Vacations

So I had an utterly useless vacation between Christmas and New Year’s.   It was useful in the sense that I avoided the psychic despair that comes upon everyone sitting around faking it in a non-retail job that week.   Retail folks, of course, are in the middle of hell on earth, but that brand of hell is at least engaging, the way a tournament about to come off its rails is; that mix of fear together with the lack of time to contemplate it sure gets the blood pumping.

My company knows better.   That, or the management team all wanted to take the week off themselves, and were insufficiently pointy-haired to make us grunts come in anyway.   I work for good people, actually, which is a refreshing change from Harvard; I come up with an idea, instinctively try to remember the ways landmines might be placed in the way of that idea, shake myself, and then just go talk to Bruce.   I haven’t yet not returned ten minutes later with a “yeah, do it.”     Of course, it’s always good when your boss comes in and says things like “Uh, could you spend about $15,000 on a pair of new servers sometime today?”

Anyhoo, I digress.   My winter vacation, such as it was, was spent on various couches, reading, futzing around with the computer, buying presents for people I knew I wasn’t going to see before Christmas, cleaning the house, and whatnot.   It sounds nice, but honestly it wasn’t.   Being around the house means being around all the things I had to do, and that list is too epic for anyone’s good.   However, I also managed not to get very many of them done; I emphasizing the “futzing” part of “futzing around on the computer.”   “Futzing” does include “playing Civ4 until the Russians bled!” but does not include “starting in on the big list of changes I need to make to tabroom.com before NCFL Nationals. ”

There was also this general malaise thing going on; lots of folks were out of town and busy and I wasn’t particularly able to relax the whole time.   I’m happy to be back to the day job now (and back working full time actually; my schedule weeps, though my checkbook rejoices.)   That at least has a nice sense of balance and order, and gets me out of the cavernous house.

I also think that I need to learn how to go away for vacations.   I went to Florida for two weeks two years ago, missed a couple of tournaments, and nothing tragic happened at all.   Sitting around the house just isn’t the same.   I’ve always been bad at travel; I love New England, dislike uncertainty, don’t mind the winter cold that much, and have no one to go with by default.   Plus I travel so damn much for forensics that the few times I do find myself in an airport alone I get nervous because there’s no one to count or herd through security except myself.

Ah well.   I guess I should just plan a random trip.   I have a free round trip domestic flight coming my way because I took a bump on flight to Philly last August.   I wonder where I should go….