A family friend has a cottage on one of the lakes in NE Connecticut, so we packed everyone up to take a few days of rest and relaxation. 'Twas nice--the cottage is on an island, and lacking in pretty much all the 'standard' amenities. No running water, electricity, phone, indoor plumbing--we didn't even have a boat with a motor. (Rowing all the way) Had a gas fired stove, refrigerator, and lamps which worked well enough. (Okay, the gaslamps were a bit too hot to use what with the temps peaking in the mid-nineties)
There's a certain slow serenity you get when you don't have anything to push you faster. There's time to think about things, rather than just reacting, or running as fast as you can to keep up with things. It was nice. It also pointed out how little running to keep up is really worth--nothing to speak of happened while I was gone.
I noticed my schedule wrapped around really fast, much faster than I expected. Normally I go to bed around 4AM and get up around 11AM, which fits my work schedule. Well, without artificial lights I got yanked to a 7AM to 11PM schedule on the first day. That was disconcerting. Goes to show how much light affects sleep schedule. Or how mutable my schedule is. Something like that. I'll keep that in mind when it's time to whip my schedule around for YAPC::Europe this year.
It's also really weird to pad around in the kitchen in the dark and see a blue glow from under the fridge. Refrigeration devices shouldn't have pilot lights. There's just something really wrong about that. Cool, but wrong.
Oh, and something to keep in mind: sound travels very well over water at night. Do you really want the whole lake to hear
Yeah! Yeah! Oh, yeah! I'm ready, I'm read...what? It's already in?Posted by Dan at August 17, 2002 01:28 PM