Author Archives: Chris Hansen

Disconnected from the Virtual World

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The day after I returned from WorldCon in Reno, August 21st, I disconnected from much of the virtual world. I gave a dear friend (Hi Denise!) my username and password for Twitter and Facebook and asked her to change my passwords and not give them back to me until after Christmas. Over the next week I cut my RSS feeds from 1100+ to down to 120 or so, emptied my inbox, and ruthlessly unsubscribed from almost every email list that came in. BLKADR-L, Groupon, This Is True, and The Straight Dope are the only email lists I’m still on – everything else is gone.

I UNSUBBED FROM ALL THE THINGS.

It nearly killed me.

Not literally but boy, it was a difficult two weeks. 

Without realizing it, I had developed habits of constantly checking my news feeds at Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, SFWA mail, personal mail, work mail, etc.  I was constantly distracted. For two weeks I would pick up my phone, look at the updates, see NOTHING, panic, relax, put it down, and then do it again a few minutes later.

I’m still doing it four weeks later but at much longer intervals.

I’m enjoying a bit of a resurgence in my personal creativity but it has a downside as well. I didn’t announce that I was signing out, I just did it before I could change my mind. That’s all and good but, to date, only about five people have noticed that I’m not online; since I can’t login to Facebook I can’t see any messages there but before I left I added my email and phone number to my profile so if someone was curious they could find me. While I was reading the few feeds I have left, Seth Godin’s piece on being missed really hit home.

So, if you’ve noticed that I’m not online, drop me a note or give me a ring. I’d love to hear from you.

Ryan Reynolds Rocks

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He can be funny.

He can be silly.

He can be dramatic.

He can be serious.

Ryan Reynolds may be my favorite all-time actor. Strike that, he is my favorite all-time actor. Besides being so well rounded, he first was Berg; everything else has just been justification for my man-crush.

Don’t worry Ewan MacGregor; I still like you, too. I just like Ryan a little bit more.

For the record, I have and will continue, to see any movie that Ryan Reynolds is in. No questions asked. Well, occasionally I ask why he picked that particular movie (Waiting, oi…) but I’ll still watch, just like I’m watching Smoking Aces and totally loving it.

Ryan Reynolds rocks.

 

Monkey on the Keyboard

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About eighteen months after I started working for a software company I ended up as the QA department in addition to being the documentation and training department. We had several different types of tests: case tests, process tests, and monkey-on-the-keyboard tests. I can relate to the story from The Trenches (documented here) more than I can say. Suffice to say, now that I’m a software engineer with several years development behind me I still will go find the tester and have them show me the issue if I can’t duplicate it.

Floating like a Low Flying Aircraft

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My commute is 26 miles, 23 of those miles are freeway driving. About a half of the freeway mileage, the first half, has a carpool lane. In that first half, I have to climb up and over the point of the mountain.

Today, there was no one in the carpool lane so I buzzed up at the average speed of traffic during the commute, about 85 miles per hour. The air was still as I hit the peak so it was a smooth ride and I could see the horrible air quality of the Salt Lake county valley I was leaving and the Utah county valley I was headed into.

As I got to the crest, there was a car in the carpool lane going… well, very slow. Definitely slower than the average commute speed and under the  limit. I really didn’t want to slow down THAT much, but I was in the carpool lane so there weren’t many options.

Here in Utah, the carpool lane has a hashed place where you can enter and exit and then double white lines where you aren’t allowed to cross – unless you want to pay the 300$ fee. I don’t like paying extra money for the privilege of driving so I abide by that law.

So, just as I approach this car and think I’m going to have to slow way down, I realize that I’m in a hashed area and there is no one to the right of this car. Score!

BUT… The hashed area is ending. I can see where it is going to change to a double line and I’m a good citizen in many ways… I may drive too fast but I don’t cross the double white lines.

A half moment’s thought is all I had – I gunned it.

Signaled right, pulled over, went passed, signaled left, back into the carpool lane with about 3 feet of hashed area to go. SUCCESS!

I then looked down at my speedometer. I’m floating along at 105 MPH.

Oops.

But at least I passed the VERY slow car!

I slowed down to match the commute speed and was a very good driving citizen all the way to work.

The Strangest Day

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Today started with a late night motorcycle ride through strong winds, dust and gravel, and, finally, heavy rain that left me soaked to the skin on the front and completely dry on the backside.

I taught a lesson, shirked some duties, and came home to find that my brother-in-law and his family had straightened up and cleaned my house for me! They fixed dinner and dessert and we all watched Coraline, which was fabulous.

The day ended with a bit of The Venture Brothers and cleaning up my desk.

That was how my birthday went – hope y’all had half as much fun as I did!