Jennifner.com

The fourth of July is upon us once again. For the next week or two, it will become impossible to go outside without being greeted by an olfactory mix of barbecues, bug repellent, and the ever-present smoke and sulfur. We’ll be celebrating the birth of this great nation with full patriotic pomp and circumstance—parades and picnics, floats and flags, candy and crowds.

Yesterday, I went to my city’s annual patriotic celebration. In classic American tradition, this celebration has gotten bigger and better each year since its inception. The closing fireworks were so spectacular that they elicited involuntary “oohs and aahs” from even the most seasoned veterans of firework displays. It was a complete success. But really, does this pyrotechnic event truly symbolize our American identity?

One of the most famous American symbols, the Statue of Liberty, points us in another direction. Written in the pedestal on which the statue stands, is the following invitation:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Not only does the statue welcome the poor and downtrodden to our country, it does so with an implicit promise that America will become a “land of opportunity” to these people, that circumstances in our country will be markedly better than those they left. Read more

What follows is more of a freewrite on being single and aging. Not really that important, but you’re welcome to read it if you’d like. Read more

Happy 26th birthday to my friend and roommate, Julie Dougall.

I’ve always avoided anything resembling social networking sites. I have a hard enough time keeping in touch with the friends I have—why would I possibly want to spend time on the people on these sites? Plus, I’m already bad at time management—why would I possibly want another mindless drain on my time?

Well, it’s because over the course of a single evening, three separate friends tried to talk me into joining. I guess my willpower is no match for the power of three (or something like that). So I decided that, since I was going to join, I may as well do it right. Therefore, I tried to do everything like other people I know who use Facebook.

• I’ve signed up for an account, posted some notes, and written on the walls of all my friends.
• I’ve joined a group: “I will correct your grammar and I won’t feel bad about it.” It’s perfect.
• I’ve even thrown some pictures up online.
• And, I’ve already spent way too much time on it—I’ve even neglected my editing.

Doesn’t that seem right?

Actually, despite the time commitment, I’ve really enjoyed it. Let me tell you, having 17 people want to be your friend in one day is certainly good for the self-esteem. Who knew being internet friends could be so rewarding?

When I die, I do not want to go to heaven and then watch the events of my life unfold on the big screen. I’m sorry, but I don’t. I’ve lived it once, and, quite frankly, a good portion of my life has been rather boring. For instance, who really wants to watch themselves sleep? Every night? For their entire lifetime? No thank you.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t like to see select moments in my life. I just want the ability to select what moments I see. That’s why I hope that when Google’s inventors get to heaven, God gets them busy designing what will come to be known as Google Life. (I know that God could make it himself, but I think he’s probably got better things to do. And since the Google guys are so good at what they do…you know: Google Mail, Google Earth, Google Maps…they deserve to spearhead the Google Life project.)

It’s got potential, people! Think about it: You know those situations where you’re having a conversation with your mom and you say, “Remember that time when we saw John Denver at the fair?” And then your mom says, “No, we never saw John Denver. You must be thinking of someone else.” But you still feel fairly certain you saw John Denver and your mom is crazy? That’s where Google Life comes in. You type in as much information as you think you remember—John Denver concert when I was 10—and Google Life searches through your entire life and brings up relevant results. And then you watch the video version (on that big screen, with heavenly picture and sound) and you and your mom both know who is right and who is crazy.

(Okay, I admit it—I’d really like to have Google Life right now. I mean, my entire generation is so used to instant answers to most who, what, where, when, why, and how questions…it’s frustrating that we can’t have the same instant gratification for these questions in our own lives. However, I recognize that since God’s got exclusive access to a free and unbiased account of my life, I’ll have to wait for heaven in order to get it.)

Just a quick update on a previous post. Kevin, the fearless Mt. Everest climber and Moreton flag carrier, has successfully made it to the summit. Details will be forthcoming on his blog shortly, I’m sure. Congratulations, Kevin on your amazing and well-deserved (and well-documented) accomplishment!!

And, for those non-climbers out there, now you can see what he saw…kind of. (Obviously, the 1024×768 panorama doesn’t match the real-life panorama…but it sure was easier and safer to get to!) Also, if you want to pretend you climbed it for yourself, check this out for a better understanding of what the journey was like.

Update: Since Jenn=geek, here are a few more links to get more Everest knowledge out of my system.

Happy 24th Birthday to Amber Johanna Pack.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a very special place in my heart for puns and wordplay. In today’s issue of the Salt Lake Tribune, Paul Rolly included several puns from an “earlier” edition of the Washington Post. I’d come across these well over a year ago, and enjoyed them enough to pass them onto a good friend who appreciated them but didn’t fully trust their attributed source.

The vague wording in Rolly’s column renewed my interest in finding the original source. After spending a few minutes with Google, I got my answer. (Seriously, what did we do before Google?) Turns out, these were first published as part of the Washington Post’s Style Invitational column. From 1998.

Seriously, 1998?! Think back to 1998—back when politics was dominated by the Lewinsky scandal, back when Michael Jordan beat the Utah Jazz in the NBA finals (again), and back when N*Sync was cool. Are you kidding? Essentially, this columnist decided it wasn’t enough to forward this to everyone in his contact list—rather, he had to forward it to everyone within the newspaper’s circulation.

For the record, yes, I still think the wordplay is amusing. But not nearly as amusing as the fact that the Salt Lake Tribune actually paid someone to publish this.

As part of my always-random design job, earlier this year I was asked to design a small flag. While the flag itself wasn’t anything too exciting (just my company’s logo on a black background), the flag’s intended destination was. That’s right, everybody, I now have a connection (in a very small, “I’m not that adventurous” way) to…wait for it…Mt. Everest.

That’s right, if all goes well in the summit attempt, eventually I might have access to some pictures of my flag on top of the world. That basically makes me one step away from being on top of the world, right? The flag is being carried to the summit by Kevin, climber extraordinaire, author of KC Summits’ Everest Blog, and friend to the poo-bahs in my company who requested the flag (hence my involvement).

Honestly, I’ve adored the Everest Blog. Not only are the traditions fascinating, but the entire reading experience is tinged with a feeling of urgency—you’re really pulling for the guy, really hoping he’ll make it up the mountain.

He still hasn’t summited yet (mainly due to weather problems), so you’ve got time to catch up and enjoy the rest of the ride (and root for my flag). Enjoy!

The last few days at work have been…well…suffice it to say I’ve needed to vent a lot. One of my clients has requested revisions on a design I am particularly proud of. Worse, the requested revisions, in my opinion, make the overall product much less compelling than it was in my original. Now, normally I consider myself a fairly flexible person. I don’t mind making revisions as long as they improve the overall presentation. In fact, I really enjoy a synergistic collaborative process where the whole is significantly better than the ideas of its parts.

However, whenever I’m asked to introduce errors or “ugliness” into a document, I find myself in a foul mood. A really foul mood. An “if I were a cartoon I’d have a huge black rain cloud above my head” foul mood.

So fast forward to today, where in unrelated webdesign work, I came across this post by the brilliant designer Jeffrey Zeldman. In it, he discusses how—in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence—Thomas Jefferson had included passages that abolished slavery. However, in order to get the Declaration approved by congress, he had been forced to delete these passages. Zeldman then draws the following conclusion:

The next time a client requests changes that make your work less beautiful, less usable, or less smart, remember that greater people than you have lost bigger battles over far more important matters.

What did I tell you? The man’s brilliant. And the funny thing is that even as I was “put in my place,” I felt comforted to know that there are other designers who have perhaps experienced similar foul moods while accepting similarly frustrating, inane changes to documents that, overall, really won’t make any difference.

And the next time I’m in D.C., I’m getting a copy of the declaration and tacking it to the wall next to my monitor.