I managed to do something at work today that I haven’t done in a long time. I totally geeked out.
I don’t mean that I did anything unsettling with a chicken. I just started working on a technical project that intrigued me and last track of time. Around 11 this morning, I started playing around with learning PHP and mySQL for a web database project we’ve been contemplating for a while. A few minutes ago I looked up and noticed that it was nearly 3 in the afternoon. I know I was coding, debugging and reloading a lot, but there was no sense of time passing. It all faded to the background as I worked. It’s kind of eerie.
It’s also nostalgic in a way. When I was a student at U of M, I thought I’d become a computer programmer. I wound up biting off more than I could chew with a couple of classes and I got discouraged with my programming abilities fairly early. But I still get a kind of buzz off of the deep concentration that working on code can engender. I’m kind of glad that I don’t have the opportunity to do it that much. It’s kind of addictive.
If I really start needing a fix, I can always pick up a book. I get that same sort of feeling sometimes when I’m really into something that I’m reading. I used to get in trouble for it when I was a kid… I’d be so deep into a book that I would shut the outside world out. My mom or dad would call me to dinner and I’d just sit there, reading. If they called louder, I might make an affirmative grunting noise, but often it would end with them hoarse from shouting and me in trouble for ignoring them… Ah the fond memories…