Mark R. Hunter's Blog, page 98
June 4, 2014
Home Maintenance Goes Down The Toilet
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
In honor of my son-in-law coming over to replace the toilet in my house—as far as I know, the old one was original equipment—here’s the story from a few months back, about what happened that led to its retirement.
The best possible advice about home improvement comes in two simple words:
Call. A. Professional.
Okay, that’s three words. I screwed it up, just as I screw up every attempt to fix my home’s ancient and decrepit pluming. It’s a story old as time, just like my house.
I used to be smart about it. I used to rent. Sure, there was the possibility of an uncaring landlord who wouldn’t fix something, but at least it was on them, and not me.
But nooooo …. I had to buy a house.
My first attempt at home repair was to replace a leaky trap underneath my kitchen sink. A trap is the little curvy thing that keeps sewer gases from coming up, and also serves as the last line of defense against permanently lost wedding rings. My trap was of metal made in the 18 something’s, which was now no line of anything.
I didn’t know plumbing metal could get brittle. When I couldn’t get the couplings to turn, I hooked on a wrench and gave it a good, hard pull. The trap exploded in my face. It was a trap!
That’s not a metaphor—it literally exploded in my face. You’d think, after rinsing out my eyes and bandaging the cuts, I would have recognized that as a sign. But without money to pay a professional I persevered, which is to say continued failing.
Fast forward 23 years.
A faint sound coming from the toilet turned out to be a small leak of water, constantly going down the drain. There are far worse places the water could go, but it was still a waste. I looked into the back of the toilet, where all the fun innards are, and realized the easiest way to fix the problem would be to just take all the mechanical stuff out and replace it in one piece.
The very definition of “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.
At the store, I found exactly what was needed: the whole thingamajig, almost totally assembled and ready to be plugged right in. It even said on the box the two most important things you want to read: “Fits all toilets”, and “easy installation”. It could be installed in minutes, the packaging explained, which I automatically expanded to hours.
My wife checked the first aid kit and retreated to a safe position that was close enough to hear cries of pain. In truth, she’s better at this stuff than I am once she’s tried it the first time, but this particular job she hadn’t done before. I should have just left it to her, anyway.
At first the dog, who wasn’t around last time this happened, followed me around with wagging tail. After the first hour of hearing me talk to myself and read instructions out loud Bae continued to follow me, but kept his distance and wore a puzzled expression.
The first thing you should do is turn off the water to the toilet. Modern toilet installations have a valve you can turn. Mine was installed in the early 1900’s by a blind kid and two drunken monkeys. All untrained.
After some searching in the basement, it became clear I’d have to turn off all the water in the house, and fortunately there is a valve for that. Afterwards I marched back upstairs, emptied the toilet, and watched it fill up again.
Huh.
Another trip downstairs. Yes, the main water line was turned off. Maybe it was water still in the lines? I opened a downstairs tap. Nothing came out.
Upstairs, I flushed the toilet. It began filling again.
Another trip downstairs. Carefully following the maze of piping revealed that there was a way to isolate the toilet after all, by turning two different valves. Unfortunately, that shut off water to the furnace, which uses hot water radiators to heat the house; the water was back-feeding from the radiators into the toilet.
Apparently it never occurred to the two drunken monkeys that the toilet might need to be fixed during winter.
An hour in, and the new packaging had not yet been opened.
You have to reach under the back of the toilet and unscrew stuff to take the internal fixtures out, something I didn’t know until after opening the instructions. The day before I’d hurt my back shoveling snow, so curling up on the floor of my miniscule bathroom was a new adventure in pain. (It was at about this time that the dog started keeping its distance.)
Still, removing the old stuff turned out to be easy once I figured out how. The biggest problem was that all the water in the back didn’t drain out until I disconnected the water line, then it all came out at once. Not to worry: I always have a stack of towels waiting. Better water than blood.
Then I took a closer look at the instructions for the “easy” installment of my new whatchamacallit:
There were nineteen steps. Nineteen.
And get this: The stuff that was all together, so that all I had to do was put it in? It had to be taken apart first. Yeah. There were three individual whojamadiggys in the package, and one was a little setup of two washers, and two plastic nuts, already connected to a long, curved plastic … thing. They all had to be separated. One rubber washer turned out to be two washers, which were apparently made one inside the other to save money. It didn’t say how to separate them. By then I was ready to use a chain saw.
Next week: It gets worse.
In honor of my son-in-law coming over to replace the toilet in my house—as far as I know, the old one was original equipment—here’s the story from a few months back, about what happened that led to its retirement.
The best possible advice about home improvement comes in two simple words:
Call. A. Professional.
Okay, that’s three words. I screwed it up, just as I screw up every attempt to fix my home’s ancient and decrepit pluming. It’s a story old as time, just like my house.
I used to be smart about it. I used to rent. Sure, there was the possibility of an uncaring landlord who wouldn’t fix something, but at least it was on them, and not me.
But nooooo …. I had to buy a house.
My first attempt at home repair was to replace a leaky trap underneath my kitchen sink. A trap is the little curvy thing that keeps sewer gases from coming up, and also serves as the last line of defense against permanently lost wedding rings. My trap was of metal made in the 18 something’s, which was now no line of anything.
I didn’t know plumbing metal could get brittle. When I couldn’t get the couplings to turn, I hooked on a wrench and gave it a good, hard pull. The trap exploded in my face. It was a trap!
That’s not a metaphor—it literally exploded in my face. You’d think, after rinsing out my eyes and bandaging the cuts, I would have recognized that as a sign. But without money to pay a professional I persevered, which is to say continued failing.
Fast forward 23 years.
A faint sound coming from the toilet turned out to be a small leak of water, constantly going down the drain. There are far worse places the water could go, but it was still a waste. I looked into the back of the toilet, where all the fun innards are, and realized the easiest way to fix the problem would be to just take all the mechanical stuff out and replace it in one piece.
The very definition of “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.
At the store, I found exactly what was needed: the whole thingamajig, almost totally assembled and ready to be plugged right in. It even said on the box the two most important things you want to read: “Fits all toilets”, and “easy installation”. It could be installed in minutes, the packaging explained, which I automatically expanded to hours.
My wife checked the first aid kit and retreated to a safe position that was close enough to hear cries of pain. In truth, she’s better at this stuff than I am once she’s tried it the first time, but this particular job she hadn’t done before. I should have just left it to her, anyway.
At first the dog, who wasn’t around last time this happened, followed me around with wagging tail. After the first hour of hearing me talk to myself and read instructions out loud Bae continued to follow me, but kept his distance and wore a puzzled expression.
The first thing you should do is turn off the water to the toilet. Modern toilet installations have a valve you can turn. Mine was installed in the early 1900’s by a blind kid and two drunken monkeys. All untrained.
After some searching in the basement, it became clear I’d have to turn off all the water in the house, and fortunately there is a valve for that. Afterwards I marched back upstairs, emptied the toilet, and watched it fill up again.
Huh.
Another trip downstairs. Yes, the main water line was turned off. Maybe it was water still in the lines? I opened a downstairs tap. Nothing came out.
Upstairs, I flushed the toilet. It began filling again.
Another trip downstairs. Carefully following the maze of piping revealed that there was a way to isolate the toilet after all, by turning two different valves. Unfortunately, that shut off water to the furnace, which uses hot water radiators to heat the house; the water was back-feeding from the radiators into the toilet.
Apparently it never occurred to the two drunken monkeys that the toilet might need to be fixed during winter.
An hour in, and the new packaging had not yet been opened.
You have to reach under the back of the toilet and unscrew stuff to take the internal fixtures out, something I didn’t know until after opening the instructions. The day before I’d hurt my back shoveling snow, so curling up on the floor of my miniscule bathroom was a new adventure in pain. (It was at about this time that the dog started keeping its distance.)
Still, removing the old stuff turned out to be easy once I figured out how. The biggest problem was that all the water in the back didn’t drain out until I disconnected the water line, then it all came out at once. Not to worry: I always have a stack of towels waiting. Better water than blood.
Then I took a closer look at the instructions for the “easy” installment of my new whatchamacallit:
There were nineteen steps. Nineteen.
And get this: The stuff that was all together, so that all I had to do was put it in? It had to be taken apart first. Yeah. There were three individual whojamadiggys in the package, and one was a little setup of two washers, and two plastic nuts, already connected to a long, curved plastic … thing. They all had to be separated. One rubber washer turned out to be two washers, which were apparently made one inside the other to save money. It didn’t say how to separate them. By then I was ready to use a chain saw.
Next week: It gets worse.
June 3, 2014
60 Years Old And Still Smashing Cities
Years ago I did a review of movies just out on video, which I called “Amateur Armchair Review” because … why not? I stopped because the paper apparently no longer needed the filler, but you really miss me, don’t you? Go on, say it …
Fine. I’m back anyway, because doing a regular review of new movies gives me an excuse to go see new movies. I’m starting late with “Godzilla”, the reboot of my favorite childhood monster movies. Instead of bad dubbing and a guy in a rubber suit we get spectacular effects and excellent production values, but I liked it anyway.
Unlike the last American attempt at the franchise, which I didn’t hate but also didn’t like much, this version has the feel of a Japanese monster movie. That’s a compliment, by the way. The biggest criticism I’ve seen is that the main character just kind of floats through, letting things happen to him. That’s true. At least, it’s true for the main human character.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is Ford Brody, who reluctantly heads to Japan to bail out his obsessed dad, Joe (Bryan Cranston … why do they never give acting Oscars for monster movies?) Joe is obsessing over a nuclear accident that killed his wife years ago, and it turns out Joe is right that the whole thing is a cover-up … there’s a monster in them-there ruins.
But the monster is not Godzilla, who at 60 was probably convalescing at the Old Monster’s Home. It’s a MUTO (don’t ask), a giant monster that happens to wake up just when our heroes break into the place. What are the chances?
Things go south very quickly and soon Godzilla is chasing the MUTO, because he’s apparently employed by Mother Nature to bring balance back to the Force, or maybe I’m mixing up my franchises. Luckily Brody’s wife, played by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen’s less scary sister Elizabeth, is safe with their son all the way across the Pacific, in San Francisco. The monsters will never end up there. Will they?
This is not the perfect monster movie, mostly because I’m not getting a cut. It’s true Ford Brody tends to go along with whatever challenge tends to pop up in front of him—and he certainly isn’t as much fun as the 1998 “Godzilla” character played by Matthew Broderick, who along with a great cast was trapped in a movie with no heart. (Could that be related to movie maker Roland Emmerich saying he didn’t like the original Godzilla movies? That’s who you want making one.)
Although Brody manages to save the day in the end—somebody’s day—sort of—I suspect his bouncing around was on purpose. Yes, he’s just trying to get back to his family, and later protect them, but his and all human activity is a subplot. (And sometimes not an interesting subplot.)
This isn’t about humanity, which to the monsters is no more important than ants on the ground being trampled during a fist fight. This is very much about humanity’s helplessness in the face of forces of nature that care not a bit what people do. It’s a dark film, very much a disaster movie, with absolutely mind-blowing special effects. But it brings back the spirit of the original films, in a way that’s hard to explain.
And yeah, for all the destruction, it’s fun. Don’t judge me.
My score, going back to my old review days:
Oscar potential: 3 ½ out of 4 M&M’s, if only for special effects, or the score.
Entertainment value: 4 out of 4 M&M’s. The good green ones.
Next: I slice into the X-Men
Fine. I’m back anyway, because doing a regular review of new movies gives me an excuse to go see new movies. I’m starting late with “Godzilla”, the reboot of my favorite childhood monster movies. Instead of bad dubbing and a guy in a rubber suit we get spectacular effects and excellent production values, but I liked it anyway.
Unlike the last American attempt at the franchise, which I didn’t hate but also didn’t like much, this version has the feel of a Japanese monster movie. That’s a compliment, by the way. The biggest criticism I’ve seen is that the main character just kind of floats through, letting things happen to him. That’s true. At least, it’s true for the main human character.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is Ford Brody, who reluctantly heads to Japan to bail out his obsessed dad, Joe (Bryan Cranston … why do they never give acting Oscars for monster movies?) Joe is obsessing over a nuclear accident that killed his wife years ago, and it turns out Joe is right that the whole thing is a cover-up … there’s a monster in them-there ruins.
But the monster is not Godzilla, who at 60 was probably convalescing at the Old Monster’s Home. It’s a MUTO (don’t ask), a giant monster that happens to wake up just when our heroes break into the place. What are the chances?
Things go south very quickly and soon Godzilla is chasing the MUTO, because he’s apparently employed by Mother Nature to bring balance back to the Force, or maybe I’m mixing up my franchises. Luckily Brody’s wife, played by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen’s less scary sister Elizabeth, is safe with their son all the way across the Pacific, in San Francisco. The monsters will never end up there. Will they?
This is not the perfect monster movie, mostly because I’m not getting a cut. It’s true Ford Brody tends to go along with whatever challenge tends to pop up in front of him—and he certainly isn’t as much fun as the 1998 “Godzilla” character played by Matthew Broderick, who along with a great cast was trapped in a movie with no heart. (Could that be related to movie maker Roland Emmerich saying he didn’t like the original Godzilla movies? That’s who you want making one.)
Although Brody manages to save the day in the end—somebody’s day—sort of—I suspect his bouncing around was on purpose. Yes, he’s just trying to get back to his family, and later protect them, but his and all human activity is a subplot. (And sometimes not an interesting subplot.)
This isn’t about humanity, which to the monsters is no more important than ants on the ground being trampled during a fist fight. This is very much about humanity’s helplessness in the face of forces of nature that care not a bit what people do. It’s a dark film, very much a disaster movie, with absolutely mind-blowing special effects. But it brings back the spirit of the original films, in a way that’s hard to explain.
And yeah, for all the destruction, it’s fun. Don’t judge me.
My score, going back to my old review days:
Oscar potential: 3 ½ out of 4 M&M’s, if only for special effects, or the score.
Entertainment value: 4 out of 4 M&M’s. The good green ones.
Next: I slice into the X-Men
June 1, 2014
Galley Slave
The galleys for "The Notorious Ian Grant" have already arrived from Whiskey Creek Press! I have a week to make a final error check, so I likely won't be online all that much for a while.
It's earlier than I expected, but don't panic, the release date is still October. (Okay, so I'm the one who panicked, which is why I double checked.)
It's earlier than I expected, but don't panic, the release date is still October. (Okay, so I'm the one who panicked, which is why I double checked.)
May 30, 2014
buy a book at the fish fry
Copies of “Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With The Albion Fire Department” will be on sale for $9.95 at the Albion Fire Department’s annual all-you-can-eat fish and tenderloin fry. The meal will again be a part of the Chain O’ Lakes Festival, on Wednesday, June 4th.
The dinner will be held from 5 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at the Albion Fire Station, 210 Fire Station Drive on the east end of town. Price for adults is $9, for children $6, and it’s free for children 5 and under. In addition to the unlimited fish and tenderloin, chips, applesauce, baked beans, bread, and a drink are on the menu.
Proceeds for both the meal and the book go to the Albion Fire Department’s emergency equipment and training fund.
The dinner will be held from 5 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at the Albion Fire Station, 210 Fire Station Drive on the east end of town. Price for adults is $9, for children $6, and it’s free for children 5 and under. In addition to the unlimited fish and tenderloin, chips, applesauce, baked beans, bread, and a drink are on the menu.
Proceeds for both the meal and the book go to the Albion Fire Department’s emergency equipment and training fund.
May 28, 2014
A Novel Solution To Saving Camp
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
There I was, happily whacking away at the keyboard, working on a story that poked a little fun at the space opera genre, when they tried to shut down my wife’s Girl Scout camp.
Well, we couldn’t let that happen. So I came back down to earth, rolled up my sleeves, and began whacking away at the keyboard.
What? I have only so many skills.
Emily’s second home was Camp Latonka. She first went there when she was three days old, became a counselor in training as soon as she was potty trained, and at age 12 was made a wrangler and put in charge of a string of eight hundred horses, which were later used to film a Clint Eastwood western.
It’s possible I’m exaggerating. Just the same, my wife did spend many a summer there, became a counselor and an assistant wrangler, which I think means she had to hogtie the bad kids. She took me to tour the area in the off season, and I was also enchanted with Camp Latonka: rustic in a good way, wooded and hilly, bordering a beautiful lake. It’s a place, to coin a cliché, where memories were made. And of course, as any Scout will tell you, once a Scout, always a Scout.
Then they, by which I mean the bigwigs in the Girl Scout organization, announced they were shutting it and a bunch of other camps down. I’ve already written a column about that momentous mistake, so all I’ll add is that saving Latonka seemed a lost cause.
And I’m a sucker for lost causes.
I mean, the only sports team I even follow is the Cubs, so there you go.
But how could I help? With maintenance? Their insurance is nowhere good enough for me to man a power tool. I could help with first aid, but as long as I’m not doing maintenance they shouldn’t need much. About the only thing I could do, especially from 500 miles away, is write.
What if I wrote a short story and sold it, with part of the profits going to a fund to help Camp Latonka? And some of the rest of the profits could go toward getting Emily and me down there when we’re needed to help with various non-maintenance things? I did something similar with the Albion Fire Department, writing a book that to this day remains one of the top five books about the Albion Fire Department’s history ever written.
So I set out, writing a short story that turned out to be a novella, because that’s how it works when I get excited about a project. A novella’s like a short novel, only I think these days you’re supposed to call them “little novels” to avoid offending short writers.
That story, The No-Campfire Girls, popped up on Amazon around May Third. Why May Third? Why not?
My girl’s camp is not a Girl Scout camp, because I don’t own the Girl Scouts (if
I did I’d sell the corporate headquarters, rather than shut down camps). So I made up a new organization, and set my camp in Southern Indiana. It’s more or less halfway between my home and Camp Latonka. That’s the beauty of fiction: It’s fictional.
But by then I was tired of making things up, so I borrowed some characters from stories I’ve already written. After all, I needed teenage girls (Wow, that didn’t come out weird at all), and I already had a popular one from my first published novel, Storm Chaser. Beth Hamlin also had her own tale in my short story collection, so why not use her again? We should all recycle. I added her two friends, minor characters in the first story, so she wouldn’t get lonely.
Beth is playing double duty this year, since she’s also a character in The Notorious Ian Grant, which comes out in October. She’s fifteen: Keeping her busy keeps her out of trouble. The camp story’s not related to the others, so keep it quiet.
Then, because I needed some more characters for Beth to bounce off of, I stole three from my YA mystery Red Is For Ick. Don’t bother searching Amazon.com—it hasn’t been published. Yet.
It’s so much easier—and fun—throwing together characters who already exist. Now I understand the attraction of writing fanfiction, except this story we can sell.
The plot? Well, a story should have a story, and Beth’s the kind of girl who would love campfires. So what would happen if there was a drought, and the camp was told they couldn’t have campfires this summer? What if Beth, a do something type of person, went to extreme measures to bring rain so they could have campfires? And what if her attempts went horribly wrong, in a comic-adventure kind of way?
Good questions.
It being me, I threw in lots of disasters, along with humor that, as usual, I hope is humorous. It should be a fun read, and 30% of the proceeds will go to a good cause.
Of course, proceeds of my next book after that will also go to a good cause: my retirement fund.
There I was, happily whacking away at the keyboard, working on a story that poked a little fun at the space opera genre, when they tried to shut down my wife’s Girl Scout camp.
Well, we couldn’t let that happen. So I came back down to earth, rolled up my sleeves, and began whacking away at the keyboard.
What? I have only so many skills.
Emily’s second home was Camp Latonka. She first went there when she was three days old, became a counselor in training as soon as she was potty trained, and at age 12 was made a wrangler and put in charge of a string of eight hundred horses, which were later used to film a Clint Eastwood western.
It’s possible I’m exaggerating. Just the same, my wife did spend many a summer there, became a counselor and an assistant wrangler, which I think means she had to hogtie the bad kids. She took me to tour the area in the off season, and I was also enchanted with Camp Latonka: rustic in a good way, wooded and hilly, bordering a beautiful lake. It’s a place, to coin a cliché, where memories were made. And of course, as any Scout will tell you, once a Scout, always a Scout.
Then they, by which I mean the bigwigs in the Girl Scout organization, announced they were shutting it and a bunch of other camps down. I’ve already written a column about that momentous mistake, so all I’ll add is that saving Latonka seemed a lost cause.
And I’m a sucker for lost causes.
I mean, the only sports team I even follow is the Cubs, so there you go.
But how could I help? With maintenance? Their insurance is nowhere good enough for me to man a power tool. I could help with first aid, but as long as I’m not doing maintenance they shouldn’t need much. About the only thing I could do, especially from 500 miles away, is write.
What if I wrote a short story and sold it, with part of the profits going to a fund to help Camp Latonka? And some of the rest of the profits could go toward getting Emily and me down there when we’re needed to help with various non-maintenance things? I did something similar with the Albion Fire Department, writing a book that to this day remains one of the top five books about the Albion Fire Department’s history ever written.
So I set out, writing a short story that turned out to be a novella, because that’s how it works when I get excited about a project. A novella’s like a short novel, only I think these days you’re supposed to call them “little novels” to avoid offending short writers.
That story, The No-Campfire Girls, popped up on Amazon around May Third. Why May Third? Why not?
My girl’s camp is not a Girl Scout camp, because I don’t own the Girl Scouts (if
I did I’d sell the corporate headquarters, rather than shut down camps). So I made up a new organization, and set my camp in Southern Indiana. It’s more or less halfway between my home and Camp Latonka. That’s the beauty of fiction: It’s fictional.
But by then I was tired of making things up, so I borrowed some characters from stories I’ve already written. After all, I needed teenage girls (Wow, that didn’t come out weird at all), and I already had a popular one from my first published novel, Storm Chaser. Beth Hamlin also had her own tale in my short story collection, so why not use her again? We should all recycle. I added her two friends, minor characters in the first story, so she wouldn’t get lonely.
Beth is playing double duty this year, since she’s also a character in The Notorious Ian Grant, which comes out in October. She’s fifteen: Keeping her busy keeps her out of trouble. The camp story’s not related to the others, so keep it quiet.
Then, because I needed some more characters for Beth to bounce off of, I stole three from my YA mystery Red Is For Ick. Don’t bother searching Amazon.com—it hasn’t been published. Yet.
It’s so much easier—and fun—throwing together characters who already exist. Now I understand the attraction of writing fanfiction, except this story we can sell.
The plot? Well, a story should have a story, and Beth’s the kind of girl who would love campfires. So what would happen if there was a drought, and the camp was told they couldn’t have campfires this summer? What if Beth, a do something type of person, went to extreme measures to bring rain so they could have campfires? And what if her attempts went horribly wrong, in a comic-adventure kind of way?
Good questions.
It being me, I threw in lots of disasters, along with humor that, as usual, I hope is humorous. It should be a fun read, and 30% of the proceeds will go to a good cause.
Of course, proceeds of my next book after that will also go to a good cause: my retirement fund.
May 27, 2014
Blog tour covers writing history, pain, and girls
I’m blog surfing today over to Jana Denardo’s Livejournal:
http://jana-denardo.livejournal.com/1...
Where I talk about why the painful writing life is better than not writing at all, the benefits of being in touch with other writers, and the bad old days when that never happened.
http://jana-denardo.livejournal.com/1...
Where I talk about why the painful writing life is better than not writing at all, the benefits of being in touch with other writers, and the bad old days when that never happened.
May 24, 2014
And the writing beat goes on ...
Got a call today from the senior editor at Whiskey Creek Press, confirming some information as I work on check edits for The Notorious Ian Grant (The last step before galleys). Finalizing one book while still publicizing another is a sign of progress … right?
And the writing beat goes on ...
Got a call today from the senior editor at Whiskey Creek Press, confirming some information as I work on check edits for The Notorious Ian Grant (The last step before galleys). Finalizing one book while still publicizing another is a sign of progress … right?
May 23, 2014
Passing At Review
The first two reviews of The No-Campfire Girls are in—and neither includes the phrases “tar and feathers” or “worst story since Gigli”:
http://www.amazon.com/No-Campfire-Gir...
Remember, every time you review my books on Amazon, an Angel gets his wings.
http://www.amazon.com/No-Campfire-Gir...
Remember, every time you review my books on Amazon, an Angel gets his wings.
May 22, 2014
Don’t Text And Read This
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
At work the other day, while taking a 911 call, calling a police unit on the radio, checking an address on a map, and following an approaching storm system on a TV screen, I remembered an article I read recently:
That multitaskers pay a mental price.
Which explains a lot.
So when I got off work I did some web searching about multitasking, which is easy to do on my new iPhone while cooking breakfast, talking to friends on the same phone, and watching the morning news.
The Stanford study focuses specifically on media multitaskers, but it turns out their results apply to pretty much everyone. We’ve all familiar with media multitaskers, of course. You’ve probably seen videos of people just walking while texting, resulting in the imprints of their foreheads on glass doors, or a fall into a fountain. You might have been about to call in a drunk driver when you suddenly realized the driver was texting, or possibly updating his Twitter to complain about the idiot driver swerving in front of him – who’s busy posting to his Facebook about the moron tailgating him.
It doesn’t have to be high tech, though. One time I was following a lady who was swerving all over the road. When she pulled into a turn lane I got beside her and saw she was eating a Dairy Queen Blizzard.
It looked delicious, by the way.
I drove on, and about ten minutes later I heard an area fire department get paged out to a car accident – in the same direction the lady turned. When I checked later, sure enough, it was her. (She wasn’t badly hurt, but probably ended up with a Blizzard pattern on her shirt.)
Maybe she should have had her dessert in the parking lot?
People who are texting, e-mailing, instant messaging, and watching TV at the same time – and yes, I’ve seen it – are distracted by just about everything, according to the study. In fact, according to another study, their productivity goes down by about 40%. This is assuming they don’t plow their Chevy into a utility pole, which reduces productivity by 100%.
Multitaskers are generally proud of that ability, and think they’re good at it. But it turns out the brain can’t concentrate on two things at once: Instead, it must switch back and forth quickly, and the more things it switches to, the less it can concentrate. Outside distractions get more distracting, making it that much worse.
Just thinking about it can be very distracting.
Switching back and forth may take a few tenths of a second, and if you’re doing two things that aren’t all that important to productivity – or safety – it’s not that big of a deal. Do it a lot while also doing important stuff and it can cause mental blocks and affect performance. This is why we should take laptops and cell phones away from Congressmen.
It turns out, according to the research, that multitaskers don’t have a specific skill to be proud of; on the contrary, they suck at everything. They don’t remember as well, they’re distracted more easily, and they can’t switch back and forth as quickly as other people. They can’t keep things separate in their minds, can’t filter out irrelevant information, and …
What were we talking about?
Oh, yeah: I seriously did just describe Congress! This explains everything. All you have to do is add that they think spending more money will balance a budget, and you’ve actually described both chambers of Congress, and the White House. Give them each a Dilly Bar and the entire government will collapse.
On the other hand, the researchers conclude that doing less will accomplish more, and that concept hasn’t worked out well for Congress, either.
I believe it was Henry David Thoreau who advocated simplifying life down to the five necessities: food, shelter, clothing, fuel, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 20-something daughter. I think that last explains why he ended up leaving Walden Pond in a hurry.
(I just checked the internet while texting my wife and watching Mythbusters, and it turns out Emerson really did have daughters. However, I’ve seen photos of Thoreau, and I don’t think they’d be interested.)
In any case, Thoreau might not be the best example of simplifying. Why? Because he was an author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and transcendentalist.
So maybe he was the multitasker of his age. If smart phones had been around at the time, his head would have exploded. Or he’d have walked into Walden Pond.
At work the other day, while taking a 911 call, calling a police unit on the radio, checking an address on a map, and following an approaching storm system on a TV screen, I remembered an article I read recently:
That multitaskers pay a mental price.
Which explains a lot.
So when I got off work I did some web searching about multitasking, which is easy to do on my new iPhone while cooking breakfast, talking to friends on the same phone, and watching the morning news.
The Stanford study focuses specifically on media multitaskers, but it turns out their results apply to pretty much everyone. We’ve all familiar with media multitaskers, of course. You’ve probably seen videos of people just walking while texting, resulting in the imprints of their foreheads on glass doors, or a fall into a fountain. You might have been about to call in a drunk driver when you suddenly realized the driver was texting, or possibly updating his Twitter to complain about the idiot driver swerving in front of him – who’s busy posting to his Facebook about the moron tailgating him.
It doesn’t have to be high tech, though. One time I was following a lady who was swerving all over the road. When she pulled into a turn lane I got beside her and saw she was eating a Dairy Queen Blizzard.
It looked delicious, by the way.
I drove on, and about ten minutes later I heard an area fire department get paged out to a car accident – in the same direction the lady turned. When I checked later, sure enough, it was her. (She wasn’t badly hurt, but probably ended up with a Blizzard pattern on her shirt.)
Maybe she should have had her dessert in the parking lot?
People who are texting, e-mailing, instant messaging, and watching TV at the same time – and yes, I’ve seen it – are distracted by just about everything, according to the study. In fact, according to another study, their productivity goes down by about 40%. This is assuming they don’t plow their Chevy into a utility pole, which reduces productivity by 100%.
Multitaskers are generally proud of that ability, and think they’re good at it. But it turns out the brain can’t concentrate on two things at once: Instead, it must switch back and forth quickly, and the more things it switches to, the less it can concentrate. Outside distractions get more distracting, making it that much worse.
Just thinking about it can be very distracting.
Switching back and forth may take a few tenths of a second, and if you’re doing two things that aren’t all that important to productivity – or safety – it’s not that big of a deal. Do it a lot while also doing important stuff and it can cause mental blocks and affect performance. This is why we should take laptops and cell phones away from Congressmen.
It turns out, according to the research, that multitaskers don’t have a specific skill to be proud of; on the contrary, they suck at everything. They don’t remember as well, they’re distracted more easily, and they can’t switch back and forth as quickly as other people. They can’t keep things separate in their minds, can’t filter out irrelevant information, and …
What were we talking about?
Oh, yeah: I seriously did just describe Congress! This explains everything. All you have to do is add that they think spending more money will balance a budget, and you’ve actually described both chambers of Congress, and the White House. Give them each a Dilly Bar and the entire government will collapse.
On the other hand, the researchers conclude that doing less will accomplish more, and that concept hasn’t worked out well for Congress, either.
I believe it was Henry David Thoreau who advocated simplifying life down to the five necessities: food, shelter, clothing, fuel, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 20-something daughter. I think that last explains why he ended up leaving Walden Pond in a hurry.
(I just checked the internet while texting my wife and watching Mythbusters, and it turns out Emerson really did have daughters. However, I’ve seen photos of Thoreau, and I don’t think they’d be interested.)
In any case, Thoreau might not be the best example of simplifying. Why? Because he was an author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and transcendentalist.
So maybe he was the multitasker of his age. If smart phones had been around at the time, his head would have exploded. Or he’d have walked into Walden Pond.
