I tend to push myself too hard. After 27 years of using computers, I pick up new software tools rather quickly. But I have a nasty habit of complicating things. I don't know if I even know how to make something simple. And I always seem to be working alone.

Now I am working with only one hand.

It all started 27 years ago, when I thought I was interested in computers. Here it is 27 years later, and I thought perhaps I was making a career change by getting into video production and digital media. But now it seems I am using the computer more than ever. I'm doing something different on the computer, now - perhaps something more fun, even - but I am still on the computer...using the computer...hating the computer, and fumbling with clumbsy user interfaces.

27 years of frustration with the computer caught up with me last Wednesday evening. I was stressed - working on three mid-term projects - and had been in the computer lab for nearly ten hours straight with only one break to wolf down a Subway
sandwich. I was tired, and I was feeling the pressure, and I was experiencing considerable self-induced stress as a result of my tendancy to complicate things.

I was working away in After Effects when I suddenly realized that I had some done something that un-did about two hours of work that I had done that day - and the un-do buffer didn't go back far enough - and I just about lost control of myself. But I had been there before (I recognize the feeling well), and I was sitting in front of a computer that I did not own, so I decided to get up and take my frustration outside in the nice cool evening air to shake off the tension and the mounting rage.

I huffed and puffed and heaved myself up out of my chair and stomped out. But the cork had not yet blown, and I was right on the edge. If I had just made it outside, I would have been OK...the storm would have passed. But there it was: the door. The doorway to the exterior. The neck of the bottle. Someone had propped it open (rather than swinging it all the way back against the wall) and it was just an easy target...because it was just a little bit in my way...and I wanted out!

I punched the door.

I was a heavy, solid wood door, and I hit it so hard that it sounded like the pop of a small gun (like maybe a .22) or a firecracker. It even got the attention of the lab monitor, who came running out to see what happened. In retrospect, I realized that a good part of that popping noise (i.e. the loud CRACK) eminated from a bone inside my hand. But in the moment, I felt better having blown off some steam without damaging a computer, so I took a drink of water from the fountain...then I saw my hand.

Something didn't look right. It didn't hurt (yet), but something definately wasn't right. My pinky finger was not hanging where I was used to it hanging. It kind of bent inward toward my thumb, and the knuckle seemed to be gone. There was no blood, and I had barely a mark on my skin, but my knuckle was just...gone. I knew this was a bad sign, since I also knew I had never hit anything so hard before in my life.

It's amazing what 27 years of frustration can drive a person to do.

I have what the doctor referred to as a "battler's fracture" - something he said was a step up from a "boxer's fracture." I broke my fifth metacarple bone...and I broke it good. I am having surgery NEXT Wednesday to get things straightened out. The weird thing is, it has not hurt as much as I would have expected. Apparently, MOST of the force of my blow went directly into that bone, and then POPPED it (rather loudly), presumably releasing the energy in the form of sound. It is only mildly bruised, not very swollen, and I have no pain or soreness in my wrist. It is a little sore on my adjacent knuckle, but that soreness is almost gone. But it does hurt where the bone is separated, especially if I try to extend my little finger, but I have not needed any pain medicine. It's just not that uncomfortable.

Talk about a clean break! Maybe there's a message here.

Anyway, don't let anybody ever convince you that computers are not hazardous!

Now I have to complete my projects using only my left hand. I'm getting pretty good at it, but it is frustrating, and I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be in general for left-handed people in this world. I am appreciating that more each day.

By the way, I posted some of my work on my video production pages today. Like I didn't have anything else to do. I guess I'll never learn.

Oh, man, I have no idea what I have gotten myself into. I'm not getting very far away from computers. Is there anything that doesn't involve computers these days?

I am so entrenched in After Effects and Flash and Photoshop that I am now spending more time on the computer than ever. Even with my video - most of the time is spent importing the footage, sorting it out, cutting it up, assembling it, massaging it, finaggling it...all in the friggin COMPUTER!

It amazes me still that after all this time, nobody seems to have a handle on user interfaces. These are supposedly top-of-the-line tools, yet they still leave me frustrated. I keep asking myself, "why did they do it this way?" or "why didn't they do it that way?" It annoys me. And it annoys me greater still that the apps on the Mac seem to crash with greater frequency than they do on the PC.

No real surprise there. Software is software. But I had higher hopes for the Mac.

At least when something crashes on the Mac, it usually doesn't take the whole operating system down with it. If there is one good thing that has come of it, it is that I am now saving my work quite frequently. If my drive spins down between saves, I know it has been too long.

Anyway, I will be adding a couple of things to my video production pages, soon. I am working on a couple of mid-term assignments that are coming out pretty good. My Flash project is especially funny (at least I think so). I have spent hours and hours and hours on it, and I'm not sick of it, yet, so that's a pretty good sign. I keep getting chuckles out of it, even though I have seen it a hundred times. It has a ways to go, yet (timewise), but only one aspect remains to be animated.

Well, it is half-past midnight and I just finished importing some video (after working ALL DAY on my Flash project). Yes, it is Saturday. Pretty sad. I'm actually going to get out of the house tomorrow. No, really. Believe me. I promise!!