The Off-Topic Section is Bad for My Marriage

philz1982

All of you in the off-topic section are badddd juju for me. Each time I read about some new technology or idea you're working on I find myself staying up until the early morning researching that topic.

After reading about Linux scripting I have ordered another book because I decided I need to learn Linux scripting. There is no real reason why I need to know it. It will do little to benefit my career.

I just joined Infraguard, yet another group that I maybe will attend once a year...

Am I just abnormal, do I need to look for professional help? Or does anyone else run into this conundrum. I guess it could be worse, I could be someone who hates what he does...

Anywho, you all need to stop posting this stuff, it's getting me in trouble coming to bed so late each night!

-Phil

DevilWAH

Any one who puts of going to bed with there wife in favour of technology is crazy! Sadly I do some times fall in to the crazy pot

However she knows exactly how to get me to put the laptop down and follow her, there are few things in my life that come before IT, my wife is diffidently one of them, and especially when she is wearing......

JoJoCal19

I find my adult ADD tendencies are to blame for this. I do the same thing. I find new technologies, skills, etc and I want to learn more about them, and use them. I like to jump around from new thing to new thing. I'm fighting the urge to get a nice rackmount server and set up a VMWare lab

ccnxjr

Don't fight it , you'll only hurt yourself....

DevilWAH

The thing to do with ADD is not to fight it, but just to give it nudges in the right direction. Having a task list to hand really helps and getting in to the habit of filling it in at the start of the day (or when you first remember it), and then glancing at it through out the day to get back on some kind of track.

Use the ADD as a strength but don't let it run away to much.

philz1982

In all seriousness, it probably is because of my ADD.

Had some people over to my house and they were looking at my bookshelf and asked, "Why do you have all these books?"

I have a bookshelf full of Physics, Mechanical Systems, Starting your Own Business, Sales, Finances, Networking, and Programming books. About the only thing my ADD hasn't driven me to yet is trying to learn a new language, yet...

Ahh, the joy and the chaos...

tpatt100

I saw a Raspberry Pi project online, started researching it, bought and read a book on it..... Then yesterday I saw something about underground sprinkler systems so I researched installing a small system, read two manuals for two different packages....

philz1982 wrote: »

In all seriousness, it probably is because of my ADD.

Had some people over to my house and they were looking at my bookshelf and asked, "Why do you have all these books?"

I have a bookshelf full of Physics, Mechanical Systems, Starting your Own Business, Sales, Finances, Networking, and Programming books. About the only thing my ADD hasn't driven me to yet is trying to learn a new language, yet...

Ahh, the joy and the chaos...

I find quite a few really good blogs so I avoid buying many books unless I really want them.

JoJoCal19

philz1982 wrote: »

Had some people over to my house and they were looking at my bookshelf and asked, "Why do you have all these books?"

I have a bookshelf full of Physics, Mechanical Systems, Starting your Own Business, Sales, Finances, Networking, and Programming books. About the only thing my ADD hasn't driven me to yet is trying to learn a new language, yet...

Stop. Just stop it. My book shelf is the same except swap Physics with Real Estate Sales, Development, and Investing.

gc8dc95

I am the same way. It is easy for the go off on a tangent on some new or different technology. Then I might spend hours researching and implanting on my home lab. While it can be viewed as a waste to some, I feel that someday it could pay off.

I try not to let it take over my family life. Sometimes I don't want stop where I am at, but priorities have to stay straight.

UnixGuy

Diversify your hobbies. Take up something completely unrelated to technology, it will give you a different perspective to life (at least that's been my personal experience...)

EngRob

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

Stop. Just stop it. My book shelf is the same except swap Physics with Real Estate Sales, Development, and Investing.

Very similar here except swap physics with building robots and options trading. Shiny object! lol

zxbane

UnixGuy wrote: »

Diversify your hobbies. Take up something completely unrelated to technology, it will give you a different perspective to life (at least that's been my personal experience...)

I agree here, I like to fish or hike and also hit the gym 6-7 days a week. It is nice to get your nose out of a book or monitor and into some iron and sweat.

DevilWAH

UnixGuy wrote: »

Diversify your hobbies. Take up something completely unrelated to technology, it will give you a different perspective to life (at least that's been my personal experience...)

I loved it when wife worked on a farm. Monday to Friday i sat behind a computer. Weekend was walk around fields, drove quads and tractors, watches/helps sheep give birth and picked maggots out of wounds etc etc. No better way to get away from it all

Shdwmage

ccnxjr wrote: »

Don't fight it , you'll only hurt yourself....

Shdwmage

UnixGuy wrote: »

Diversify your hobbies. Take up something completely unrelated to technology, it will give you a different perspective to life (at least that's been my personal experience...)

I'm too lazy to edit my other post and include this.

I'm trying to make a lot of my hobbies have nothing to do with electronics at all. I spend my time trying to get away from them. They can consume you way to easily.

the_Grinch

I hear ya man, albeit I am single so it's not as bad. I like to be lazy and if I can find something to make my life easier that also allows me to spend more time doing what I want then I'm doing the research. At work I had a manual process that was a giant pain in the butt and I knew if I didn't automate it then I'd not do it (and it was important that it be done!). Started some research and wrote a Powershell script to do it. Took a process that took a few hours and turned it into about 10 minutes. After that I said I need to really automate it so I don't have to anything. Spun up a linux box, wrote some Python, and set the script to run every morning. On top of that it would email me the results pass or failed if it failed I got a file with the differences.

I like to call this "Lackadaisical Engineering" haha

JoJoCal19

UnixGuy wrote: »

Diversify your hobbies. Take up something completely unrelated to technology, it will give you a different perspective to life (at least that's been my personal experience...)

Ha! I have way more hobbies than I have time for. With 3 kids under 4 I can't even get to the things that need to be done, let alone my hobbies. But my bobbies include traveling and sightseeing, sports (watching and playing), golfing, bowling, working on my car, going to car shows, real estate, RC cars (Traxxas Slash FTW!), cycling. Having kids leaves zero time for hobbies

DevilWAH

All great IT engineers are lazy, we put computers to use doing what they where made to do, automating the repetitive tasks so we can do the interesting stuff.

Do some thing once and you a scientist
twice and your and engineer
more than that and you are a technician.

I am teribbly bad when it comes to repitive tasks, if I cant pass them to some one, i work out a way to get the computer to do it for me.