I’ve been in Texas working on a project. I’ve spent most of my time here either (a) in a windowless conference room with beige-grey blank walls or (b) driving in circles on huge tall freeways. What’s up with the sky-high overpasses? Are they expecting even more roads or are trucks here just a lot taller than other trucks?
I really enjoyed the project that I came here for (despite the work space) – usability research and identifying gaps and balances between design and usage. Doing research is one of my favorite parts of my job. After interviewing 20 people, I encountered the usual quota of characters:
- The super chatty
- The arrogant
- The quiet
- The obnoxiously flirty
- The shy sweet smart
- The overly-perfumed-cologned
- The luddite
- The snarky
- The funny office sign – an engraved plaque on a computer “Please don’t touch the screen”
I’m a bit grouchy at this point. I miss my wife and daughter. Last night my daughter screamed “I want my mommy” (I’m her mommy, my wife is her momma) and that just about killed me. I miss being home.
P.S. Why is Rachel Maddow on at 10pm in Austin but not til 11pm in San Francisco? I’d watch her more often but 11pm is usually too late for my working parent life. There’s an ad about sexual predators “Exploiting A Minor is a Major Offense” on the Rachel Maddow show here in Austin? That stinks of the hateful lie that gays recruit children. Or maybe it’s not quite that targeted but it raised my radar. I’m cranky.
Hey there Leanne. I’m enjoying catching up on your blog.
Maybe I’m taking the statement too seriously, but it got me thinking about something I’ve never really understood. The real question is not why Rachel Maddow is on at 10pm but why Central and Mountain time zone’s “prime time” is one hour earlier than the two coasts. Even though I studied TV/Film at Northwestern, we never got to the answer on this one (at least not in any of my courses). Wikipedia doesn’t explain it, but Google did find a site with a plausible explanation. According to http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/331/whats-the-rationale-for-prime-time-tv-scheduling, it’s actually pretty simple. For the least cost before recording was available, shows were done live twice: once for the east coast and once for the west coast. Central time zone by default received their schedule live along with Eastern. I believe that even though it’s not stated, Mountain used to receive theirs at the same time as Central/Eastern before tape delay was perfected. I am certain that they didn’t get their signal at the same time as Pacific because that would have placed prime time too late in the day. (Read the article on the site for more details.)
In any case, it’s an old system. And as Cecil Adams concludes: “[T]hose guys in New York probably figure that people in the Central and Mountain zones are simple folk who like to rack out early after a hard day of mowing the alfalfa. In any case, we’re probably going to be stuck with the present system for the foreseeable future.”
Here’s another explanation which only varies slightly from the one above: http://en.allexperts.com/q/TV-Schedules-3040/History-Primetime-Television.htm