Sunday night, dead tired. Tired from a mere two hours of sleep the past 48 hours, tired from a full day of wedding rehearsal attendance and backyard cookout. Tired from jetlag. Good to be in Florida though, the weather is awesome, a balmy 80ish degrees and sunny. Already been to the beach, already driven the old roads and seen the family. Now I strike a familiar Sunday-night pose: laptop cradled in legs bent at the knee, earbuds in ears, fingers on the keyboard pumping out words about mostly nothing. The newly leaked Earlimart album provides a so far excellent soundtrack for wordsmithing. The connection is 33Kbps dialup, painful-slow and reminding me how nice it is to have broadband.
As much as I’m looking forward to this week off, that is, once I’ve used tonight to get properly caught up on sleep – I’m dreading the fact that I have some work-work to do tomorrow. See, there were some loose ends at work before leaving on Friday, and I just didn’t get all the things I expected. Without those things, I couldn’t make commitments I’d made, and was stuck having to phone-it-in on vacation in order to meet the deadline. It’s not much work, but any work on during vacation is blasphemy. Still, no worries. I think we’re waking up ridicu-early tomorrow morning (a’fore the sun here, which is something like 2am to my west-coast brain) to go fishing with my brother-in-law. Should be fun, I haven’t been fishing in forever, and I’m excited to head out on the river with the sun. Even if we stay out through mid-morning here, I’ll be way ahead of my unlucky 3-hours-behind coworkers just coming in. Should give me plenty of time to find a Starbucks or wardrive until I can get a suitable high-speed wireless link where I can do some real work. Work sucks.
You know, I was thinking on the un-sleepable plane flight out here, thinking about one of the stranger things that I enjoy so much about vacation and travel. It may sound funny, but I really enjoy not having to carry keys around with me. For some reason, hate carrying things in my pockets… call it some weird psychological thing or whatever – I just prefer empty pockets. And on vacation or business travel, I have no car to drive, no house to lock, no nothing. So I lose the keys and gain an empty pocket. It just struck me as funny, because it really is one of those things I actually look forward to about vacation. Easily pleased I guess you could say.
Only a few hours driving up and down the Space Coast today, and already I’m struck by a lot of the same thoughts I had last time I was here. Only now, things are compounded by the fact that this place is still pretty beat-down from the multi-hurricane hurt this storm season put on ’em. Boarded up windows, leaning stop signs, twisted metal and piles of debris. I can’t quite figure out it out – but it’s all somehow attractive. So different than shiny-new master-planned northern California. Maybe it’s a welcome change from all that or something. I think stuff just happens slower here. People don’t mind buying a new car from a dealership where the Ford sign is missing the ‘F’ and ‘R,’ don’t mind that the supermarket is all chipped paint and flickering neon. It’s a different mentality or something. And, to graciously exit this thought without plagiarizing my own previous entry, it still all very charming and somehow welcoming.
The rest of the week is roughly planned out: visits with old friends, family, holiday meals, weddings, dinners, naps and relaxation. And, despite my fatigue – I think this entry came together OK. Chalk at least one day up for vacation writing, let’s see if I can stick to it.
Dave out.
Also written on this day...
- between classes - 2010
- happy thanksgiving! - 2007
- new iPod & i want my old tunes! - 2007
- off again - 2006
- i guess you'll need that soon - 2005