For the second time in the past couple of years, we got to see John Williams conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra tonight. Like the last time, this was a program entirely of movie music, but for the first time they brought in a movie screen and played clips during some of the performances. The first half was narrated by Michael York and was a tribute to the films of David Lean, including: The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and Lawrence of Arabia.

The second half was entirely devoted to the music of the Harry Potter series, which Nancy and I both love. They wrapped up with a compilation of clips done to the main theme. Of course, no one was going to let John Williams go without an encore, so he ended up coming back to conduct the theme from E.T. and a piece from Indiana Jones ("Marion's Theme", I think - I didn't know it by name, but it's very recognizable).

To cap it off, when the audience wouldn't let him go, Williams came back and conducted the Imperial March, which was amazing. Finally, when we were just about exhausted from clapping, he did a 4th encore, the Sunday Night NFL theme, which is actually pretty cool in full (always interesting to hear the full scores of TV themes). Finally, we let the orchestra go home, but it was an amazing show.

I have no idea what that means - I'm running out of "Re-" words. This week has been nuts, but somehow I've managed to catch most of my clients up post-conference and put in 12.5 hours of writing since Monday. I'm only 1 hour shy of my target, after facing a 7.5-hour deficit. Even more amazingly, I'm making much better progress than expected. I've actually written up all of the tools, and have created most of the supporting pages and layout. I should have a rough-draft before the holiday and will hopefully be able to release this in early December.

Of course, the fact that I don't have that much left (compounded by the holiday) probably means I'm going to fall short of the 30-hour goal, but if the e-book is done, it's done. I'll take some extra time to edit that I might otherwise rush through, and then that's it. If I reach the concrete goal but not the arbitrary one, then mission accomplished.

Ok, one more mini-survey I need help with for the e-book. The user testing tools require you to find your own participants, so sorry to be such a bother, but it's easier to ask a few friends, and I only need 3-5 or so to get some data. Here's the URL:

http://beta.usabilla.com/rate/2473848954b04

I'd offer you a free copy of my e-book to thank you, but it's going to be free anyway, and you may or may not care about the topic. My eternal gratitude and $3.50 will buy you a cup of coffee, though.

Testing another tool for the e-book I'm working on. Similar to the last one, this takes a few clicks and probably only 2-3 minutes. I only need a handful of participants, so any help is greatly appreciated:

http://www.loop11.com/usability-test/2420/introduction/

Let's call this the total honesty recap. Just got back from Vegas yesterday - conference was great, but as expected, I fell way behind on writing. This was, unfortunately, inevitable. I was in sessions from 8am-5pm and had sponsored events, dinners, and parties with industry people almost every night. Crashed one night (Wednesday), but I needed that just to catch up on work-related fires. Also had 2 clients at the conference with me, with the inevitable demands that creates (having them both there was actually very positive, but it did create extra details to manage).

So, I have some catching up to do, and it's not going to be easy. I am encouraged by one thing, though. The 6-1/2 hours I've spent on the e-book have been surprisingly productive. I've tested almost half the tools (including notes and screenshots), and I've developed and 80-90% refined a layout for the product pages, which will be the vast majority of the book. It's actually coming together well. If I can put in the 30 hours this month, I may very likely finish it. Gives me some incentive to push forward, even though I have no idea where I'll find 2 hours/day for the rest of this month.

So, part of what I'm doing for my new e-book is testing a bunch of new usability tools. I'm working on one right now that requires you to find your own participants. If anyone wants to lend a hand, it's basically just a few screens to click through (<5 minutes):

https://usereffect.optimalworkshop.com/chalkmark/survey/UserEffect1

I really liked this piece from Gapingvoid yesterday, summed up by this quote:

As with Simon, I think we all need to have that “Moment”, eventually. That moment when we stop futzing around and actually start behaving like proper adults. That moment when we actually start acting like “Officers” commanding our own lives.

http://gapingvoid.com/2009/10/28/finding-your-moment

We decided to go see "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" today while it was still in theaters, as I like some of the 3-D animated movies (I find the 3-D is much more impressive for animation than live-action). The movie turned out to be hilarious - extremely creative with a lot of subtle 80s references.

It also had this line, which I loved:

"C'mon, Steve - we've got some diem to carpe!"

I saw a Tweet today that is exactly how I would like to be remembered:

"He's a smart ass. And he's more smart than ass. We like him."

Facebook was trying to get me to wish you happy birthday yesterday, and it almost tricked me. Luckily, my laziness paid off, and I ended up getting the right day.