Here’s a couple of related posts on HTML emails:
HTML Email: What NOT to do

FREITAG: Now THAT’S How You Write a Confirmation Email

Today I slept in a bit while Katie and Nicole squeezed in a short jog before heading to Taormina this afternoon. I have to admit, I’m feeling a little cranky today probably because I really just don’t feel like traveling any more. I think from now on vacations for me will include no more than two destinations. packing in 3 within a 10 day time frame is a little too much for me. Good to learn that now though

But back to this trip. Today we’re checking out of the Hotel Azzolini and as mentioned, we’re making our way to Taormina Sicily. When the girls get back to the room we get ready, pack up, and head downstairs for a quick breakfast and arrange for transportation to the train station.

–

Breakfast in Sicily by the way is not the traditional American style meal of eggs, sausage, omelets, pancakes etc. Instead, here it’s more along the lines of a continental breakfast which I actually would enjoy more on a day to day basis. Not that anyone really has time these days to prepare a full breakfast for themselves each morning anyways. If you do, hat’s off to you sir or madame. My daily routine consists of coffee and a granola bar of some variety eaten in my car on the way to work. In Italy however, it’s ham or salami with swiss cheese, rolls, croissants, cereal and milk, orange, grapefruit or pineapple juice. And of course there’s coffee! Sometimes it’s fresh and others it’s cappuccino from a machine with the later being far inferior as to be expected (it’ll still due though if you’re in need of that morning boost as I am).

–

On the way to the train station we of course realize that there’s a stop at least half as far from the hotel than the station we walked to yesterday in the blazing sun! Could this be the work of the hex?

My heavy suitcase…again…luckily the taxi driver offered help down the stairs. Poor guy is still probably recovering from the hernia that gave him.

Day 3 starts out early again but only after a much needed and anticipated full nights’ rest. Katie and I rise early at 6:30 to go for a light jog likely comprised more of sightseeing and exploration than an actually productive run. But this is what vacations are for. I’m glad just get some real use out of these sneaks!

I’m thinking that we started out kind of quick but brush it off because I’ve not been running regularly for a few months. Having only run a little here and there and with no real purpose I was huffing and puffing early into this run.

Photo op! >Click< (breathe, breathe, breathe) Ok let’s go!

Gorgeous run! The sea with the sun rising slowly ahead of us was a wonderful site. Once I get Katie’s pics I can add them in as I didn’t bring my camera on this run.

(Huff-Puff, Huff-Puff…oh hey! That’s pretty!…Huff-Puff, Huff-Puff) God have I really slacked off this much?! I know Katie’s a faster runner than I, and I’ve been lazy/busy/tired but sheesh!

On the run through the narrow Sicilian streets we point out quaint villas with carefully careless gardens. Discover businesses of interest that look just like the homes they’re next to with the only real distinguishing difference being the sign hanging out in front. We saw a few bulls noshing on their spindly green delicacy of choice and heard plenty of dogs yelping as we pass by.

Dogs, yes lots of dogs. Actually as we reached our half way point we were heading toward the coast and hoping to find a path by which we could make our way back to our hotel so as not to have to double back the way we came. much to our dismay and alarm however were 2 stray mangy looking muts towards the bottom of the rolling hill directly in front of us! Thank goodness Katie spotted these 2 characters when she did. I was paying no mind to what lie ahead of us, distracted by everything we passed. We promptly ceased to run, turned our bodies around and began to walk directly from whence we came turning around every other second to make sure that we weren’t followed.

Crisis averted! Let’s get this run over with… (Huff-Puff, Huff-Puff)

Katie mentions that she thinks we’re running between a 9:15 and a 9:30!? No wonder I’m struggling! I like my casual runs to hover around 11 minutes per mile, especially if I haven’t been keeping up like i should! Must have been the “fresh” legs.

Good for us! we got our run in and got to see an extra bit of Cirini that we otherwise would have missed. AND it was actually a productive run! Sweet! More room for Gelato!

Everything else we did today (to fill in later…define later :)
Breakfast, shower, Nicole’s hungover(?!)
Walked 45-50 minutes to train station (pics)
Hopped on train at Cirini station (wrong way!)
Got off train 1 stop later (TwitPic)
Hop on correct train to Palermo
Grab a bite to eat
The hunt for bus #118 to Independence Square
Now the hunt for bus #108 (found and kicked off!)
Should have gotten onto #389
we find a fountain at the foot of the mountain near a bed and breakfast and start the hike up this bad boy.
Found another fountain and sit in it’s shell (pics)…continue hike
Man it’s hot!
continue hike
a bus pulls over and saves us! Huzzzza!
We make it to the town of Monreale, SUCCESS!
Cappuccino break (Get a hex caste upon us by a scary old lady we wouldn’t give money)
We ponder what the hex could be…preparing friends at home to gather hex breaking ingredients: eye of newt, hair of dog, blood of somethingorother…
Walk around town, gorgeous pics
I’m obsessed with taking pics of doorways
feet and KNEE tired
The church opens a tres e media; we walk through (pics)
getting dark
head for bus, which no longer stops where it dropped us off
some kind person tells us along with a group of others that we have to go down towards the next stop
we see bus…we run…downhill…owwww
yay bus!
back to Independence Square (piazza de independence)
the hunt for dinner…6:30 no luck
pissed
back track from where bus just came b.c we thought we saw food options, no luck
more pissed
decide to turn around and our luck has it that a bus is about to pull up that we need! (take that hex)
back to independence square (3rd time)
TIRED
find taxi drivers, very nice guys, Sox fans though…ehhh no one’s perfect (<–waits for angry comments)
Driver near station said it’d be $80 back to Cirini, these guys start at $40 we say $25, then $30. we settle on $35, both parties happy
Back at hotel we nap for 20 minutes
eat
sleep
THE END (well, of day 3)

Watch PhizzPop Design Challenge, Chicago 2016 Olympics in News Online, Webisodes, and Game Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

“Winner: Manifest Digital www.manifestdigital.com Special recognition goes to Brian Henkel, Kevin Panke, and Dan Thompson, Manifest Digitals design challenge team … members. Congratulations on their excellent design collaboration and creative solution to Chicagos 2016 Olympic Bid Awareness challenge!”

Various Write-ups of the event
The official site

See the winning solution

http://adamkinney.com/blog/383/default.aspx

http://cnms08.typepad.com/cnms08/2008/11/phizzpop-winner-manifest-digital.html

http://www.silverlightshow.net/news/Silverlight-News-for-November-27-2008.aspx

http://briangorbett.com/events/phizzpop-chicago-hellip-awesome-showing/

http://chrisbernard.blogs.com/design_thinking_digest/2008/11/meet-the-phizzpop-design-challenges-teams.html

PICS
Manifest Digital wins the Chicago PhizzPop Design Challenge. This is a collection of photos taken by members of Manifest Digital during the event – which were then displayed on the screen at the end of the presentation. Click here for more information on the challenge, the application, and the winners.

More photos!
http://flickr.com/photos/jeff_woelker/sets/72157609641786566/

IT’S ALL IN THE FAM

One of the proud winners, Kevin Panke, writes about his own experience.

Our very own UX guru turned videographer extraordinaire, Jason Ulaszek, shares his unique viewpoint for the world to see (thanks for filming Jason!)

http://www.fwatheater.com/video/short-film/859/honda-the-dream-comes-true.html

Soichiro Honda is talked about for the first time.

Credits
Written and directed by Michele D’Auria, Backgrounds by Simone Prisco, Music by Lino Cannavacciuolo, www.micheledauria.com

Thanks to Kevin for sending this my way! Check out some his stuff (btw he, along with Dan Thompson and Brian Henkel just helped REP-RE-SENT for Manifest at PhizzPop)

As I mentioned earlier, we’re now in a sleepy little country town called Carina. It’s actually, as admitted by the help at the very friendly front desk, a “summer sport” town.  Apparently, this time of year, without a car, there’s not much to do here. However, at least for me, It’s actually a very welcome thing to have nothing to do. Some might feel that this is a waste of time traveling so far and long to have nothing to do but for me ‘nothing’ is a whole lot os something. I am perfectly content after our 2 long days of 3 trains, 2 planes, a taxi, and a boat (while still in a train, mind you) that we sit, eat, and throw back a few glasses of wonderful wine and share the great conversations that this group is known to have.

When we arrived at the hotel we immediately determined the shower que; myself, Nicole then Katie. The room was actually much larger than I had expected with it’s white plaster walls, tiled floors, three beds, 2 desks, mini fridge, small TV, armoire, and generous patio. A sight for sore eyes.

I hop in the shower, which i must say, had an odd configuration. Hang with me here, it’s worth it. So the shower has this screen; it’s like a cheap plastic folding screen that consists of 3 panels but only reaches across half the length of the tub!? Not only does the screen not reach across the whole length of the tub, there’s a gap between the bottom of the panels and the ledge of the tub. So what this means is that when you turn on the shower head (which also by the way, directly faces the shower head) water runs down and conveniently falls down the outside of the tub.

Ok, so you have some water on the floor of a tiled bathroom floor. No biggie right? Well, not so much after I’m done because I was first and was trying to watch the water level. Not sure what happened after me but by the time Katie was done we had water out the door and soaking Nicole’s bed!?

“Katie! Katie! Stop the water!”

“What?”

“Turn off the water; it’s coming out the door!”

“What?”

And so with that, our cumulative effect resulted in a small pond outside our bathroom door which we were luckily able to dam with one of Nicole’s towels so that it wouldn’t enter the remainder of the room. Towel after towel we lay down to soak up the water, ring out, repeat. It was pretty funny.

After we’re all scrubbed up and feel like humans again. We stroll downstairs and ask the woman at the desk which direction we should walk. “Go to the main road and turn left” she says. And so, we do. It’s a quiet town that feels oddly a lot like the country, non-touristy part of Cabo.

After Kennedy’s we walked further towards “il Centro” and stumbled across a Gelateria! Hooray! But they didn’t have any Gelato. How does a Gelateria not have Gelato? I mean, it’s practically in your name people, how do you not sell it?

Ah success! We have found Gelato and it is DELICIOUS! I got Caffé, Nicole– Limona, and Katie– some scrumptious looking Chocolate and peanut butter combo! Did I say DELICIOUS?! Mmmmm…could get that everyday! How are Italian women so thin?

The walk back: feet are starting to hurt a bit from my newer shoes but whatever. We get caught in a cold afternoon thunderstorm! Huge drops are hitting us now and we still have a bit to walk back to the hotel. Nothing to do but walk and so we pick the pace up a bit. By the time we reach the hotel lobby, we are 3 drowned rats.

The official themes of this trip are Vehicles (modes of transportation, and water) I’ll fill in more on this later.

Time for a nap! We wake up at 6:30pm and get ready for dinner. Dinner was nice and simple. We order Tortellini with mushrooms in a tomato cream sauce, Sea-bass with steak fries, and a steak also with fries (interesting). Solid meals for the hotel ristorante and decently priced I must add!

I’m drifting into la-la-land…must sleeeeeeeeeeep…

So I’m not really sure where exactly I’m writing this from. Let’s see…I know that I’m somewhere between the southern mainland of Italy and the island of Sicily; on a sleeper train that’s now been transfered to a boat.

I feel like cargo. Or livestock without the smell…oh wait never mind yup our “room” smells like gym shoes (three pair to be exact). You see, we’ve now been traveling for  over 18 hours straight.  The four of us left Chicago on  Thursday at 3PM. It’s now 9:11pm on Friday according to Chicago time and 4:11am Saturday local time. I can only hope that Celeste is fairing better than we. Our group split in Rome as Celeste continued on to visit a Diplomat friend in Bulgaria. She should be sleeping in a cozy bed by now hopefully  drunk off of either good wine or good times catching up with an old friend or both.

For this leg of the trip our final destination is our hotel in Carini. Check-in is at 11am; only 7 more hours to go! From here, where ever that is; we’ll dock in Palermo then hop on anther train to Carini.

I wonder if they’ll take our train car off this boat and back onto tracks or if we’ll de-board right from the boat? This is all so strange but has to be infinitely better than the conditions my ancestors faired on their journey to America from Italy, Ireland, Hungary, and Norway.

But back to our “room”; It’s really quite an oxymoron as there is no room at all. It consists of three fold down beds, a ladder and a very narrow space for manuvering, our luggage, oh and a sink!?

—

Hey we’re back on land, and on tracks! We think we’re in Massina. The station sign says “Messina C.le”– will have to look that up later. It’s now 4:36am local time. I wonder how many other people are awake for this? As I’m sure you can imagine that there was quite a bit of movement and noise to get the cars back on the tracks.

I really miss having internet access! I want to take a shower. And I can’t wait to get a decent nights sleep in a hotel. We really should have picked up a bottle of wine, but who knew? Good times though, once we get to Palermo we’ll be able to really get this trip started right. There’s a castle we’ll be storming soon!

In 2 weeks in fact I’m going to Italy with 3 other great girl friends of mine that I met through our running group last year. I’m very excited to go seeing as I’ve yet to make it across the pond. But at the same time I don’t want to go anywhere at all. I want to be here for my grandma and especially for my mom. I’ll be gone for 10 days…10 days…

…I do plan on bringing my phone so that I can keep connected to friends and make posts to Twitter. That’s great and all, I mean I DO love keeping up with all of my online communities but this time I really just care about my OFFline community, my family. I think for many of us these days it’s easy to overlook the ones that matter most in our lives. If you’re like me they’re mostly the ones that aren’t “connected”. We’re too busy with work, or live too far, or have school, this or that (i.e., presidential elections, the economy taking a nose dive, etc.). There’s really no excuse though is there?

Take a day this week and disconnect. Just one day. No computer, no crackberry, PDA, iPhone, what-have -you. Go to your mom’s or grandmother’s, father’s, aunt’s, uncle’s, brother’s, sister’s house and just talk to them. Tell them how much you love them. We just never know how much time we really have.

Enough of that for now though…too much gravity. I usually like to blog, Tweet, etc. as a distraction from all of the above. It is apparently getting harder to keep that from leeching into my posts. Life this year has just become something of a blur. I can’t believe it’s already November?! Next month I’ll have to do another re-cap of the year just like I did here for 2007. So far no massive bee attacks to speak of. I may be in the clear!

Either way, at the time of this writing I’m not sure how I feel about this minor censorship just yet. In once sense I have every right to publish what I want. At the same time I can of course see where there would be cases in which clients would not want their activities hinted at prior to launch. As a client steward, I certainly respect that. Which is why, at their request, I promptly removed any mention of their name.

Similarly, if I were mentioned in someone’s post, blog, or the like and wasn’t completely comfortable with the post, I’d expect that it’d be taken down upon request as well.

What are your thoughts on this? If you blog have you ever been asked to remove or alter a post? If so, for what?

For me, it just gave me another topic to post about