Cassidy: Writer unplugs with a 'no e-mail on vacation' pledge - San Jose Mercury News
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Cassidy: Writer unplugs with a 'no e-mail on vacation' pledge
IT WAS ROUGH, IT WAS TOUGH, BUT paris affordable vacation WRITER TAKES 'NO E-MAIL ON VACATION' PLEDGE
By Mike Cassidy
Mercury News Columnist
Article Launched: 07/25/2008 01:31:21 AM PDT
Blog
Mike Cassidy's Loose Ends
This year I was determined to take a summer vacation in a big way. I would check out from work without checking in.
Taking a cue from Stanford law professor vacation condo rentals and cyber-celebrity Lawrence Lessig, I pledged to steer clear of my e-mail in-box while reconnecting with my extended and far-flung family in the woods of Wisconsin.
Now I'm back in San Jose buried in e-mail, forgotten promises, demands from editors williamsburg virginia vacation rental property for scintillating columns and critiques from readers of columns that ran while I was lounging and swatting mosquitoes in the land of milk and bratwurst.
I'm paying now for my "no e-mail on vacation" pledge. But it was so worth it.
Full disclosure: I peeked at my in-box once or twice. But mostly I held firm, inspired by Lessig's practice of going e-mail-less for one las palmas mexico vacation package month rockport vacation home a year.
And you know what? americas vacation center The world didn't end. The Mercury News published without me. Colleagues welcomed me back with no apparent hard feelings over my bonita beach florida vacation rentals slow response to e-mail that must have seemed very important at the time.
Since my return, I've scanned the first few lines of the e-mail that I let pile up. Two-thirds of it is junk. The rest ranges from interesting to marginally so.
Was there anything in there that I was sorry I missed? Well, yes. A co-worker, a gem of a journalist, a genuine character and a frequent help to me, sent a note that vacation rental property cocoa beach florida he was leaving the Mercury after 31 years. I will miss him and I would have liked to say goodbye.
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Still, the better question is: What would I don bricker cambria vacation rentals have missed if I'd been reading e-mail instead of reveling in the lives of my seven brothers and sisters and my mother and father, both in their 80s?
What would I have missed if my eyes were fixed on a screen instead of flashing from scene to scene in a soaring log lodge where my folks and siblings and my siblings' spouses and kids and my own wife and wonderful daughters spent a week talking, laughing, eating, reading, remembering? Yes, there was a bit frational vacation ownership with air of drinking, too. And some gambling. There was even singing, but I've promised that's all I'll say about that.
While I wasn't managing my vacation homes in ruidoso new mexico in-box, there was the late night session with my dad when we solved the airline industry's problems and the problems in the newspaper business. We wondered how Sears stays solvent and debated the likely outcome of the presidential election.
While my unread e-mail was piling up, I made my first trip to a water park. I whooshed and whirled in the wetness of towering water slides, listening to my daughters' ecstatic giggles and screams.
As e-notes marked "urgent" fruitlessly called for my attention, I made my mom a breakfast of ham, eggs and toast - payback that was far short and long winter vacation in georgia overdue.
As MarketWatch wrote to tell me that GE was considering spin-offs, I sat with my brother and his two young boys in a small boat on a small lake while we allegedly fished. When we left empty-handed, I told the boat rental woman that we'd do better.
"Tomorrow," I said, "we're going to use bait." She thought I was joking.
It's easier to let the little stuff slide when you leave e-mail behind. Without e-mail you listen to your own voice. If relaxing in a boat on a lake with people you love feels the same to you with or without night crawlers then so what if you forgot the bait? Away from e-mail your thoughts are not interrupted by the voices of others - voices saying you might want to consider this, or you really should consider that, or when can we meet, or did you take care of that task or why don't you ever answer my e-mails.
Away from e-mail your heart and mind place their own urgent disney area vacation homes stamps on the day's events. Your priorities become stunningly clear. global vacation network You remember what's important.
It is why you go on vacation. And yes, it is worth it - abundantly so.
Read Mike Cassidy's Loose Ends blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/cassidy/Contact him at [email protected] or (408) 920-5536.
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