LAIDBACK or ON DEMAND

A few weeks ago I got the idea I needed a break from my daily tedium of doing nothing at home. The rental season for our beach townhouse was soon to finish and I'd need an inspection tour of the place to schedule off-season maintenance, so why not stay a few nights while there.

I had forgotten how much trouble it is to pack up necessary bedding, towels, personal care items, clothes, food, etc., for just 3 days away from home. Never saw so much stuff in the back of the Toy Truck when I headed out after the Monday morning school/work rush (one advantage to retirement is you can miss all that excitement on weekdays).

The townhouse was in good condition and clean from last rental cleanup. I identified a couple of small things I could do while there that might take an hour. The rest of the time I could just lay back and goof off as I had no real plans beyond watching a few movies and reading a book I'd brought along.

Monday went well and even found a close place for some dinner. Got back to townhouse and flicked on the TV news to see what was happening in the world only to find commercials, not news-type stuff.

At home I have a TiVo (DVR) that I use to plan and record each day's shows; then I usually watch them when evening TV time comes around. I can skip commercials and other inane portions of live shows that I don't want to watch.

I also planned on doing without my internet world while there. That was pretty easy to do since I had committed to it. The thing I didn't take into account was that I get 95% of my daily news from the internet and newspapers, not TV.

To make a long story short. I managed to scout some portions of the area I hadn't visited before. I walked the townhouse compound, about 45 minutes at normal pace, each day and dined out for dinner. I still managed to watch a 6-hour TV series on DVD and DVD movies and read about 1/3 of my book.

I actually attempted to watch morning TV news shows until I discovered that those shows are strictly fluff pieces for sleepy headed folks to drink coffee to while they rest their brains after sleeping all night. What inane drivel...I devoted all of 30 minutes Tuesday morning to that, then dismissed ever trying again. Morning became movie watch time.

I broke down and bought a USA Today Weds morning. As usual, it took about 10 minutes to scan those fluff pieces too.

As planned I 'took a break' from my daily tedium. I discovered again that I cannot watch live TV...TV without my TiVo is torture!!! So while I am normally a LAIDBACK personality, I am also very much an ON DEMAND TV viewer via TiVo.

The break was refreshing and the exercise helpful. I've promised myself that I'll return to my walking regimen here at home; maybe tomorrow. :-)

Good to be back,
JD

PS - I'm almost sure my TiVo said, "Welcome Home" when I flicked 'er on.