I've been doing battle with a flukey Linksys router for the past week or so. It's intermittent reboots have caused co][nz.org to appear down at times. Bear with me while I test my latest configuration - I have a feeling that my Raptor VPN software is the culprit, so I disabled it. If that doesn't work, looks like it's time for an upgrade.

Monday, 10:15am PST. Pack the car. A 50 minute drive to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. A 90 minute wait to board the plane and take off. A 3 hour and 25 minute flight to Cincinnati. Connecting flight in Cinci delayed 30 minutes, meaning another 90 minute wait to board the next plane. 40 minutes to Indianapolis. Wait 20 minutes for luggage. Drive 3 hours and 30 minutes to Chicago. Crawl in bed. Tuesday, 12:10am CST.

I'm ready for New Year's Eve - are you?

Apologies for being so quiet - I have been and will be traveling about until the end of the year, and this is my first visit to a computer since leaving Chicago. Air travel has been miserable so far, but I've made it to both destinations (Terre Haute, Phoenix) with little delay or discomfort (kudos to Northwest's excellent service and First Class upgrade!). I was treated to a blizzard that left behind twelve inches of snow on Christmas Eve in Terre Haute, so Christmas was white, to say the least. Hope you and yours are enjoying the holiday season as much as I am. More when I return on the 31st.

My design group wrapped up work on our yearly interactive holiday "card", if you will. Without further ado, I present the snowman construction kit. We typically build something of this caliber on a yearly basis around the holidays and send it embedded in an e-card to clients and prospects. The goal on my side is to provide each designer with a creative outlet that diverges a bit from the day to day work they're accustom to. Whether it works or not is one thing, but it's got to be a nice way to wrap up the year.

No progress on the "Carry" website - I'm still waiting for the final go ahead on latest round of photos which is probably not going to happen before the new year. In the mean time, I've been able to get more involved in AIfIA, helping lead the Technology group along with Marcia Morante. Exciting things to look forward to in the coming year!

OK - no "Carry" website released as mentioned earlier, and no news on the subject until now. All apologies. The handbag design show went well - good turnout, excited audience, jubilant atmosphere. However, it was decided beforehand that the website launch would be postponed a few weeks. You see, the pictures we had of the bags, while adequate, weren't quite perfect. Stay tuned for a not-so-far-away launch once they are - you won't be disappointed.

I received my Axim X5 earlier in the week. Many a review has been written about the ho-hum design of the product casing, but I think it's nicely done. I'm pleased with it's vibrant color display, performance and battery life. The built-in audio capabilities (voice recording, MP3/WMA playback via Windows Media Player) are nice, although they could've jacked up the audio output a bit. I haven't lit up WiFi on it yet (I'm waiting for the card), but I'm not so happy with the selection of browsers available on the Windows PocketPC platform - the bundled IE 3.02 hybrid sucks and BitStream's ThunderHawk subscription-based browser is overpriced. I'm hoping that the Mozilla and/or Opera camps have plans to release something in the near future...

Special thanks to the folks at Finnow Consulting for a nice gift of appreciation. I'm glad that they and their users are enjoying the site and finding it informative and usable. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

Monkey Radio and Groove Salad are alive and streaming again, due in part to HR5469's (a.k.a. the Webcasting Royalty Bill) passage in October. I've missed their "presence" and am glad they're back - and just in time to keep me sane as I scramble to wrap up another website design. "Carry" is scheduled to launch in unison with a design event in Chicago this coming Thursday. I'll post the link and my thoughts on how it turned out once it's live.