Tag Archives: Vacations

Vacations are Overrated

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I rarely take vacations anymore. The main reason is that freelancers don’t get paid when they’re not working.

On the other hand, many people that I know that work a traditional job with vacation benefits seem to be on vacation all the time, or at least several times a year. I was at a family party on Saturday and I asked where some people were—the answer was, “they’re at the Jersey Shore.” I wasn’t surprised because these are people who seem to live to take vacations. To each his own, I guess.

Once you get into a certain rhythm for work, you actually don’t require as much downtime as the traditional 6-week-a-year vacation types insist that they must have. A day here or there seems to suffice.

Old school vacationers playing golf.

Old school vacationers playing golf.

The best vacation I’ve had in recent memory was when Mary and I rented a camp in Steuben, sight-unseen. That was back in 2007, when our Sheltie, Bernie, was still alive. Mark and his girlfriend-at-the-time drove up from Boston. It was a bucolic week spent frolicking along the seashore, walking the neighboring nature preserve, biking off-the-beaten path, and eating clams that we bought each day from a local digger—we even visited the site where a baby whale had washed up on the beach. Continue reading →

Trip Planning

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Back in the day, before Google siphoned all the fun out of planning that special vacation journey, travelers had to rely on non-Internet tools to route their vacations. Some of these old-school accouterments were things like maps, gazetteers, and a handy-dandy atlas.

Now, all you have to do is ask Google (or Siri), “what’s the way to San Jose?” and before you can say “Swiss cheese for brains,” you’ll be routed on your way.

Growing up, I remember the year our family took a vacation trip to Burlington, Vermont. I think I was 13, or maybe even 14-years-old. My sister was two years younger. I still fondly remember that first trip to Burlington, a vibrant college town, nestled alongside Lake Champlain.

Of course, traveling with the ‘rents sometimes meant that my father required quadrants so he’d know his bearings along the way. If he didn’t get them from my mother (who couldn’t read a map to save her life), he might get a bit cranky, and of course, it might become hell on wheels between the two of them. I think I get some of my driving impatience from my dad when I’m logging time behind the wheel on a trip, and I get lost somewhere between points A and B. Maybe it’s just a male thing. Can I even publicly state that men and women are different? I sure hope so.

Hitting the open road!

Hitting the open road!

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Kill It!

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Not really missing my television.

Not really missing my television.

“But it is much later in the game now, and ignorance of the score is inexcusable. To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple.”
-Neil Postman, “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”

For 19 days, I’ve been on a television fast. For the first 11 of those days, I watched no television whatsoever. On the 12th day, I couldn’t help myself and had to watch five minutes of the morning weather forecast (I could have gotten it somewhere else, like my smartphone or computer).

Since then—a week ago, Thursday—I haven’t turned either one of our two televisions on. Neither has my wife.

Each evening, after dinner—a time when our television would always be on for two or three hours until we decided to go to bed, Mary and I have been reading. We are both avid readers, but without the television, even more reading is taking place. So are conversations that don’t have to compete with the 32 inch flat screen. Continue reading →

Summer Tourists

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The past few days were spent making like a tourist. Mary and I finally managed to coordinate our calendars, and by leveraging the holiday on Monday, and adding a couple of days following America’s paean to workers, we pieced together four days/three nights of what was our summer vacation, 2014.

American workers take fewer vacation days than anyone else with an advanced economy in the world because we’re the only place where workers aren’t guaranteed paid vacation time. Nearly ¼ of all U.S. workers get no paid holidays or vacations at all—I would fall into that category, residing in free agent nation. Another survey indicates that Americans who accrue paid time off only take half of it on average. Continue reading →