Our project plan says, “Creative Brief: June 9th, 2007.” That’s just six weeks ago when we were still “talking” about the design ideas and the creative direction for the new Blogher.org redesign. Lisa Stone is always up for an enthusiastic late night call when it comes to talking about the design for the web’s number-one destination for women’s bloggers. Had it not been for the opportunity to get to know Lisa before taking on this effort, I don’t think we would have been able to make this happen…

So, many of you know the rest of this story. The reader’s digest version goes something like this:

• Scores of late night Skype calls between designers, developers and Blogher
• A few rounds and revisions of design
• A few color tweaks and changes
• Some very random late night ideas
• Some new functionality and aesthetic things to add
• Setup Drupal environment
• Build Drupal templates
• Database this and Drupal module that…
• Build/test, build/test, build/test…
• You know the rest…

Before I knew it, the time was 3:00 am. I was on a four way Skype call with Graham, Jeremy and Michael. At this point we were past the point of no return as we were deep into the migration process. These guys had not slept in days but they were cool, calm and collected. Sure, there was the occasional four letter word when the inevitable surprise occurred, but this is when they would systematically triage and remedy each issue as it would come up. I was imagining that this was like a very complicated surgery. A procedure that would last for hours and where the body was in a strange sort of balance. I pictured the team in their surgical clothes, shoe-cover-thingies, masks, rubber gloves and special microscope glasses. Passing the tools around the table, a few stitches here, suction there and an organ transplant every now and then.

This launch has a happy ending as we went live in the early hours of the morning on July 24th, 2007. In this business we just expect launches to be challenging. There are always surprises and special circumstances. It was particularly challenging since we were also repopulating thousands and thousands of old posts and comments into a new Drupal 5.1 system and theme. While being persnickety about the code, we were faced with the challenges you might expect from a community made up mostly of user generated content.

Please note the word “beta” on the Blogher logo at Blogher.org. We have a bug list and soon will redeploy the creative team to sift through the details, comparing the approved color comps to the actual site…..while our coding team tests in every browser.

Sometimes life rewards us with rare opportunities to fade into that special blur where we just go into overdrive and turn out great work. Making new friends with people like the Blogher team is the unexpected bonus that is extra cool and great.

Blogher is an amazing community that we are sure has a business model to carry it very far. Thanks so much to Lisa, Graham, Jeremy, Brandon, Jenny, Mike, Candice and Gabe. Great work, and get some sleep for crying out loud!

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I have more than a few irrational fears (frogs, the chemicals in diet drinks, etc.), but paraskevidekatriaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th) is not one one of them.

“It’s been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do,” according to Donald Dossey, Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in a National Geographic article.

It’s business as usual at RD2, with the addition of a much-appreciated (and quickly-devoured) RD2 cookie cake brought to us by Michael’s family.

Delicious.

I’ve taken the last few months off from bicycle commuting due to injuries and moving into a new apartment. But I’m happy to say that I made the first ride to the office from my new location this morning - in 98% humidity.

There’s no “right” bike for commuting, personally I use a Redline Conquest cyclocross bike because it’s built tougher than a regular road bike and has a more relaxed geometry (luckily mine is green and not that horrible blue/white color!). The only modification I’ve made to it is throwing on a set of 23mm road slicks to replace the standard 35mm ‘cross tires. Although, the pavement on McCommas is in such poor condition that the wider, knobbier tires would have been much more comfortable: they ride at 70 PSI instead of 120 PSI like the slicks.

I carry my clothing, tools, and miscellaneous gear in a messenger bag although I’m hoping to upgrade it to a Chrome Metropolis in the very near future.

My old location was so far from the office that I would ride 9 miles to the DART station and then take the train all the way to downtown, after which I’d hop back on the bike and beat the train to the RD2 office.

Fortunately, my new apartment is so much closer that I could ride to the office in the same 9 miles and avoid the train completely. I decide to opt for safety, however, so my overall route is just a bit over 13.5 miles. I chose my new place based on its close proximity to White Rock Lake, and I definitely make use of it on my route. It’s very calming to look out over the water for a few miles and not have to worry too much about traffic; the road is only really used by other cyclists at that time in the morning.

There’s several good climbs on the way in, but once I hit the Katy Trail it’s smooth downhill sailing! I can’t wait to ride back home and tackle it all from the other direction.

After a packed week of work that spilled over into the weekend, it was great to have some time to spend with friends this weekend. Sunday night my wife and I joined a few other friends for a local outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet at the Samuell-Grand Amphitheatre in East Dallas. Every year Shakespeare Dallas puts on a summer show at the park and we always try to go. It has rained almost every day for over a month in Dallas, but the weather dried up just in time for a nice cool summer night. This year’s production is a pretty sly contemporary version of R&J with Montagues and Capulets in full British punk gear. To their credit: it’s not a rip off of Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 movie version, but if you liked that movie, you’ll like this. All racy parts are played up a lot so you’ll definitely leave less bored than you were doing the 9th grade required reading.

If you are in the area, I strongly recommend the show. Half the fun is getting away from city stuff for a while to hang out in the park with friends. Most people come early with wine and picnics. (bug spray is a good idea too!) All the seats are on the lawn so you’ll want blankets and lawn chairs. The production runs though the end of July and tickets are only $7 (although donations are strongly encouraged). All the details are on the web site.

Analysts are estimating that Apple has sold 700,000 iPhones in the U.S. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, there were about 209 million U.S. Internet users as of March/07, 69.2% of the nation’s population. Making the reasonable assumption that the 700,000 iPhones sold were to people who already regularly use the Internet, that means 0.25% of Internet users in the U.S. will occasionally be using the Mobile Safari browser on their iPhones to visit your web presence, and that’s after the first four days of sales. Does that make you warm and fuzzy, or send a chill down your spine? At RD2, we couldn’t be happier.

Which Web?

The iPhone falls squarely in a facet of the web that has been growing for some time now, a sort of limbo between the “desktop web” and the “mobile web.” Apple recently posted their Development Guidelines for the iPhone which “read like a love-letter to standards-based design” as our local Adam Keys puts it.

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