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Short attention span
I think I've determined why I like Legos. The ones I like are designed for 5-12 year olds; since it appears that I have the attention span of a 5 year old, it is perfect for me! Seriously, my attention span for things that aren't work related is very short (I probably have some form of ADD) and my mind wanders a lot onto many different topics and things to do. This is a blessing and a curse; I've packed a ton of knowledge in my head, but I'm always thinking which can make it hard to sleep and relax.
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Web standards
It seems that I keep visiting technologies or parts of projects I've worked on in the past. Recently, I had to deal with web sites and HTML. At one point in my past, I wrote a web server and learned a bit about HTML and how all that worked. While I was still in college, I learned HTML and hand coded my website (no more of that...too many other things to do and it is far too complicated for me). My recent project caused me to look at websites and run them through the W3C Validator. The results are kind of scary; most of the sites I looked at failed validation. What does this mean? It means that web browsers (and other tool that look at websites), have to work extra hard to handle non-standards based sites. This is prone to errors and causes the software to not work well. Then the user blames the web browser or other software instead of putting the blame squarely where it belongs, on the website author. Every Tom, Dick, or Harry can put up a website. It sure doesn't mean that he has a clue of what he is doing. Even I have to periodically check my site to make sure it is valid; unfortunately for me, I'm still used to things 10 years ago which are no longer valid which means I make a lot of mistakes. Someday I'll try to learn the right way to do things. By using blogging software and a web authoring tool, I don't have to deal with it much. However, there are a few things I shove in that seem to cause problems, such as aligning text/graphics, setting borders on pictures, and using the target tag in links which are no longer valid.
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Reliving my childhood
As part of reliving my childhood, I've started to collect Legos as I had to give mine up in one of our moves. The Lego sets these days seem so much more sophisticated than what I remember. The Lego City series look neat (OK, maybe I never grew up), so I've bought a few of the pieces. During the assembly process (it is so much easier to put these together after going through high school and college :-)), I've noticed a number of things about Legos that most people probably wouldn't notice. For instance, the scale of some of the pieces is totally out of whack. One of the pieces I have is a police dog that is about half the size of the police officer (this is the dog's body, not head), so that's a pretty big dog. In the rescue helicopter I put together, it has wheels. I've been on a rescue helicopter; it has skids. Maybe some helicopters have wheels, but I don't think it is common. I know I'm over analyzing things, but I can't help myself.I also noticed that the rescue collection uses the Star of Life logo which is a registered trademark of the US Department of Transportation. Do I think that Lego has permission to use this logo? I really don't think so. The trademark for the symbol says: THE CERTIFICATION MARK IS USED BY PERSONS AUTHORIZED BY APPLICANT TO CERTIFY THAT EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE VEHICLES MEET U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION STANDARDS (CLASS A), THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE PERSONNEL OPERATING THE VEHICLE HAVE BEEN TRAINED TO MEET U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION STANDARDS (CLASS B), OR BOTH. Do the Lego toys meet this requirement? Are the little EMTs in the set well trained? Does the ambulance meet the DOT standards? It doesn't make any noise (unless I try to sound like an ambulance), so I know it doesn't have a siren. In any case, I'm having a good time assembling my kits. I just need to find a place to put my new toy collection.
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Losing your car in the parking lot
I know at times, we've all lost our car in a parking lot. Even for me as someone who always has a clue where my car is parked, I've lost my car in the Horton Plaza parking garage. If you've never been there, they have fruit and vegetable levels. The problem is that there are 2 concentric ramps, so if you enter the garage from the mall on a vegetable level, you can only get to your car if it is also on a vegetable level and vice versa for a fruit level.
