Blog fasting and vacations defined

Many, many thanks to Dean Shareski for generously guest-blogging the past week and a half as I traveled with my family to a family reunion at Hunters Peak Ranch, Wyoming, and spent four wonderful days in Yellowstone National Park! Dean mentioned in a post that he had not heard of guest blogging till I introduced him to it a few months back when Miguel Guhlin took over as my first guest-blogger… the story there is that I had not heard of guest blogging either before a couple of years ago, when I first found Larry Lessig’s excellent blog that focuses on intellectual property rights issues. Now, I am certainly not a comparable intellectual and national leader like Dr. Lessig– who has written several traditionally published books (my favorite is “The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World”,) teaches at the Stanford Law School, and is a progressive public policy leader as the founder of organizations like Creative Commons and the Science Commons. None-the-less, the idea of having a guest blogger on a popular blog site, however, is a great one I think– dynamic content brings people back for more, and I wouldn’t want my blog to get stale just because I have gone on vacation! So many thanks to Dean. I may end up doing some guest blogging for him in August when he takes a break from writing and also heads towards Yellowstone– and if I do, I won’t be cross-posting as I often do at TechLearning— I’ll let you know if that will happen in a few weeks! 🙂

Dictionary.com defines fasting as:

The act or practice of abstaining from or eating very little food. A period of such abstention or self-denial.

The last week and a half, I have been on a spouse-requested vacation “blog fast,” and the experience was actually quite wonderful. I haven’t posted in my “luddite” blog category in awhile, but I remain a huge fan of digital discipline… a skill set which I think includes intentionally choosing when to plug and unplug from digital content. (I actually hope to write a book with that title someday and have even reserved the domain name, but for now I’m occupied with other endeavors.) Check out my post from from February 2005 titled “Snow Days are the Best Days” for more on this.

So, our family reunion and vacation to Wyoming the last week and a half was WONDERFUL. Yes, we had technology on the drive up and back in the form of cell phones, an iPod mini for music and iPod shuffle for podcasts– and a laptop for evening DVD movies for the kids… but after we got there, cell phones didn’t even work– and that imposed technological disconnection combined with my wife’s insistence that I take the time off from blogging led to a very relaxing and enjoyable vacation. I admit I felt a bit like a long haul truck driver– my one way driving distance from Edmond to Cooke City, Montana (close to Hunter’s Peak, we actually went through there several times as we went in and out of Yellowstone) was over 1500 miles!

Thankfully, iPods and podcasts make such a journey potentially much more intellectually stimulating than it might be otherwise… and the chance to just think and talk, without many other distractions, make the drive to and from the destination a very enjoyable part of the journey, rather than just a hassle that must be survived to “get there.”

Last night as I enjoyed the excellent lemonade and food at the Cracker Barrel in Amarillo on my way back home (as I usually do now driving between Lubbock and Edmond), I brainstormed many of the things which for me today, define an “excellent vacation.” Here is what I came up with:

1. Low stress.
2. Lots of time to relax and unwind.
3. Many opportunities to laugh.
4. Few time requirements.
5. Full nights of sleep.
6. Great meals.
7. Star filled skies filled with minimal light pollution.
8. Opportunities for novel, exciting, challenging or unusual experiences.
9. The presence of loved family and friends.
10. Lots of readily available cold beverages.
11. Large, hearty breakfasts.
12. Time to get bored! (idle.)
13. Kids saying, “There’s nothing to do!” (In a natural environment, with a little or a lot of imagination and creativity there are actually 100s of things to do, of course!)
14. No email or IM.
15. No phone service, cell or otherwise.
16. No television.
17. No DVD movies.
18. No work requirements or deadlines.
19. Lots of face to face (F2F) conversations.
20. More time than usual to be alone and be quiet.

Anything else you’d add to this list?

For me, disconnecting from technology has increasingly defined a great, relaxing vacation. That is probably why my family and I have enjoyed camping so much– we have an old popup trailer that is essentially a floored tent… No working electrical or even water connections, just a nicer tent to crash in at night.

So, it’s great to be back at work– I am loving my new job, and looking forward to meeting lots of Kansas educators as well as visiting again with Will Richardson later this week at the 2006 Mid-America Technology Institute in Winfield. The hosts are going to archive both my spotlight presentations on Kan-Ed Live, and I’ll likely podcast as well, so look for more content later this week and weekend!

If you’re interested, I posted a bunch of photos from our time at Hunter’s Peak on my Flickr site. I’ll close my post with an image of Pilot and Index mountains, as seen from the Sunlight Basin on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway near the turn to Hunters Peak:

I love living in Oklahoma, but I will always remain ready to return to the mountains! Wyoming is definitely God’s country! 🙂

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On this day..

• Learning About Early Pottawatomie County, Kansas History – 2017
• Favorite iPad News Apps: July 2010 – 2010
• Storychasing Summer Camp – 2010
• Exemplary Digital Stories from Hugo, Oklahoma – 2009
• Be wary of personal experience generalizations and don’t underestimate the power of your words – 2008
• A Quest for NetFlix Plus Functionality for Books – for Young Readers! – 2008
• links for 2008-07-24 – 2008
• Empowering Oklahoma Educators to Preserve and Share Oral History – 2008
• Outlook to iPhone sync process working – 2007
• Videoconferencing coming cell phones near you – 2007