Expanding My Horizons

There’s an advantage to my ADD: I never get bored. I get diverted. I digress. But I’m never bored. When I tire of doing one thing, there’s always that figuratively shiny thing elsewhere that gets my attention. I’m continually expanding my horizons, learning about new stuff or new ways to do things. That used to include learning about and using the newest and greatest technical things and gadgets. Now, unless the gadget is for the kitchen, I procrastinate about introducing the change to my way of doing things.

There’s also a disadvantage to my ADD lifestyle: Having so many interests and writing about so many different topics means that I also have an assortment of Web pages that I started putting online in the late 1990s. That means, to keep those Web pages up to date, I have to edit and update them one by one by one….

I’d much rather create new content — write an article, post Web pages telling you about one of my books, create a comic strip, or do whatever else might attract my attention in such a way that makes me want to share it with others. But, because I’ve been working with Web pages for which nothing is automated, it’s also been time-consuming to put any new content online. To do so, I have to create the Web page for that content and then update an entire assortment of index pages so that they link to that content. As a result, I probably have more saved files for stuff that I’ve intended to put online than I have pages already online. With any luck, that’s all about to change.

That change won’t happen overnight. I have more than 1,000 existing pages to migrate to the new systems that (with the help of Eric Ehlers) I’m putting into place. But a change has to start somewhere. (The old “how do you eat an elephant?” way of doing things — one bite at a time.)

It’s ironic that it’s taken me this long to adapt to newer technology. After selling one risqué greeting card idea, I began my published writing career in earnest writing for computer magazines. Later I expanded to working as a technical editor and writer for computer-related books. I wrote a chapter about Dynamic HTML as Microsoft was creating that expanded language, literally tweaking the work as they tweaked theirs. But then, as a consequence of getting older and coping with some pesky disabling chronic conditions, I’ve almost become anti-new-stuff. I once welcomed the chance to review software, often working my way through figuring out how to make it work using trial and error until the publisher got around to providing documentation. Now I almost hate software updates. I cringe when I have to adapt to the newest ways to do things. I’ve become a creature of habit. (I actually cried the other night because I got so stressed trying to figure out how to swap out the memory card in my new digital camera and replace it with an 8GB SDHC. Pathetic, I know. But at least a few deep breaths and a nap later I was finally able to figure it out. That experience taught me that I’m obviously dyslexic when it comes to following simplified instructional diagrams. But, as usual, I digress….)

With any luck, in no time at all, whenever you visit my sites (and I hope you come back often!), you’ll not only be better able to find what’s on the specific site, you’ll find lots of new stuff of interest as well. That way I can expand your horizons as I expand mine.

read comments (2)