but not much more than that. There were huge crowds gathered at the firehouse on Houston and 6th Ave, about a block from my house, so I lingered there for a bit before setting off to the Puck Building.

• I was aware of all the people who were panicking around me I walked across Hudson street, listening NPR, but I didn’t understand why there was so much chaos. I remember being surprised when I got to work that no virtually no one else was there. I didn’t understand why the Twin Towers would affect business as usual for Prada or Icon Nicholson. I didn’t understand that there were people in those building, lots of them. I didn’t understand that the people I’d passed on the street were some of those people.

• Since the office was empty, I left the Puck Building and walked out into Soho. I stood still on Greene Street and watched the buildings collapse. I watched the thick black smoke and white debris barrel north. I remember feeling like a documentarian, photographing everything around me, still not understanding the connection between the chaos and the collapse.

• I remember, very clearly, that someone had to explain it to me. It’s amazing how well the mind can shield against stark reality.

I don’t remember much else about that day, apart from spending the next 24 hours glued to the TV news along with the rest of the world, watching the aftermath of a disaster that was unfolding in my backyard.

What I remember from the days and weeks after that followed:

• I wanted to help, so the next day I went to a rite aid and bought $60 worth of toiletries to donate to the Ground Zero relief efforts. It didn’t dawn on me that actual companies would be donating boxes and boxes of the stuff. I remember feeling pretty foolish about that.

• I remember that I spent the following night in a bar on university, talking for several hours with a Serbian reporter about how far from normal everything was now.

• I remember that the  black smoke and the smell of burnt rubber remained for days. It would travel with the wind, but it was always there outside my door.

• I remember that I for several days I needed to show ID to get back into my neighborhood. The streets were closed to cars and pedestrians who didn’t have a valid reason to be there.

• I remember that I went to church on Sept 13, because I thought it might help.

• I remember that for weeks and months I was physically startled and a little afraid every time I heard a distant siren on the street.

• I remember thinking that everything had changed, and that my life — along with everyone else in  NYC’s — would be decidedly different from now on.

I remember lots of other things about the following weeks, months, and years, but these are the things that came to mind when I realized that seven years later, it’s a lot easier than I ever thought it would be to forget the experience of being in a New Yorker on that day in Sept 2001.

nyc century bike tour

I did 78 miles of the nyc century bike tour today — felt kind of like playing in traffic for several hours straight. Was a ton of fun following the yellow spray-painted “C” arrows on the road all over town, but I could do without the traffic lights, potholes, cars and broken glass. Also found that my ability to reliably twist my foot out of my pedals diminished as the day went on, causing frequent near collisions with cars, poles, and other bikers. Despite the trials of urban cycling, it was a really great day. Check out the map below and the photos on Flickr!

i love fall

wearing a 40-year old sweater and sneakers, sun’s bright, air’s crisp. farmers’ market is full of fall harvesty goodies like apples and sprouts and squash. neighborhood is humming with a calm sunday vibe. best time of year to be in brooklyn.

RIP little blue bike

I bought a little blue bike with a basket about 14months ago, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. I’ve ridden that bike to work and back every day, to the gym to bars, to various errands and social engagements. I’ve left it in my office for days at a time, lending color to the room, and I’ve left it parked outside, secured to a parking meter, for hours-days as well. Now that I’m moving to Brooklyn tomorrow, which means i can no longer ride my bike to work without taking the brooklyn bridge and various congested nyc arteries into consideration. I knew this but still planned to keep it for pedalling around the neighborhood. and then this afternoon I parked it outside, as i’d done a hundred times before, and this time it was gone. i already miss that bike a ton and I haven’t even left the house since I came home after it happened. Loss is a funny thing… I wonder if we get better at it over time?