kubitsky.net

Well, silly me must not have stretched well enough on one of my runs last week, because now I can hardly walk. The injury slowly worsened, rather than hitting me all at once. It bothered me over the weekend, but I chose to run my 6 mile long run anyway, which I paid the price for the next day.

So, here I am, limping with an ankle brace and it’s just Pablo (my dog) and I. I drove my husband and all his gear to the train station today so he could start his 3-week trekking trip through the Himalayas and Nepal. It’s a very exciting time for him and unfortunately a much more difficult one for me.

Date: Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Time: 6 - 8PM (social time from 6 - 6:30PM)
Location: Messagefirst
230 N 2nd St. Suite 2C
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 825-7423
Map: http://tinyurl.com/yqsvqv
RSVP: Please help us plan & sign up at phillychi@gmail.com

About the Presentation
Any site with a search engine captures users’ search queries. This is real data that’s plentiful and inexpensive to acquire, and not necessarily difficult to analyze. Site search analytics tells you what users really want from your site—in their own words—and how well you’re meeting those needs. This session covers the basics of search analytics for web designers, showing how you can identify, diagnose, and fix major problems with your site’s content, metadata, navigation, and search functions.

About the Speaker
Louis Rosenfeld is founder of Rosenfeld Media, a new publishing house focused on short, practical books on user experience design. As an information architecture consultant, he has helped numerous Fortune 500s and other large, messy, political enterprises make their information easier to find. Lou is co-author of “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web” (O’Reilly & Associates; 3rd edition, 2006) and the forthcoming “Site Search Analytics: Conversations with Your Customers” (Rosenfeld Media, 2008). Lou co-founded the Information Architecture Institute and UXnet, the User
Experience Network. He blogs regularly at louisrosenfeld.com.

About Our Sponsor
Messagefirst is Philadelphia-based design research consulting firm. We work with companies to help them increase revenues, decrease costs, and ultimately improve the user experience of their products or services. Our goal-oriented data-driven design process improves performance and creates compelling experiences that solve business problems in a beautiful way. And unlike other consulting firms, we don’t just redesign products and service – we actually work with your
team to plan and implement the design solution.

To learn more about Messagefirst, please visit: http://www.messagefirst.com

Despite the huge week-long binge in Hawaii, I have been losing weight since I came back. Running more miles in my training each week is certainly contributing as well. It’s very exciting to think that I will be half way through my weightloss efforts in just 1-2 more weeks :)

I’ve finally offloaded all the pictures from my camera and managed to get them up on Flickr. Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ckubitsky/sets/72157604106915728/

Our last full day on Kaua’i was spent lounging on the beach, reading and relaxing. Perfect weather again. We will miss this place. Tomorrow we will pack up, have our champagne breakfast and be on our way back to Philadelphia.

Kaua’i is a fantastic small island with everything you need no matter what your interests. I hope to come back here with my husband soon.

My crazy, Hawaiian running route…

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1683377

We drove down to the South Shore this time to hit up Waimea Canyon and attend our “free” Lu’au. The Canyon was breathtaking but we didn’t have the best conditions for picture taking. The higher you go up in elevation, the cloudier and mistier the environment becomes. Still, it was gorgious to see the deep reds and browns of the canyon mixed with the bright and deep green grasses and trees. I took as many pictures as I could.

It was a long time in the car, driving from sea level to 4400 feet, but well worth the winding, narrow and bumpy roads. There were so many trails along the way. I really wished that my husband was with me so we could hike them.

The most unusual thing we saw was a huge whole fish, teeth and all, on the side of the road at a lookout half way up. Our Dutch friends that were following us all the way up and down the Canyon claimed it was a “flying” fish :)

After the canyon we drove into Poipu to attend our “all you can eat and drink” Lu’au at the Sheraton Resort. It was a sunset dinner and show on the beach. Very entertaining with decent and abundant food. And there was some very tasty guava chiffon pie for dessert. Yum!

We took our ridiculously big, gas guzzling, bright red snob mobile cruising up Rte 56 to the North Shore and the start of the Na Pali Coast. The end of the road is at Bali Hai. It took us all about 45 minutes to drive up there. The island is so small, but the maps make it seem big.

The waves on the beach of the North Shore are really big and rough. We spent about 2 hours on this beach waiting for the sun to set so we could snap a bunch of pictures of the glorious sunset, Bali Hai and part of the Napali Coast. It was really beautiful.

We ventured to the center of the town of Lihu’e today. Not much to see, but tons of interesting places to eat. We went to try out the famous local noodle house - Hamura Saimin Stand. It’s a small house on a side street, painted blue, with a loud screen door. From outside you could hear all the chatter and slurping from the patrons. We walked in and saw several long counters. You just pull up a stool, ask for “medium” and out comes some of these best Japanese noodle soup I have ever had. And only cost me $4.50.

We spent the majority of our time at the pool overlooking the ocean today. Relaxing, reading, and listening to music. Highlights of the day were finding a map of jogging routes that are safe and off the road at the fitness center, learning that parking for timeshare owners is free, and finding a dinner option that didn’t have fish and was completely vegetarian.

It’s good for us to have this lazy day, for Thursday, Friday and Saturday may we will be driving around he island.