About 20 years ago, while lost in the midst of his PhD research, the author mused over proposed titles for his thesis. He was pretty pleased with himself when he came up with "Chaos Rules" (the implied double meaning was deliberate), or more completely, "Chaos Rules: An Exploration of the Work of Instructional Designers in Distance Education." He used the then-emerging theories of chaos and complexity to underpin his analysis. So it was with more than a little excitement that he read the call for contributions to this special issue of "IRRODL." This article is a walk-through of his thesis with an emphasis on the contribution of chaos and complexity theory.