Web Standards, Accessibility & More

A couple weeks ago I took the family to visit my old high school friend Anthony and his family in McKinleyville, California. It was quite an adventure!

The drive up was good, and not quite as far as first expected, about 6 hours or so from South Bay. We made a short stop to drive thru a tree, literally. I learned there’s a few trees where you can actually do this; we visited the Chandelier tree (below). Then, a little later up the highway, we saw a Bigfoot crossing sign.

Our hosts were great, and they sure showed us the outdoor classics of Humboldt county (not the marijuana though, sorry to disappoint!). But first, on the night we arrived, my friend took me out for beers with his buddies from work: about ten professors from nearby Humboldt State University. They were definitely not reserved as one might expect, but quite the opposite; fun, goofy, beer-pounding guys. And I guess I live in “Central California”, as the locals there claim that area of the state the true “Northern California”.

The highlight of the visit was probably walking through the giant redwood forest in the Redwood National Park. My kids pretended they were Ewoks, creatures from the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi. Many of the trees are very very wide, about 300 feet tall, and can be 1,000 years old. We saw numerous large yellow slugs called banana slugs (yuck!)

We spent an afternoon in Arcata, a groovy hippie town which is home to the university. Lots of great coffee, organic food, and free spirits. The farmers market in downtown Arcata was fun, even had a bluegrass band. One ingenious woman sat on the curb with a typewriter and a sign that read “Poem Store“.

We also did some light hiking and walked along a few beaches, and even saw a bunch of seals hanging out on a sand bar. A couple swam pretty close to us, too.

We stayed overnight on the long journey home as we drove south down the coast on Highway 1 (rather than 101 as on the way up). We stopped at a couple of cool little towns, Fort Bragg and Mendocino. We stayed at cabin which was fair, but was totally worth it due to a hot tub overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The four of us took a nice, scenic dip in our underwear!

The next day we drove by some cows, and had a great brunch at fine place called Alexander’s. We crossed the Golden Gate on the way home and, even with as much fun as we had, were glad to be back home in Cupertino.

I took the family on a return visit to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, California (only a 1 1/2 hour drive). Picture of wife and kids at Jelly Belly. Also went to the newly re-opened Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose. It’s very nice, and we’ll definitely go back soon. Picture of my boys on the Frog Hopper ride. (And we’re off to Humboldt later this week!)

In late March, I attended the CSUN conference in downtown San Diego (Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference). I co-presented one session with Joseph O’Connor, Accessibility of Twitter for Mobile, Desktop and Web. It was a great learning experience, and I also met many great folks who I know from the web, especially Twitter. I also spoke at the CSUN Tweetup. Check out my Flickr album from CSUN 2010.

More recently, I was interviewed for a BlindMind.net podcast: Interview with Dennis Lembree, creator of AccessibleTwitter.com & author of web accessibility blog Web Axe.

View from Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel during the CSUN conference in San Diego, California. March 2010.

I just returned from the Accessing Higher Ground (AHG) 2009 conference in Westminster, Colorado (just outside Denver). Subtitled “Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference.” The event has a slant in higher education; making college and university information accessible.

I missed the workshops, but attended the 2 1/2 days of the main conference and also presented one session. The slides are posted on SlideShare.net and briefly made the “” list on the home page. You may view and DIGG the “Twitter and Web Accessibility” presentation here. It’s also embedded below.

Highlights of the conference include:

• Finally meeting Jared Smith of WebAIM.  We’ve known each other for several years online; since he was a guest in the early days of the Web Axe podcast and blog. Great guy.
• I also met other great people, and several from Europe – UK, Netherlands, and Spain. And how could I forget, John Foliot of Stanford was there, too!
• Great venue. The conference was held at a new hotel this year, the Westin Westminster, which was very nice. Much more spacious and elegant than previous years. (I attended the AHG 2008 event.) Some great restaurants, including Rock Bottom Brewery, were just across the street.
• The day before I left, it started snowing. The streets were slushy, but the snow was pretty. I was a bit nervous about my flight home, but the Denver airport did a great job and there were virtually no delays.

So it’s the dog days of summer, and that means vacation time for a lot of people. I was fortunate enough to be able to take almost two weeks off work and had some good times.

King Tut, Hearst Castle, and Sea Lions

First, I took the family to the special King Tut exhibit at the De Young art museum in San Francisco. That was neat, but the kids and I were very disappointed because there were no mummies!

Next, we drove down the central coast of California. We stopped in Monterey for a bit, then took a bunch of pictures thru Big Sur; it was the first time we had driven the whole way. We spent the night near Cambria and went to Hearst Castle the next day. It was a 5-mile bus ride to the castle on top of the mountain, which was neat in itself. I thought the best part of the castle was the outdoor pool. We then drove further south to Morro Bay. Cool little town with seafood restaurants, boat tours, sea lions, big beach, and one ginormous rock.

Carson and me on beach in Morro Bay

Art, Rock Stars, BBQ, Tigers, and Golf

Then I went on a trip to Michigan (just me) to celebrate my brother’s birthday. Connected in Dallas and met a few interesting people on my flights (including a army guy who just ended a 1-year tour in Afghanistan!)  I went to the Ann Arbor art fairs with my parents on the first day, then met my Web Axe co-host Ross and a few other guys at the Arbor Brewing Company. I golfed 9 holes with my brother and dad. Then took a cruise in my dad’s ’68 Mustang convertible and ate at a neat ’50s style drive-in called Tom’s Root Beer Stand. Then I went to Henry Ford Museum, where there was an awesome special exhibit “Rock Stars Cars and Guitars”. We then went to dinner at an awesome new barbecue restaurant/bar in Detroit called Slows. The last night there, we went to the Detroit Tigers Major League baseball game, and there were at least 8 home runs, and a Tigers grand slam in the first inning!

Front of Comerica Park

Garlic Festival is Last Stop

I worked this past Friday, then today I took the family to the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California. We ate very garlicy pizza, bread, and stuffed mushrooms–all very good! It was very crowded and very hot, but a lot of fun.

Phew, OK, I think I covered most of the last couple weeks. Now back to work.

So I went to the Toronto, Canada area almost two weeks ago and to Boulder, Colorado this past week.

During my 5-day trip to Canada (with my manager), I stayed and worked in a suburb of Toronto, Mississauga. I also spent a day in Waterloo, the home of my new employer RIM (Blackberry). It wasn’t terribly exciting, but it fun to be in Canada again, and to see the French plastered everywhere. And I sure lucked out with the weather; around 65F and sunny, which is amazing obviously for November.

Also, more importantly, I met many people that I’ll be working with from my office in Redwood Shores, which was very important. If a company has offices spread throughout a country or throughout the world, it’s very important for people who work together to meet face-to-face and build rapport.

I went to Boulder to speak at and attend a conference about web accessibility and assistive technology. (See the post Speaking at “Accessing Higher Ground” Conference.) The first thing I noticed was that the Denver airport was really nice. It snowed the second morning I was there, which was neat since I don’t see snow much any more (but it melted by afternoon). The conference was good, met some good people, and I even got a free t-shirt from WebAIM. On Friday night, I ate dinner at Zolo one night, which I totally recommend. Then I met a couple old friends who now live in the area and went bar hopping on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder. Pearl Street is very cool.

Here’s the view from hotel room in Boulder, Colorado:

So I’m in California for 1 1/2 days to meet with an awesome financial web company, Yodlee. Silicon Valley is so cool. Overall, the trip has gone pretty well so far, but without the usual inconveniences:

• Airport security confiscated my hair gel and toothpaste. How stupid! Do I look like a freakin’ Muslim terrorist?! It’s bad enough we have to all take off our shoes. Pew.
• The flight attendant was old, fat, and very unfriendly. She bumped my elbow quite abruptly when I was playing an important game of solitaire on my PDA, and she didn’t even think of apologizing!
• The hassles of renting a car. And at the San Francisco International airport, you don’t have to shuttle-bus off-site to the rental car lot, but there’s very long tram ride to a massive facility. And that’s after you’ve solved the lengthy maze to even get the the tram.