as august creeps nearer, we are settling into a quieter lifestyle in the 'burbs. we have made a few satisfying big purchases to fill in the spare square footage. the cats and kidbot have new hallways and stairwells, windows and corners.

professionals stop by to wrangle ants, install the cool rumblings of ac or to bring us back our foundational elements of sprout's 6 am showing of sesame street and wifi.

there is a deep satisfaction in the green tomatoes percolating in the sun and the sagging weight of the fruit trees outside every window. the sunset lures the kidbot into stacking the pre-bedtime nilla wafers neatly on the windowsill in the sun room.



only one irritated shoulder remains as the moving bruises fade to a pale yellow. my hands again ache for gnitting socks, but i have yet to locate any socks on the needles. the stash has a home in our new home. a trip to ikea for appropriate shelving is immanent.

i don't yet feel ready to show off the house to friends, as there are still boxes strewn about and pictures to be hung - but the important stuff has been unearthed. we have the means in which to dress, cook, eat, and relax. with these things in place, the urge to dive into dusty boxes of ill-packed miscellania is all but gone. but that's ok, because we are finally home.

one quick trip to ny a few weeks ago paid off, and i hopped on a plane to return the next week. highlights included getting stuck in pittsburg due to thunderstorms and watching the stumptown allstars, an up and coming americana band from pdx, play an impromptu terminal show to diffuse an impending mutiny.



once in the big apple i did some work by day and some drinking by night, including a lovely evening at uncle vanya's with one of my very oldest friends mariama (we've now seen each other more this month than the prior decade) and a night spent wandering around a quiet and deserted midtown to take pictures of type. also, i drank a bit of vodka.



i finally meandered back to portland to watch jbyte and kara (the most beautiful and happy couple) get married, and see my bestest friend from college and co-creator of the semaphoria name - sir patrick lannon (and lovely wife kristi).



highlights of that weekend included a 2am visit to voodoo doughnut, vodka, and oh - perhaps some more vodka.

as soon as the wedding festivities wrapped up, the kidbot husbot and i hopped on the party train to black butte ranch to enjoy the great outdoors with another family. i played tennis (gracefully, i assure you), swam, rode bicycles, and cooked dinner for 9 each and every night. while i cooked i drank vodka. then after the gaggle of children went to bed, occassionally i drank some vodka. (the husbot drank whiskey with a twizzler straw)


(more pictures here)

i have a tan for the first time in three years. i almost read a whole book. i was without wifi for a whole week. in a week we consumed 8 dozen eggs, 4lbs of twizzlers, and it appears that i picked up quite a vodka habit. i've spent 2.5 of the last 3 weeks away from home... until last night.

now, i am sitting on my very own couch, with my very own wifi, and alas, am drinking tea rather than vodka. it's good to be home. although ironically - as of last friday it is no longer technically our home.

yep, we closed on the sale of our sellwood house. (note: closing in absentia is a pain in the ass, and the stress of it all is counter productive to vacation). then, rather than return to work bright and bushy-tailed in the am, i will be closing on the monkey house. (house name to be explained at a later date).

but as i sit, i am very much aware that i am homeless for a night - merely renting this room that has been mine for so long.

i had a jaunty lil' jaunt to the big apple on monday. just an overnighter, a business meeting, and hopping back on a jet plane -- but i'm happy to say that i had a true staying-in-midtown experience.



criss angel "mind freak" was handcuffed, being submerged in cement, and dangling in a glass box 40 feet above the ground - just across the street from the hotel.



truth be told, criss kinda bugs me. his stylist can't decide whether he's trent reznor or axl rose - and interviews with him remind me vaguely of a magical gothic zoolander. but it was truly entertaining to have such a spectacle in such close proximity.

at precisely 7:30 - thankfully, my pre-planned wake up time - the crowd counted down, the box fell, and criss appeared on the scaffolding to the cheers of the adoring crowd.



smashing glass and hysterical tweens combined with an amazingly fantastic latte from dean and deluca kicked off a pretty good day in the city.

this is a statement that i have struggled with almost every week for the last decade of my life.

if you ask my non-geek friends, they will tell you that i design websites. although most of my immediate family are geeky enough to grok what i do - for simplicity's sake they might tell others that i design websites.

and well, it's not untrue... is it?

i am a usability engineer, an infosphere guru, the queen of user experience, an online strategist, occassionally a business analyst, a luddite advocate, and a generalist "consultant."

i must note, however, that i have never taken a design class in my life, and boy howdy - i am happy to leave that world to the people who do it well.

my preferred title of the last few years has been information architect - but even when you use the wireframe/blueprint analogy - people's eyes tend to glaze over just before they ask - "so, you design websites... right?"

well, my little chickadees... i am happy to share with you all that i was recently awarded a new title: director of strategy.

let me start by saying that it is a great honor to join the ranks of the executypes at my agency... i do have to giggle however - as i have yet again taken on one of the more nebulous titles ever created.

your grandma would understand what a "director of sales" or a "director of technology" might do... and i love that strategy has a fancy ring to it.... but really, i live in fear of the moment when someone says "so you direct people who design websites?"

it is in this spirit, that i will outline (for the geeks) some of the bigger stuff that falls gently into my sphere of influence:
user research
information architecture
user experience design
web analytics
online marketing...
and a few other nuts and bolts things.

i am also happy to say that all directors at my place of business are working managers... so while i will get to help guide the direction of the agency, manage direct reports, and sit in twice as many meetings - i will still get to...

design websites? yeah. something like that.

fresh strawberries
the mini cinammoneggo waffles for kidbot (and me!)
the nyt front page podcast
the slate explainer podcast
my appletv to listen to the above podcasts
our new (used) dyson vacuum
the new handbrake with appletv preset
new barcamp friends
the geek-based portland werewolf phenomenon
magnadoodle peace and quiet
sunshine

and by request - here are a few gratuitous cute kidbot pics: