Technically Speaking

It’s been more than a week since I blogged?

Sorry about that! Maybe I’ll have time this week, since Christina is in Canada with my mom and sister. I’m afraid that I’m going to spend the whole weekend wandering around like a lost puppy. I mean, do you realize that this is the first time that Christina and I have been separated for more than 15 hours since before we were married? (If you’re counting, that was 2 years, 8 months, 5 days ago…)

Yeah. Wow.

(Another episode in the “Better Living by Doing It Yourself” series)

Writing good instructions is hard. I feel qualified to make that assertion because it is what I do every day for a living. So I just wanted to start off this story by saying that I recognize that as an instruction writer, it is hard to anticipate all possible problems your users might encounter when they are attempting to use your product.

However, this week I had a set of instructions that failed miserably for me. This was due, in part, (probably) to user error, but this user error occurred because the instructions were neither clear nor complete. (I will give it credit, however, for good warnings like: “If you breathe the fumes from this product, contact poison control and see a medical professional” and “if you come in contact with this product, rinse well for 20 minutes, then contact a medical professional.” Oh, and there was the one about using gloves and a face mask when using this product. See, those are good warnings!)

Anyway, here is what happened…
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It was an interesting night at our house last evening. The interesting part began when we left for the gym at about 9:30. As we were driving towards the gym, we passed a number of police squad cards spread out on various streets, all with their police lights on. On one corner we passed a Murray police car; on another a Midvale police car, and on another a Sandy police car. They didn’t seem to have anybody pulled over, and we thought it was curious but didn’t think too much about it.

At the gym, I watched television until the news came on. KSL 5′s leading story was “breaking news” about a police chase at 800 E and 7800 South in Midvale, where the suspect had run from his car and was on the loose. (It should be noted that the address given on the news was about 5 blocks from our house.) The suspect was considered to be “armed and dangerous.”

Before we left the gym, the news was reporting that the search “had been called off.” As we drove down 7800 South towards our house, we noticed that we couldn’t see any more police cars. In fact, it seemed that the police had given up on the chase. As we turned down our poorly-lit street, Christina commented about how our street “would be a great hiding place, since it is so dark and there are so many great places to hide.” Even better, we realized, would be our private lane: lots of trees, a big field.

So, if we weren’t totally freaked out yet, when we pulled in to our driveway, our neighbor from two doors down walked over to tell us about the story, and added some information that hadn’t been reported on the news: the suspect had been on our private lane earlier in the evening, looking to rent the house directly across the lane from where we live. Through the course of the conversation, he showed our neighbor at least one loaded pistol.

Basically, our neighbor told us the following story:
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