All Under NDA

I am working on some cool projects at work, but like most work projects, they are all under NDA. I'm working on things like:

[content removed due to NDA]

Neat, right? Great portfolio pieces, right? Nope, sorry. All under NDA.

I generally like working in industry because I am a fast-paced, gotta-deliver kind of person, but sometimes it is sad that I can't show anyone any of the work I do. Like [content removed]!!!

In other non-NDA news, I have been obsessed with the Japan nuclear crisis for some reason, and I can't stop checking the news. I was saddened yesterday when they removed it from the top news story. How dare they? I think it intrigues me because nuclear power used to terrify me, until I convinced myself, based on statistics and input from other UM students who were studying nuclear engineering, that it's actually safer than other forms of power. That is still probably the case, but it puts the overall safety into question.

Also, my hip seems to be doing okay. It still flares up probably once a week, but each time it is a bit less severe, and it calms down faster. I've been doing a bunch of activities, like learning how to row, swimming, some running, and some riding. Still no more than two out of every three days, but I'm hoping to just continue building and regaining fitness, then I will think about racing bikes and triathlons.

Oh hai!

Oh, here you are blog. I keep writing blog entries but then I don't post them because they seem silly, so I have a bunch of drafts but no entries.

I don't really have much news to report regarding training/racing. My hip continues to fight against me, and the general pattern is something like this: hip feels ok, I start doing more activities, hip gets mad, I rest until it feels ok. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. For a year.

I guess if I look at the whole trajectory over the course of the year, it is improving, especially if I compare the pain relative to the amount of activity that I am doing, but it is still certainly not normal. And I'm not certain that it ever will be.

But I try not to think too much about that. Sometimes things don't go quite as planned. This recovery has already taken twice as long as I thought it would. There are some injuries where you can push through the pain, tell your body to suck it up, and eventually get around it, but this is not one of them. This one just goes at it's own pace, and there isn't much I can do to speed it up. I still do physical therapy and try to wear the right combination of shoes to make it feel better, but really, the joint is just going to take as long as it wants to take to heal.

So I continue to wait and think about what is next. Sometimes I'm not really sure that bike racing remains in my future, but I am trying to just let it shake out over time. For me, bike racing has always been one of those sports that comes to me when the timing is right, so I'm just waiting to see if that happens, and if it doesn't, I don't know that I'll go chasing too hard after it.

This isn't to say that it doesn't suck pretty bad to slowly let go of a dream and a way of life that was so integral to my existence before. It still does suck pretty bad, even almost 2 years after this injury started, but I guess it sucks less and less with each passing day.

There is great value in things that take a long time

I have started riding my bike a little bit more, as much as my hip and schedule will allow for, and it is weird. My brain still thinks that I am fast and that nothing has changed in the last 1.5 years since I got injured and stopped training. Because of this, I have a tendency to underestimate the difficulty of the road ahead of me in order to get back to racing.

But actually, silly brain, if you stop riding your bike for 1.5 years, you get pretty slow. In fact, I think my quads are half the size they used to be.

So I have a tendency to say "I am slow" a lot, which isn't to mean that I am extra hard on myself, but a reminder that I have a lot of work to do and that I need to remember how slow I am so that I don't get lazy. It's for motivational purposes.

So here are the facts:

1. I am currently very slow.

2. I have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was.

3. This is going to be difficult.

4. This is going to take a long time.

5. It is going to take me an especially long time to get my bike handling skills back.

6. That is okay.

7. There is great value in things that take a long time.

This is a lesson in patience and in remembering that I can learn a lot from things that are difficult. I just need to accept the difficulty because otherwise the task at hand seems too daunting.

A new kind of athlete

Well, here I am, about 9 months after hip surgery, and things seem to be finally improving. When it does flare up, it's only for a day or so, and not nearly as bad as before. Definitely moving forward, but I'm still not really riding my bike.

There's a reason for that. I secretly promised myself that I wouldn't start training for any specific sport until I can do normal recreational activities without any issues. This includes running. Now that my body is back in alignment and I seem to be functioning in a normal movement pattern, running seems like it would be ok. In fact, it seems like it would be better than cycling because I am upright when I run, so it doesn't stress my back and cause any referred posterior hip pain.

The other reason is that I just haven't really felt like riding my bike. I've been riding a little bit here and there without much issue, but I certainly don't have any desire to start serious training anytime soon. After being injured for over a year, I just want to enjoy exercising for awhile. The problem is that every time I get on my bike, I instantly think about all the training I could do. Bad. Bad. Bad. I also have a pretty daunting quarter ahead of me, during which training will be difficult.

Anyway, today I was feeling daring, so I did 5x[9 min walk, 1 min run] and it actually felt pretty darn good. I have a theory that running is going to help me more than cycling, but for now it's just a theory. Part of my hip issue all along, in addition to the anterior labral tear, was an issue with the posterior capsule. My hip wasn't sitting right in the capsule, which inhibits my glutes and screws up the way I move. Often at PT and massage, they push my leg into my hip joint to help it sit better in the joint. Running happens to be a similar motion, where with each heel strike, the impact pushes my leg into the joint. I was able to do my walk/run workout without any anterior or posterior pain. We'll see if it flares up tomorrow, just in time for a 10 hour plane ride, but I don't think it will be that bad.

It's been awhile since I've been able to exercise without really thinking about my hip. There are many things that I miss about training and racing, which include:

-Fresh air

-Riding my bike really, really hard

-Running really, really hard

-Competing in triathlons when I'm only somewhat prepared

-The solo creep (long solo workouts)

-Trail running

-Breath control so it doesn't look like I'm going really, really hard

-Lifting weights and feeling strong

-That comfortable tired feeling after a long workout

So for the next few months, I'm going to focus on these things. No watts. No speed. No regimented plan. A watch only as a rehab tool. Just breathing.

I tried to "buy" local

I often get annoyed by the "buy local" mentality in Seattle. "Buy local!" says the guy using his Macbook at a non-Starbucks coffee shop. This doesn't make sense to me, since both Microsoft and Starbucks are local, and they do more to support the economy in this area than the little coffee shop down the street. Those large companies drive the economy, and without them, people wouldn't have money to spend on local things.

With this in mind, maybe we should say "buy local and support large Seattle-based businesses!" Then, we could have the best of both worlds: support the large companies so they stay in business, and support the smaller mom and pop places, too. I know this sounds like I contradicted myself because it's unlikely that a Starbucks employee would buy a latte from Cafe Vita, but we could achieve some harmonious compromise. People drink enough coffee around here that I think we could *gasp* support both types of coffee shops. Or at least refrain from saying how much Starbucks sucks.

Anyway, back to my point. Ever since I moved to Seattle in 2008, I've tried to support the local, public pools. I've adjusted my schedule to accommodate the random, 1-hour lap swim sessions, and I've traveled to pools outside of my neighborhood when the hours at my pool don't work. Even with this, though, the hours are quite limited, and now that I work ~30 mins out of Seattle, I just can't make it.

Adding to this, when I'm in school, I dislike swimming at the UW rec center because the pool is set up with 3, double-wide lanes, which makes it impossible to swim fast.

Today, I finally found a public pool time that would work, so I drove to West Seattle, where there is a nice, 50m outdoor pool along the Sound. Upon arrival, I discovered that the pool was closed because I guess 60 degrees is too cold for outdoor swimming? I was unaware.

Frustrated and defeated, I joined LA Fitness. I feel guilty about this, but my rehab has suffered because I haven't been able to swim very much.

Also feeding my guilt, I purchased a 1 year membership (with 1 year free and no initiation fee!). I did this because:

1. I hate monthly fees.

2. I can afford it now. When I return to school, that $75/month will seem pretty pricey.

3. I used to be a personal trainer, and I thought about how the poor guy selling memberships lives on commission, and there probably aren't a ton of members since everyone in Seattle is "buying" local and exercising at the nearby, dungeon-turned-fitness-center, the Olympic Athletic Club.

The only downside is that the LA Fitness smells funny.

Where, oh where, have I been?

Ah! It has been awhile! Where have I been?

Well, I've been working. And for the first few weeks (of my summer internship, mind you), it might as well have been winter.

But this week, summer struck. As a result, we've trended towards taking leisurely lunch breaks that involve beaches.

And Mexican food. Maybe by the beach. Returning to work is often hard after this, but I've managed so far.

I've also watched bag pipers march in the 4th of July parade. Nothing out of the ordinary here; just like any 4th of July in Gates Mills, OH.

And finally, I have a summer reading list, which I haven't done a great job of getting through, but I'm working on it.

Oh, and I added too many feeds to my RSS reader. I'm having trouble keeping up, but it's a good way to force myself to follow tech and ux trends.

My hip is doing ok. Back and forth but sources indicate that it is trending on track.

As I'm writing this post, I'm realizing that the blogger interface is really irritating. Why is the text entry area so small, but the rest of the page is empty? I'm generally annoyed when I post pictures because it's hard to move them around since text entry area is so small. And it always lumps the pictures at the top of the page, so I have no choice but to slowly drag them to where I want them. Come on, google, you can do better than this!

The Usability Superheroes

When I tell people that I am in graduate school studying usability or human-centered design, they blankly stare back at me, or they think I'm making bionic limbs. It's time for some clarification.

Usability professionals are modern superheroes. We try to save companies from making, and continuing to make, terrible decisions. We do this by finding problems in interface designs (interfaces such as your favorite e-commerce website, your mobile phone or your word processing program). Problems such as how the interface is structured, how things are labeled, and how many clicks/screens are required to complete a task can really wear on users.

One would think that designers and interface developers with experience would know how to design things intuitively, but unfortunately, that's generally not the case. This is because the designer is not the user. The concept of the visionary designer who creates a "masterpiece" that no one else touches or sees until the final release is in the dark ages. The user might have more or less education, be younger or older, or want something different out of the site than what the designer expects.

So, we run tests on real users where we have them interact with the interface. We give them a list of tasks, and we record things like the time to task completion, where the mouse moves, where their eyes move, and more subtle/qualitative things like what they say or how they perceive the experience. From this, and a slew of other user-centered tests and activities, we create design recommendations that reflect what the user really needs.

The problem, though, is that many backward-thinking companies see usability as "that trendy thing" or a waste of money. What those companies don't realize is that the companies that do employ sound usability practices are kicking their asses. They also don't realize that spending some extra time and money upfront saves a ton later. And lastly, keeping your users happy by providing them with nice, usable interfaces improves the customer experience, which improves loyalty, which is HUGE. Because loyalty is everything in business, but that's another story.

That's where the superhero part comes in. We balance between finding problems and trying to save the world while simultaneously trying to convince the world that these problems are legit.

So there you have it. I'm trying to become a superhero.