Look, Ma, no...

[jay]

On the way to National Airport this morning, I was (typically) running a half-hour late. Then became mired in slow-moving traffic on I-66E. My weekly vehicle health management telecon with a large aerospace company was rapidly approaching, so I found myself booting my Mac G4 laptop, unzipping a file, and reading the contact number and password out -- all while still driving. =:-}

Then I joined the conference call via cellphone, while still driving. Sigh.

Otherwise, I had a lovely afternoon with Nancy in Minneapolis, picking up Land's End items in their outlet store for $6-8 each. patgreene is getting a new top and pants for $12 that lists in their catalog for $116.

After a bit of cuddling, we went to dinner and to Augsburg College -- Nancy belongs to an ice-dance club that meets there every Thursday. It's a graceful-but-strenuous sport... and males are much in demand as the female skaters outnumber them 2x-3x (contemplative look)...

I'm back home now.

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Teleconing while driving - that's really not a good idea. In the UK, at least, it would be illegal, and its definitely dangerous to you and the drivers and pedestrians around you. Which would be worse for the project - a missed or delayed telecon, or your permanant or long term loss?

People get delayed and miss meetings - its a fact of life. They should not be required to risk their lives, and those of people around them, just to sign the attendance register. You run a hectic schedule already so you need to be more careful.

Slow down before something happens to make you slow down.

A concerned Great Old One...

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

It was my meeting, so I felt obliged to make a reasonable effort to participate... not simply to register, but to decide a few things. I had missed the previous meeting, also.

Traffic was stop-and-go,relatively slow-moving (15-30 mph)so it wasn't as much of a risk as it might seem...

[trinker.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, my parents got rammed hard enough at an offramp in stop and go traffic heading to LAX that I couldn't turn my neck for a week.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

-wince-

I am very, very glad that you are okay. I trust that you realize just how lucky you were that the stupdenous risk you took in taking your eyes and concentration off the road like that didn't result in something awful.

May I suggest that if this is a *weekly* conference that you program the number into your cellphone?

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Peripheral vision was my friend :-). As far as programming goes,the given large aerospace company uses different numbers and sends a new package out every Wednesday with the next morning's contact information... a bit paranoid, but they also do defense work.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Ah. I had a feeling that was the case.

Completely unsolicited GAS:

Please set up the handsfree set when you get into a car. If you're going to use the phone at all...and maybe you might think about programming that number in right when you get it? Maybe that's not practical.

Again, I cannot reiterate strongly enough, I am very, very glad that you made it home in one piece, and nothing awful happened around you.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Good idea. But there is evidence to indicate that using a handsfree mobile is still significantly more risky than chatting to passengers whilst driving - perhaps because the people on the other end of the phone can't see the road, and so will 'talk through' any potentially dangerous situations which leaves the driver less able to react to the hazard?
By the time you've said 'Hang on a sec...' it could be too late.

[geekchick]

I found myself booting my Mac G4 laptop, unzipping a file, and reading the contact number and password out -- all while still driving.

You know I'm going to have to yell at you for this, right? Might I suggest that you program the number into the phone and pick up a hands-free set for your phone.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

This was all decided mid-drive, and the handsfree set was buried elsewhere in the laptop bag. The numbers vary,so I haven't programmed it.

Look, Ma no............

[(Anonymous)]

Don't ever ever do that again. Remember how much you are loved. It is really a dumb dumb thing to do. I'm really upset with you.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! *pounds head on tabletop*

Well, at least your life insurance is up to date.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

My only compunction would be placing other drivers at risk... I'm comfortable with taking risks for myself.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

When you are in charge of a moving automobile, you can't separate the two kinds of risk, unfortunately.

[p3aches.livejournal.com]

welcome home.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Thanks! You seem to have been the only one that noticed...

[ag-unicorn.livejournal.com]

Not the only one...

I've been contemplating posting something along the lines of, "Could you nice people have at least welcomed him home before whackin' his monkey about the multitasking-while-driving?"; I'd also contemplated just keeping my trap shut.

Seems I opted to do the former.

By the way: welcome home...hope the trip was successful for you.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

We were all so gob-smacked, that the getting home bit got lost in the panic?

'Multi-tasking whilst driving' is a very carefully neutral way of describing it. You have to multiply the raw odds of something bad happening by the magnitude of the bad, to understand what a gamble it is (c.f. risk management, and how to compare the badness of common things like tripping over, with extremely rare things like asteroid impacts).

Everyone who commented is saying very loudly and clearly how really, really glad they are that our friend made it home with no bad stuff happening - it's just implicit, not explicit.

[ag-unicorn.livejournal.com]

Everyone who commented is saying very loudly and clearly how really, really glad they are that our friend made it home with no bad stuff happening - it's just implicit, not explicit.

Odd...it sounded a lot more like everyone was being critical of Brian for taking a risk. But then, that's probably just my interpretation of what every single person (with the notable exception of p3aches) specifically typed in response to Brian's post, right?

Wonder how Brian saw it...as "welcome home" or "you stupid imbecile"? Or perhaps "welcome home, you stupid imbecile"?

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

I really didn't expect quite the horrified reaction... more of a "that was silly" and nothing more. I was vaguely amused at the time, but it didn't seem significantly riskier than my normally-aggressive driving style at home, without laptop or phone.

Thanks for the welcome, in any case.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Criticism and care go together - if you don't care, why bother to criticise? It is rather too easy to forget to actually say, and clearly show, that you are criticising because you care, it is true. This can come across as a flaming - that you care about the issue, not the person. But I don't think that anyone here was flaming our host, in that they all definitely care about the person in particular as well as the issue.

I'm also sure that everyone here is perfectly capable of distinguishing between an act, and a personality - anyone can commit a 'stupid' act, but pointing that out is very different from reaching a decision that they are a stupid person.