UXFun--Last night about 20 Designers from around Chicago met for the inaugural Chicago UX Special Interest Group meeting. Larry Marine from Intuitive Design and Research facilitated the session. A brave soul put up the site that she is in charge of redesigning and let the rest of us analyze it, hash it, and rehash it. It was certainly good to get back into the Chicago community of designers anfter an extended hiatus (having another kid will do that).

Hopefully the next gathering will allow for a bit more networking, because all I walked away with was the facilitator's name.

iPodPatent--Apple Tries to Patent the iPod Interface.

On Thursday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made public patent application number 20040055446, covering "graphical user interface and methods of use thereof in a multimedia player."...Apple lists three inventors: Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs (news - web sites), as well as Jeffrey L. Robbin and Timothy Wasko...Wasko, Apple's visual interaction designer, came to Apple in 1997 from Next Software Inc. when Jobs returned to Apple from Next.

It's nice to see the work that interaction designers do get a little love every once in a while. As with many of Apple's products, it is not the technology that is so revolutionary, but the ease of use. This ease of use can, and should be patentable. He and his cohorts invented the equivalent of the hammer - the ideal object for embedding a metal fastener into a piece of wood. iPod is becoming the ideal way to navigate through lists of electronic media. Unfortunately, as with hammers and steering wheels, Apple may suffer from having invented a a tool that litigation cannot catch up to.

More on Tim Wasko:
Tim's Patents (he did the Quicktime interfaces, and the iApps)
Look at the friends he has.
Nerds think he's a nice guy.

More on my past patented user interfaces:
Kris's Patents (the other Rzepkowski patent is my Dad's who was making Cellular technology before the term Cel Phone was even coined.

ChuckECheeeeez-- Friday we spent a glorious evening at Chuck E Cheese. It's the first time I've been there since I worked there at the tender age of 16. Come to find out, they "improved" the shows fom the old animatronic days. Bummer. I have fond memories of these characters. At least the guy in the Chuck E suit didn't have his head fall off and freak out my kids. I've got a whole new perspective on that fateful incident that ended my Chuck E career.

FriendsAMoovin-- Change is the norm. I'm convinced. After spending my first 3 weeks at my 3rd job in 4 years, I've come to realize that I thrive on change. Come to find out, I'm not alone. Walt, one of my former mates at TMP has decided to take a new position at SixApart. This, after Rachelle relocated from NY to take over my old position at TMP Chicago. And before that was Mark moving on to R/GA.

First, I have to congratulate Walt on going to a place that truly has a great deal of meaning for him. For a true blogging innovator, going to work for the company that builds what he so passionately advocates, uses, and tweaks is a stroke of pure genius. I can already foresee exciting things coming down the way for Walt and for the blog community on the whole as a result of his upcoming work.

As for Rachelle, I have no worse feeling than that of leaving her just as she was coming in. But, the best part of it all is that she is going to have the world's best experience at TMP. She is going to be thrown into design situations she may have only had a taste of before. And she is going to grow her skills so fast in the upcoming years. I think it is a blessing in disguise for her to have the kind of responsibility she now has in the best office in the company. Good Luck Rachelle!

And Mark already knows that I'm in awe of what he must be creating. Moving from advertising to a real design firm puts him in the top flight of designers. Already, the rigor that he has been going through in Architecture and Interaction Design makes creating Career websites look like childsplay. Mark, you've done well. Congrats!

After watching these 3 changers, my only regret from the TMP years is that we were well on our way to building an all-star user-experience team. Unfortunately we all just got very impatient, and the economy soured at a bad time. Now hopefully we'll keep in touch at our separate companies and use each other's knowledge for the betterment of users everywhere.

JesusStories-- After being profoundly affected by The Passion of the Christ, I decided to begin my journey down the path of Jesus movies. I watched Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ last night. It was a really weird experience. I recognized the elements in it that were controversial in 1988 when it was released, but I also found myself using it to fill in the holes in the story within Mel's Passion. See the Last Temptation spends a lot more time on Christ's life, breezes through the suffering parts that Gibson focused on, and then takes us down a hallucinatory path of Christ actually not dying on the cross, but instead marrying and having kids. In the beginning I was so irritated at William Defoe and Harvey Keitel with their cheesy English-speaking dialog, that I nearly gave up. But, suddenly I became so riveted in the film-making and the internal battle going on in Jesus's mind, I completely forgave them. In the end, both movies are honestly great films. My quest continues to see more depictions of Christ's life in film. I'll have to spread out my viewings though 'cause it is the SAME story. The next ones to see:

The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Gospel According to St. Matthew