Month: December 2006

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links for 2006-12-30

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links for 2006-12-29

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links for 2006-12-28

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links for 2006-12-27

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my accessibility story

After seeing Pat and Ralph‘s posts on the subject, I thought I should put in a few words.

I honestly don’t remember when I first learned about web accessibility. It was probably in an article on A List Apart, either that, or something else by Joe Clark. I do remember that I was already into web standards & accessibility when I got his book, which was pretty much as soon as it came out. I read it cover to cover, and loaned it to any number of people at my old job. (It was required reading for my assistants over the years.) I’ve been a Joe Clark fangirl for quite a while. 😉 Oh, that reminds me: I need to do the micropatronage thing.

The practice of accessibility is intertwined indelibly for me with the whole explosion in learning that I experienced in 2001. Discovering CSS in late 2000, giving up tables entirely, learning about XHTML, learning PHP, and getting into blogging. All wound up in this big ball of webby knowledge.

And for me it’s also always been about doing “it” (this whole web thing) “right” — which is something that I can get obsessive-compulsive about. I care deeply about the nubby details.
All of which is about me and my ego, psychic needs, etc. ::sigh::

I will say that like Pat, I believe that web accessibility is part of truth, justice and the American way. (Paraphrasing) And like Ralph, I was affected by someone in my life: in this case, my kid sister.

Elizabeth has one of those disabilities that’s hard to quantify in web accessibility, a learning disability. She was in the 4th grade before anyone really realized that she didn’t know how to read, and had all of her textbooks on audio for many years. Her weird experiences with her particular disability have given me lots of food for thought over the years; in terms of web accessibility, I remember asking her, some years back, what she felt like she needed, and her affection for Google’s spelling correction. (Elizabeth’s spelling remains, if I may say so, a little…idiosyncratic.) Thanks, kiddo. 😉

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Merry Christmas

I’m home by myself for a little bit while C goes with a friend to pick up the friend’s daughter.  All the cats are asleep, I’ve made oatmeal cookies, and I’m catching up on ze frank.

We didn’t decorate, but we did indulge in our favorite holiday tradition over the weekend: watching Lord of the Rings. :)  Meanwhile, C drew game maps and I made a couple of pairs of earrings, for the first time in a long time.

We aren’t having Christmas dinner here either, instead going up to visit said friends, bringing cookies and presents.  For years we’ve had struggles over what to do for the holidays, and I think it’s finally settled out into something we can both be happy with.  Not too much stress, and we make the most of enjoying our time instead of trying to meet some crazy standard.

For each other, we splurged on two things: books & Legos.  A few weeks ago we went with friends to the Lego store in Bellevue; we still have some kits left to put together from that, plus we’ll be attempting to build a model of our own house. Then, later, we went to Half Price Books, where we stocked up on home improvement books for both of us, tech books for me, and video games for C.

Even with last weekend’s power outage and my cold, I think this may qualify as the best Christmas ever.

I hope you are enjoying the same.

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links for 2006-12-25

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first week

I have spent most of the week with a cold, alas, giving me the freaky Doctor Girlfriend voice. Which means I’ve mostly been coming home and going to bed by 8 p.m. And one of my new co-workers expressed some surprise — having not noticed my coughing, apparently — at my energy given the cold.  She thought I just had a deep voice.  In normal situations, I can’t hit this voice even by trying.

The building is really nice, practically brand new, and pretty well designed at that.  It’s straightforward enough that I can get my head around it right away…whereas there are still rooms that I’m not sure where they are at Pierce.

I’m not going to say a whole lot more about work, per my usual modus operandi.  But I will add that my first day was (coincidentally?) the same as my new department’s holiday party.  Which meant lunch and bowling!  Seriously: bowling!  Which I’ve done exactly twice before, once in high school (somebody’s birthday party) and once in college (a whim of Dizzy’s, IIRC), so…I bowled like a little kid, standing legs apart and swinging to roll it down to the pins.  Freakishly, I managed to get a strike with this method.

And of course the shorter commute is rocking.  C has dropped me off & picked me up every day except for tonight, partially to be nice, partially because of my cold.  That takes about 15 minutes.  (20 if we go to Starbucks.)  I took the bus home tonight, and that took about 35, 40 minutes.

While I rode home, I read the Square Foot Gardening book that I bought on Monday with a gift card (from my birthday!!!) from Aunt Susie.  I’m thinking of my garden-to-be, the vegetables that I’ll be eating all the way on the other side of the year.

From today it gets lighter.  Cliche, but true.  The next time we get a break in the weather on the weekend, I need to go out into the yard and get some serious work done in preparation for spring.  I know, it’s only the first day of winter, but still…it goes so fast, and I want to be ready.