A New Challenge

One of the first things I did when I started into amateur radio was to play trivia on my club's Friday net.  I knew I was filled with useless information, but I didn't realize I had THAT MUCH useless information stuffed into my brain.  After a few games, it became clear that I was a bit of a trivia savant.  Normal questions in the game had a question and 4 multiple-choice answers.  

For years, I've known that I have a knack for pattern matching. I'm sure it's tied to my ADHD, but the way my brain works is to immediately discard 2 answers as completely wrong and then to rapidly negotiate internally on which of the 2 remaining answers is more plausible.  I then click on the answer and wait to see if I'm close or not.  Usually, it works out.  There's nothing to study or prep, and I don't look answers up before I click.  I ended up with a nickname:  The Trivia Robot - based on my callsign.

As far as my pattern-matching skills, I enjoy scanning Google Maps and looking for items of interest. I  know it sounds like a weird thing, but I often discover interesting stuff, like aircraft, data centers (Look for a lot of cooling and a water tank), and things like that.  Where's Waldo is not a challenge.

It took a change to the game where you have to wager points in the middle of a round to lower me down a bit.  You screw up on a single question, and you can be hosed for a full round.  Of course, I usually have to go all in on that question... because dumb.

Recently, the guy running the game (Rusty, the club president) decided to stop doing it.  The license for the trivia software was running out, and he was I am positive, burnt out on running the game.  It's roughly 3 hours, every Friday night, pretty much without fail, and he did it for 2 years.  A few of us that were regular players decided that "HELL NO" we weren't going to let it go, and we wanted to keep the game going.  Now that's coming back to bite me.

This is a big secret, but I'm not a social animal.  I enjoy being alone or with my family, and I generally don't talk a lot.  I have a job that makes me talk all day long, and that drains my energy out - today for instance I'm tapped out - even the reserve tank is empty.  I have a book called "Amateur Radio for the Antisocial" on my bookcase.

So why, dear reader did I decide to take on the mantle of running a fully social net?  One that isn't for strictly technical discussions where I would feel at home?  One based on fact like weather reporting?  I HAVE NO F&)#ing IDEA.  But I did.  And how does it make me feel?  ANXIOUS.  Physical pain anxiety.  

Last week one of my compadres that wasn't willing to let Trivia go, Scott, ran the net and he did a really great job.  I don't want to let Scott down or leave the load on anybody else, so I'm prepping to do the net this week.  I'm taking Rusty's script and putting it into a Google Slides document so I can keep track of my place, and I'm going to run the game solo, just me myself and I, and see how it goes.  This is how I get set up to sell a new product.  I practice solo until I think I have it and I like the way I sound saying it.

So, I have homework this week, as well as a big project at work that keeps popping into my head.  I'm working on a reference architecture for my company's product lines, and I am playing the game of "What would have helped me as a customer" to make it better. (I was a customer.)

My wife thinks this is a great idea.  She wants me to put myself 'out there' more and stretch my boundaries, but the only thing I really want to stretch is my upper back.  I think that's where my anxiety is currently living.  Maybe I should drink some tequila before the trivia net.  That might improve it for me, at least.  

I will report back on my success or failure, and if I don't report back, you'll know it was so bad, the players found and killed me.