BACK FROM ANOTHER WORLD [ or 8 days in paridise with never a bad meal]
Today is day two back on the dirt. Denise and I just spent 8 amazing days down in the Caribbean with Chris and our two new friends Jack and Rona. Actually, there are two other new friends besides them: an amazing cat named "Shiva", and Dreamwalker - our home for the week.

The Dreamwalker is a distinctive 57' sloop with a classic design. Thanks to Rona's amazing cooking (a collection of gourmet specialties that borrow heavily from her Trinidadian heritage) the trip was a matter of sailing around paradise aboard a floating five-star restaurant. Forget cruise ships. A charter with Captain Jack is what an epicurean escape is all about. We sailed around the US and British Virgin Islands, snorkelling and visiting destinations that are hard to reach (if not downright inaccessible) by any other means.

Rona & Denise soak up sun.

Frequently, great snorkelling was only a hundred yards or so from wherever we anchored. On the last full afternoon of our trip, I snorkelled over a wooden shipwreck in about 20 feet of water. A two- or three-foot puffer fish seemed to swim out to greet me. Its big, doe like eyes seemed to have eyelashes. Near what was left of the bow of the ship, a big grouper hovered just out of reach, coming forward just enough to let me have a glimpse, but not enough to expose himself to too much danger.

Shiva - always in charge.

There are tales to tell. I'll write more about the trip... later. I arrived home to chilly weather and 170 e-mails. When I'd deleted all of the obvious unsolicited e-mail [referred to as SPAM by just about anyone who's not a congressman], there were 44 messages left. I knew a few of those were spam too, but at least I was curious enough to read them.

"Joy Showers" - a secret water conservation ritual. Jack and Chris flank me.

WEBWISE
LovelyDesign brings you love from Sweden, a wonderful demonstration of what the web can be with a little imagination and an eye toward simplicity. It demonstrates excellent use of a metaphor that doesn't burden the visitor. A simple dog-ear allows you to turn the pictures over to read the caption, and an "X" allows you to put the picture away.

Nice and clean, though Jakob Nielsen would probably bash it, because the little dots at the bottom of the envelope aren't the conventional, obvious, text-oriented navigation. (I actually had to mouse around a bit to figure out what to click on.)

Interestingly, this little flash project made me realize that lots of Flash interfaces let you drag things, but I can't think of one that adds rotation to the mix. It would have been nice to be able to spin a couple of those images...

NetDiver is an excellent resource for design inspiration. If you've reached the point where you think everything on the web is overly numbed and dumbed, especially after the big dot.shake.out, go there and feast your eyes and mind.

:::

If you've been around young kids much at all, you've probably heard of "Blue's Clues." I read a news article today about the new host of the show, and was puzzled that it never mentioned that Steve Burns, the previous host, had died. There's a simple reason for that: Steve's not dead (although his TV career might be). It's yet another urban legend propogated via the Internet. Funny thing is, I heard about Steve in a conversation with someone who heard it from who knows where, but I'd put money down that he didn't hear about it directly from the Internet either. Oh well, at least now Steve's got something in common with Paul McCartney.

Recently, I got sucked in big time. I usually delete the typical chain messages [forward this to 10 of your closest friends right away...], but this message had a hook. I care about public radio and TV, even if I don't listen or watch that much. So when the message asserted that Congress was ready to wield the axe, I went for it hook, line, and sinker. Well, those hoax messages may not make your system unstable the way computer viruses do, but they are a bit viral nonetheless.