Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Großvati wrote a nativity play

My mom's Dad, Großvati (pronounced Gross-faah-tee, and Swiss-German for Grandfather) wrote poems, plays, and stories under a pen name. Pius Rickenman. Mom recently found out his nativity play has become an annual tradition in Rapperswill, just down the road from where she grew up.

When we googled it this link popped up.
"Rapperswiler Sternsingen" - a nativity play with procession for all ages.

Our RivKids Christmas play at Riverview has a slightly different target audience.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Understanding Web Design

Jeffrey Zeldman's article, Understanding Web Design, reminds us the web is it's own medium and shouldn't be judged by the standards of other media.

Excerpts:
Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.
and
The experienced web designer, like the talented newspaper art director, accepts that many projects she works on will have headers and columns and footers. Her job is not to whine about emerging commonalities but to use them to create pages that are distinctive, natural, brand-appropriate, subtly memorable, and quietly but unmistakably engaging.

If she achieves all that and sweats the details, her work will be beautiful. If not everyone appreciates this beauty—if not everyone understands web design—then let us not cry for web design, but for those who cannot see.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Getting In

A great by Malcom Gladwell article that should reduce every parent's blood pressure over where your child is admitted to college via Kottke.

Bottom Line: Getting into a selective school is not going to change anyone's life. People achieve based on thier intelligence, drive, and social skills, and being accepted or rejected by an elite school will not change your life for better or worse.