I've been taking some time to do some artistic things over the past week and a bit since I was laid off. After all, I might as well take advantage of actually having "copious amounts of spare time."  Specifically, I've been spending a lot of time photoshopping.

 

All the images were all actually crafted according to the rules of specific photoshop contests at the Worth1000.com web site, although sometimes I wasn't able to complete the picture before the contest deadline passed (once a contest is posted there is usually only 48 hours to submit something). You can find reduced copies of all my photoshops (including one I did quite some time ago) in this image album. The images are displayed in reverse chronological order and the titles include the submission deadline date.  The name of the contest and and a link to my submission or (when I failed to submit) to the first page of the contest has been included in a comment. You can see a much higher resolution version of images I was able to submit by viewing my entry and seleting the "full view" link.

 

 

If you take a look at any of the images I'd really love to hear any comments you might have, either here or at Worth1000.com

 

I expect to do more as time goes on too and will add new ones to my album as they are created.  Note that when I have made a submission you will not be able to view it prior the end of the 48 hour submission period which is always at midnight EST on the day of the deadline (For PST that's at 9pm the previous day).

 

:-j(enni)

So, we have this extensive backyard at our new house which is mostly grass but has several trees along the left fence (when looking out the living room window) and one tree in the center towards the back. I noticed that there were a fair number of chickadees in one of the trees and, having uncovered a few open and stale packages of soy-nuts in one of the boxes labeled "kitchen stuff", I decided to toss out a couple of handfulls close to the house see if they'd take to them. Well, it took a couple of days, but eventually the chickadees, then some ravens, a couple of robins and two squirrels - one black, one grey - showed up.

 

It's really cool that we can watch them through the living room windows as they peck and munch away at the soy-nuts and other things they find in the grass (one squirrel nibbled at some "helicopter seeds" it found).  Nathan has named the squirrels - the black one is "munchie" and the grey one is "crunchy".

 

Yesterday two new birds joined the party. They were the same kind but it was a species I didn't recognize.  They were roughly the size and shape of a robin but had black upperparts with orange/rust brown chest, neck, "eyebrow" and bars on each wing.  I did an online search at www.whatbird.com (which lets you specify things like colour, shape and size of the body and beak, etc. and can return visual results) and narrowed it down to the Varied Thrush. This wasn't a perfect match however, as the illustration and description said this bird has dark grey/blue upper parts, but I did a quick Google image search and found an illustration showing a juvenile, a female and a male Varied Thrush and the female has black upper parts. Ergo, I believe our two newest guests are female Varied Thrushes.

 

I need to get some batteries for my camera, but when I do I'll try to capture some good shots of all our furry and feathered friends and add them to this post.  I think we'll have to invest in some proper feeders too - one with unsalted peanuts for the squirrels and a couple of "squirrel proof" ones in different sizes that give the different sized birds equal opportunity to getting some of the goods.  A humming bird feeder might be in order too.  We'll have to see.

 

:-j(enni)

{sigh}
I feel almost like I’ve travelled back in time to February 2007, when I was laid off by NOKIA Canada for "not being the right fit for the job".

"Why is this?" you may ask.  Because on February 14^th I was laid off from [Company Name]* and am officially back on the UX job market. (What a lovely way to spend Valentine's Day...)

The Story:
On Monday, February 11^th, the CEO of [Company Name]* was removed from his position as CEO and on the Board of Directors as he had been siphoning money out of the company, the full extent of which had just been determined. To make life particularly interesting, two "Men In Black" (that is, security guards in black suits and with wireless ear-buds dangling down... perhaps saying two "Agent Smiths" would be more accurate) were sitting in our reception area for the next three days as, despite changing the locks on Monday, the Ex-CEO somehow got his hands on a master key that evening and had to be bodily removed from the office by two police officers.  As one might imagine, the result of his monetary shenanigans means that the company is in dire financial trouble and was told by the remaining Directors to “cut to the bone” if there was to be any chance of staying afloat. Unfortunately (philosophical arguments notwithstanding) User Experience is not considered an “Essential Service” when it comes to software design so I was one of the 10 or so people (out of ~35 employees in Vancouver) who were let go on the Thursday of that same week.

If you happen to know of a small company (< 100 people) in the Vancouver area (We’re really not up to moving back to the US at this point) who is looking for (or hasn't yet realized they really need) a User Experience Lead or Senior User Experience Specialist please let me know and I’ll forward a current résumé to you or them.

{sigh}

:-j(enni)

* Edit (March 24, 2008): I have been asked by my prior employer to remove the company name from my blog posts. My blog was coming up near the top on relevant searches and as they really need to secure some licensing opportunities in order to survive they would like to minimize negative press where possible.  Being on good terms with them, I was happy to oblige.
-j