The Juice is José, and the Milk is Maaay-ree

Our wall heater isn't working, making our apartment a tad chilly in the morning. This morning, Abby took to wrapping inanimate objects, like the gallon of milk, in a scarf and hat, because "they're freeeezy". Riffing on the theme, she created her own nativity scene using the breakfast beverages. Hence her proclamation that the juice was Joseph and the milk Mary. 

New IDEO Book

Tom Kelley's new IDEO-based book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, is out on bookshelves starting next Tuesday. His first IDEO book, The Art of Innovation, was such a success he decided to do it again, this time documenting some of the things we've learned as a company in the interim.

A preview of the book is in the October issue of Fast Company magazine.

IDEO Daycare

My "boss" took a month off for paternity leave, so in the tradition of IDEO, we took the opportunity to redecorate his office. We went with the daycare theme, installing an oversized playpen and apholstering everything in a clown bedecked fabric.



The grey walls weren't exuding the proper juvenile mood, so my current project manager and I took it upon ourselves to create a custom wallpaper based on the clown print apholstery but featuring his mug.





I also scored a childsized Elmo mouse and matching keyboard at Fry's, one of my favorite touches.

Exhaust tip spinners

Bling on the cheap.

Voisins, NPR and Hurricanes

My brother-in-law was featured in a 15-minute story on NPR's Weekend Edition last Sunday. I had missed it, so I did a search for Voisin and also found two interviews with Kevin's dad: one right after hurricane Katrina, the other right after hurricane Rita.

The photos are of Kevin showing us around Motivatit Seafood during our visit in the summer of 2001.

IKEA Trip

Jenna is hosting a baby shower this afternoon and I am in charge of the girls. My "boss" is returning from several weeks of paternity leave, so we are turning his space into a daycare. I bought a Elmo keyboard and mouse to replace his fancy wireless jobbies and made some nice clown wallpaper, featuring his mug, to cover his cube walls. The finishing touch would be a roadscape carpet to cover the floor. Hence, we are at IKEA in search of one. The ballpit is our first pitstop.

Great America Update

For some reason, the last chapter of the Great America saga didn't post with the rest of them. Click here or scroll down to read it.

Great America 9/17/05

Above: Waiting for the first ride, a rotating platform that climbed a tall, tall tower

Last Saturday Abby and I spent the day at Great America. The park is only 20 minutes away, but in the five years we've lived here, we've never been (probably due to Jenna's acute suceptibility to motion sickness). I thought we'd only last a few hours, but we ended up staying almost eight. Abby had a lot of fun being the center of attention, and I enjoyed watching her enjoy herself so much.

While it's hard to get decent photos of action rides when you are on them, some are show-worthy:

This had to be the most vomit-inducing ride we went on. I can handle rides that thrust your stomach into your throat, but keep the ones that just spin around away.

The requisit circular river rapid boat ride. Abby and I didn't get too wet, but the same can't be said for our boatmates.

Great America, cont'd: Kidzville

In Kidzville there was a denser selection of 40-44" rider approved diversions. I was surprised (and mildly alarmed) to see that they were allowing 4-year-olds to discover the fine art of offensive driving (via bumper cars) without parental guidance. Turned out my concern was unnecessary, as none of the kids could find the magic combination of wheel turning and throttle application to extricate themselves from the perpetual traffic jam in the middle of the floor.


Next we hit the little rollercoaster, which wasn't so much scary as violent (at least to me as the seatback reached almost to my third lumbar vertebrae).


Up . . . down Abby and the rest of the rider chanted in true Mr. Miagi fashion on the airplane ride.


Up . . down, again.


This, I think, was Abby's favorite "ride", floating toy boats through the Scooby Doo graveyard. We did it like five times in a row.

Great America, cont'd: Riding in buckets

The line for riding the "buckets" was long, but worth it, as we had to trudge back across the park to our locker at the entrance to fetch Abby's swimsuit. We were happy to wait in line to hitch a ride back.


While mulling about looking for a place to change Abby into her swimsuit, we ran across Blue from Blue's Clues just finishing her? public appearance. Abby was a little bummed (OK, not really), but excited to hear that Dora would be arriving a short time later. After waiting in a line of rabid (and mostly Latino) fans, Abby had her time with Dora in the lens (I don't think she knew who Diego was).


One of the things that surprised me about this whole outing was how fearless our timid little Abby was on these rides. If only I could get her to be more fearless in swimming lessons . . . . She loved the log ride and pronounced it to be "scary", with a big grin on her face.


Perhaps the biggest letdown of the day was the coconut ride. This line had a line at least as long as the buckets and just went up a 20ft tree and spun around. But hey, it was a ride Abby could go on, so we checked it off the list.

Great America, cont'd: Runaway Raptar

We made it to the real kiddy coaster, the Runaway Raptar, later in the day.


Here is Abby sitting in trepidation waiting for the ride to start. Let me insert at this point that where the last kiddy coaster was a back breaker, this one was a knee crusher. I couldn't get the safety bar over my folded-up knees without some serious acrobatics.


The first "big" hill got a reaction out of Abby. Unfortunately, the sun hogged the shot.


Down the second, smaller hill.


Spinning back to the platform.

When we got off the ride, Abby kept repeating with and ear-to-ear grin, "That ride was scary!"

Great America, cont'd: Home stretch

Abby was game to get wet again so we rode the other log ride.


Thoroughly drenched from the log ride, we spied a bunch of bungee-assisted kids jumping on trampolines to the tune of 20ft high, and got in line. Lucky for Abby, she was wearing a windbreaker at this point, so she wasn't chilled to the bone sitting in the shade of the setting sun, wind blowing, waiting entirely too long in line. I wasn't so lucky and was freezing by the time Abby's turn came up. About that time I realized that this was a pay event, so I had to shell out $5, but since we had waited so long . . . what the heck?

Abby loved it, but I think she was a little too light (~30lbs) for the bungees and the spotter had to keep moving her back to the center, as she kept ending up swinging back and forth.



We ended the day on the double-decker carousel (second level, of course). After the ride, Abby asks, "What fun thing can I do next?" I was thinking, it's about 40 minutes till closing, we've been here 8 hours, we're going to escape before the parking lot starts looking like the Kidzville bumper cars. So we called it a day. To make it the perfect Abby day, I made a last concession and put the convertible top up for the drive home. Abby was fast asleep soon after we pulled out of the parking lot.

Tim Brown's new column

IDEO's CEO, Tim Brown, is doing a limited-run column for BusinessWeek. This one is on the value of experimentation.

Project night

I'll publish a better photo later, but what you see here is my freshly minted new shifter knob. The stock one that came with the car developed a couple of fatal fault lines that gave it the stability of Nearly-headless Nick's noggin, and it was clearly time for a replacement. So I made one . . . with the help of a machinist at work.

Thursdays are project night at the shop at work, where a critical mass of Do-it-yourselfers assure that you won't cut your fingers off without anyone to drive you to the hospital, and the oversight of one of the shop modelmakers assures that your project might actually turn out nice. Thursday nights are also Bishopric meeting in the Los Altos Ward, so I usually don't get to partake in the project night festivities. This week, though, the Bishop had a meeting with the Stake President, so I was suddenly free, and with the two halves of my shifter knob threatening to part ways, the stars were aligned for me to make a replacement.

Unfortunately, I only appreciated the unique opportunity afforded me Thursday afternoon, so I didn't have a lot of time to design the thing before project night started, so with the help of my favorite Serbian designer at work, I arrived at a tenable design in record time. The model maker in the shop showed me how to program the toolpaths on the CNC machining centers and we cut the two halves of the knob out of black ABS (plastic). I fastened them together with three tight-fitting .250" dowel pins and as a finishing touch, transplanted the BMW roundel from the old shifter onto the new one.

The result is pretty nice. The spherical knob has a nice feel in my hand, and at about 1.25" shorter and much more rigid than the old knob, lends a nice, solid, mechanical feel to shifting. I'm pretty pleased.

It's cold in here

I don't recall exactly what I said (had something to do with a scarf) to inspire Abby, but as soon as I said it, she ran to the bedroom and fished out full winter regalia, which she wore for FHE. Above we see her accompanying the opening song. Below, she is policing Louisa as Mom reviews her weekly performance on her chores.

Potty reading

There are many proud momements as a parent when you realize that you kids are taking on your finer attributes and habits . . . . This isn't one of those moments. I was amused when, once seated on the pot, Abby reached for the latest issue of Car and Driver. But I wasn't exactly proud. (Well, maybe a little).

Boss's new car

David Kelley, one of the founders of IDEO, is an avid, if eccentric car collector. Behold his latest aquisition.

The girl's got skills

I was watching Louisa during EQ and even though she was tired, she just wouldn't fall asleep. Finally I tracked down a bottle for her and soon her little eyelids were drooping. Even when fast asleep, she still kept sucking with such alacrity that she kept the bottle in the upright position using just her puckery little lips.

Louisa visits the Oakland Temple

Louisa made her first trip to the Oakland Temple with the family today. Jenna and I went up to do Initiatories and took turns cruising the visitor's center while the other was in the temple. Unluckily for dad, due to the Labor Day holiday, they were short on temple workers, and closed the initiatory area when his turn came up. We plan to do this tag-team arrangement more often, so we should be back to try again in a couple of weeks. 9/3/05 11:54am

Out to lunch

I took the morning off today to recover from too many sequential long nights finishing my last project. We all went to Abby's first day of preschool, and are now eating unch at th Country Gourmet in Mountain View.