Back to the Game

I am welcoming myself back to my own blog since being offline, for the most part, from 7/14 – 7/21. We spent the week in Elkader and I had a great time.

• Monday – played golf with Louie and Alex in Clermont. We ate lunch in St. Olaf on the way home. I played decent and beat Louie and Alex!
• Tuesday – played golf with Loue and Alex in Luana. We ate at the clubhouse. I played decent and beat Louie and Alex! At night, Louie, Jean, Karen, Megan, Alex, and I went to see “World War Z” at the Elkader Theater. Alex and I liked it and I will rent it when it comes out on DVD.
• Wednesday – the 6 of us went to Galena, IL, and the kids rode the alpine slide. We left around 9:30 and went directly to Galena. In Galena, I rode the slide once while the kids rode it multiple times. After I rode, Louie and I retreated out of the sun to the lodge and played rummy until the women came back and then we played Euchre. I did not ride the Segway, though I would like to do so sometime. On the way back to Elkader, we went through Balltown so Louie could get the mail. Once back in Elkader, we played Euchre.
• Thursday – Alex and I got onto the Elkader golf course at 8 AM and played 18 holes. I beat him by 1 on the first 9 and by 3 on the second 9. It was very competitive! After returning to the camper, briefly, Megan and I went to the Elkader Library Book Sale. I didn’t find any books that I felt compelled to buy, but I did see a Dell PC, keyboard, mouse, and flat screen monitor for $25. It was the same model as what we owned and what Jean owned. Both of those PCs are virtually dead. I mentioned to Jean that they had her PC for $25 and Karen asked if I had bought it. No, I had not. We decided that we could use it in the den so I returned to get it with my work laptop (so I could check email) while making sure the Dell PC worked. That was the only time, really, I could consider myself online. Alex did figure out how to use Karen’s cell phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot, but it was unbearably slow. Anyways, after returning with the PC, we decided to go see “Despicable Me 2” at the Prairie Du Chien, WI, theater. We stopped at a hotel to look at a suite and then we made it to the 4:30 show. After the movie, we went to a department store – Peebles or Peeples – and then to Culver’s for supper. We also looked at a suite on the way home. Upon returning to Elkader, I was exhausted. While Karen and the kids sat by the campfire, I did not. I fell asleep and slept like a tired log.
• Friday – Alex and I didn’t play golf as I felt that 36 holes in a single week was enough. After Karen made pancakes, she and the kids went fishing. I remained in the air conditioning and wrote in my private journal. Later, I walked to the Turkey River. Upon returning to the camper, Karen and Megan decided to go to the Elkader laundramat and did some loads of towels. Alex and I remained in the camper. Upon returning to the camper, I learned that the landramat is not air conditioned.
• Saturday – It was Elkader Sweet Corn Days, which meant going to the parade downtown.
• Sunday – We packed up and returned to home.

And throughout the week I was not “home”, I learned I like being online. Based upon what I’m now seeing as I wade back onto the Internet, while offline, I missed out on a lot of things in three areas of my life. While I certainly can catch up now that I’m back online, I don’t like that anxiety of needing to scan through too many e-mails – both personal and work-related, equally too many Facebook updates, and too many websites I visit frequently, such as Bleacher Report, to learn who won at the Money at the Bank PPV on 7/14 and what happened on Raw on 7/15 and what happened on Impact on 7/18. There is suddenly an overload of information I need to internalize.

The deeper I wade, the more I realize that this is going to be a busy week at work, per the email from Sonia that says, in part:
|
Paul,
We have plenty to do next week. Monday morning could you please start with … help text changes, and we can talk about the user guides status.
|

I am looking forward to returning to work. I welcome the opportunity to get to work. I know there is a lot of work with the user guides that I need to finish and, frankly, ideally, I would have finished prior to going on vacation last week. But, that didn’t happen, so I now need to focus and get a lot of quality work done very quickly. I would normally say that I will work 4 9 hour days this week, plus 4 on Friday, but I have a feeling that is not going to be possible.