Welcome

Drum roll please...

I've been putting this off for far too long and someone reminded me that I should start writing a blog, well here it is; "Life in the Z-Order".

Introduction

 

What's the point of this blog?

I moved Hong Kong in 2012 and whilst I have made an effort to keep friends and family up-to-date with telephone calls, emails, Facebook etc, I'm aware that not everyone wants to be one Facebook and with a blog I can share my life and experiences (only the good ones) with everyone who wants to read about it.

 

Why the name?

For everyone out there who doesn't work in software development, the Z-Order is the order used to paint the windows on the screen of a computer. The currently active window, the one you're currently working on is normally the highest window in the Z-Order, the lowest window is the one in background. I know there are cases where the highest window in the Z-Order isn't the currently active window, but that's not what most people know.

Hong Kong is well known for being one of the most vertical, if not the most vertical, cities in the world. I live in a building that in my home country would be considered very tall, one of the tallest in the country, in Hong Kong no-one notices. At first, I thought most of my commute was vertical. Back home it was mainly horizontal: walk, bus, train, walk/tube. In Hong Kong it's: lift to podium garden; lift to street level; walk to station; train; 4 escalators, 3 up, 1 down; lift to sky lobby; lift to office floor. I was spending more time traveling vertically than horizontally.

Keeping busy

Since moving here, I've found the weather agrees with me and I have started hiking in the country side. Yes, Hong Kong has country side, only 25% of the land is built upon, so there's quite a lot to look at and being Hong Kong, it's never very far away.

I'm also a Linux guy (stay awake at the back!) so I'll probably post about Linux, database and software development stuff from time to time. I certainly have less time to play than I used to.

Anyway, it's time to log off and look at the rest of the family. I'm sure they wonder what do in here.