|
Article Publishing
|
~ road trip programmer short story |
A programmer is having difficulty in his home office programming his software so decides to take a road trip for a change. As he is leaving, he decides, that he has a laptop, why not bring it with him?
He brings the laptop, food, and finds a picnic site where he can power his laptop from his car. He finds he gets a lot done, even though he has no internet connection to look up API's and help files online.
He decides to turn this into a project: now he will complete the project he is working on, by driving with his laptop to lake views, lake parking lots (sitting in the passenger seat if no picnic table is near by), parks, longer road trips further away.
He for whatever reason gets more done, on road trips, disconnected from the internet with only API's and help files on his hard drive. He was having a "programmer block" in his home office.
He finds one location which is a private boat club with a nice view, but the parking is public. There is a sign that says there is no parking overnight, and it is closed at 11:00PM. One day when he is working there he walks into the private club and talks to some of the people and makes a deal with him that he can camp over night, as he explains to them he is working on an important project and is making great progress due to the peaceful location. He offered them money to pay for his "overnight membership" but they refused, and simply asked that when he is done his software project they receive a copy of it to see what he has done at their club working late hours in peace. He is able to camp in the back of his car as it is just long enough for a mattress and a sleeping bag.
He brings a spare car battery with him, in case he drains it from working too long without the engine running.
By disconnecting from the internet and going away from his home, he is able to focus. He cannot connect to the internet to get distracted and he only has his laptop and food with him, so what else can he do other than work?
One day he brings a pipe to smoke, even though he is not a smoker, he just wants to try it once to create a dreamy work atmosphere and surreal experience. He also brings music to play some of the time. While smoking the pipe, and some music is one, he converts the lyrics of the song to memetically mutate it into a programming related poem, with all the lyrics mostly the same as the original, but words swapped in to relate to programming and his experience.
He finishes one of the software projects that he was dying to complete. When he is finished and closes his laptop on a road trip, he pulls out his cell phone and realizes he does actually have internet access on the road, because his cell phone has a wifi hotspot feature he did not use. He laughs, and decides to continue to not use this feature and do more road trips and software projects at random interesting picturesque locations.
To do: expand this short story with more, later.
|
|