neurotwitch

35000 feet

According to Jet Blue, as I write this Stanley is 35,000 feet over Nebraska, traveling at a speed of 421 knots. He's supposed to land in Denver in about 45 minutes or so. Then to spend the night downtown Denver, then take the gray dog in the morning to Goodland, Kansas.

It was a busy, busy day today--mainly getting stuff ready for Stanley to be able to leave on such a short notice. I didn't get any actual work done until after the limovan picked him up.

It's very strange not having him here--his cat certainly is not happy about it either and the dog is pretty mopey, though she's more edgy than mopey because it is so windy out. The dog is really only happy when we're both here. And the cat is used to his evening dose of attention from Stanley while they read the newspaper together. Rather, Twitch sprawls across the newspaper, ransoming it a paragraph at a time in exchange for being brushed. And I can't really concentrate until I know he's landed safely--I hate flying, even vicariously. And I miss him. Stanley, I mean--the cat is right here sprawled on my lap.

A RANT
On another note, I've again run into yet another print graphic designer who represents that she knows what she's doing when it comes to making websites, but really doesn't know squat. It's pretty appalling, the vastness of her ignorance about setting up and running a website. What is it about graphic designers, that they can't admit they don't understand a different medium or ask for help when freely offered. I would never presume to claim to know how to set up files for print runs, or claim I understand bleeding and color separations or which Pantone color is what, and have no problem telling our clients that we don't do print or, if we do set up a file if they insist, it's with minutely detailed, step-by-step instructions provided by someone who does know what he or she is doing.

What shocks me most about the web-ignorant graphic designers I've encountered, besides the whiny arrogance most of them (not all of them!) exhibit is the amount of damage they do to a client, both financially and in terms of wear and tear and loss of productivity. I suppose some would say, "Well, you can make good money fixing the problems wrought by these maroons," but truth be told, fixing bad websites is both boring and aggravating. Plus you're dealing with gun-shy clients who don't know WHAT to believe--and who can blame them?

If a web-ignorant graphic designer--and there are way too many of them even now, more than ten years after the birth of the public web--would just recognize his or her limitations and call in a web pro to work with the actual implementation of the design in a manner appropriate to the medium, clients would save millions of dollars, I'm convinced. I don't know if the reason they don't is greed or hubris.

All I know is if you're looking for a web designer, find out if that person, at the very least, can make a decent-looking webpage using nothing but Notepad. He or she should be able to sit down at your computer, using your copy of Notepad or whatever text editor you have, make a page, save it on your desktop, and open it with your copy of Internet Explorer or whatever browser your stuck with using--and it should go much farther than black on white "Hello World." I kid you not. And if you want a site that gets ranked highly in the search engines and the so-called web designer starts talking about Flash, or even worse, a Flash splash page, run far, run fast.
END OF RANT

Damn, it's cold out--my Weatherbug is chirping away, telling me that's it's way colder than even a New England January is supposed to be. Ten degrees with a wind chill of -2 degrees. Whether that's the "good" wind chill or the "bad" wind chill--in terms of the good and bad ways of calculating it now--I have no idea. Bed beckons--at least a one dog night. Hope she doesn't snore--though she never snores louder than Stanley does.

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