IRT – Going Your Way

What was the logo of IRT (Interborough Rapid Transportation Corporation)?
I am not sure, but it looks like the designer that was in charge of the corporate image of the first NYC subway company really liked wings.

A genderless angel holding a winged subway wheel from an $100 IRT stock certificate I recently purchased for 25 bucks.

A logo I scanned from a reprint of “Interborough Rapid Transit ; the New York Subway , It’s Construction and Equipment” which I mentioned before. Wheee. Notice the third power carrying rail. Cute.

Senor Developer

My job title is Senior Web Developer or something to that effect. On of my managers at iXL joked that it’s really just a typo on my business card, and it should say Señor Developer. Har har.

In any case, I think I found a perfect food commensurate with my station:

This kind of reminded me about a story somebody told me about a graphics designer that worked at iXL. This designer dude liked to get really into his “creative process”. When somebody wanted to talk to him, he would ignore that person or try to chase that person away from his octapod. You see – he was CREAAATING! He was very creative all right. At one point he was working on a website for Lucent. And he spent a lot of time creating logo images. Boy, was he pissed when the client was very unhappy with the result. On his version of the logo “Lucent” became “Lucentè”. Lucent-ey. But he still could not understand why that was wrong.

By the way, I’ve heard some disgruntled programmers refer to the red circle on the logo as “bloody asshole”.

Aye, Mr Starbuck. Ai-ai-ai-ya-i.

I’ve pretty much settled into a way of working with dead tree books. It works as follows: I carry a pack of tiny little post-its in my pocket. When I find an interesting quote I put a postit on the edge of the page. Later I scan the text of interest to me with my c-pen.
I’ll be posting interesting snippets in my journal for your amusement.

Right now I am reading a books about Starbucks Coffee Corp. called “Pour Your Heart into It : How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time“.

The author, Howard Schultz tells his rags to riches story. He talks about his father not being a good provider when he was little and how he made it big. He puts the emphasis on how he tried to make Starbucks a company that would treat people like his father better. I also have to cringe every time he mentions coffee quality and “romance” of Starbucks stores.

But sometimes it gets just really hilarious:

About his wife :
“Sheri was on the rise in her career, working for an Italian furniture maker as a designer and marketer. She painted our walls light salmon and began to use her professional skills to create a home in our loft-style space. “

About his friend:
“We had a great life, A few years later, Harold introduced me to his nephew, a rising jazz saxophonist known as Kenny G. We were two young men, each aspiring to make a mark in different fields, and our friendship grew as we faced similar kinds of challenges. Kenny eventually invested in the business, too, and even played at employee events and per- formed benefit concerts at our plant and market openings. His music became a part of the culture of the company. “

Also interesting is that William H. Gates II, William H. Gates III’s dad, helped Schultz fight some legal battles.

Brooklyn College Library

Visited Brooklyn College yesterday to take a look at the newly reopened library.

Well, they’ve spent countless millions, and now the insides look like a typical yuppie apartment. Various designer chairs (mostly Aerons and some other expensive looking wooden ones) , desks. The circulation desk looks like a reception desk in a Fortune 100 company. Tons of tables with ethernet hookups. Some crappy Dells with 15 inch flat panel monitors running Win XP are available in “labs”. Lots of air conditioning ducts and eyes-in-the-sky.

Could not find any of the books that I wanted in the horrible mainframe search app (you telnet into it from the workstations). I was looking for some Lee Friedlander photography books , “The Legend of Amdahl”, some real estate books, some books about NYPD. Nada. Oh well, there is abebooks.com and amazon.com. And I have Aerons and fast network connection at home.

I thing that royally pisses me of is that they are using crappy bright fluorescent lamps. I hate those. At work I unhooked one that is right above my cube because it was driving me nuts. Yeah, spend millions on chairs and desks and install lamps that give everyone headaches.

The La Guardia reading room is gorgeous. There were some very nice black and white photos on the walls, a mildly interesting exposition of historical documents and photographs.

If I actually found any good books and did not get a headache from the lamps it would have been a great experience.