Katie Franzios had some reports this morning on the blahs you feel when you get back from vacation. I can sympathize but let's face it: "first world problem". I love my job but who doesn't like spending two weeks with friends where the most important decision you'll make all day is choosing between the beach and going kayaking (and usually figuring out that we can do both). 

Just a few vacation notes. First of all, if you haven't considered renting a private home for a vacation you have to give it a try. We've been booking properties at Home Away for five or six years. You can see the place on line, exchange messages with the owner by e-mail and even pay for it on your credit card. For the first few years I always figured I was going to be taken and we'd show up with our friends on Saturday afternoon only to find some stranger in the joint saying "Dude I have no idea what you're talking about, I own this place and it's not for rent". But I've had nothing but good experiences. And when you do the math you end up in a place all your own for much less than a hotel or B & B (which I loathe. As a friend of mine says "They call it a Bed and Breakfast. I call it a stranger’s house"). Had a bit of a blond moment on arrival. I had been told the door code was seventy-six, fifty-four and I spent some time trying to figure out a way to memorize it. Finally a friend said "You idiot, it's 7654".

For vacation reading I took along Stephen King's door stop 11//22//63 which was actually last summer's beach read. I'm a Stephen King fan and even for him this is a particularly good book. He comes up with a great twist on time travel: a portal that leads to one day in 1958. You can change history but if you come back and re-enter the portal everything is reset. Our hero goes back with the intention of stopping the Kennedy Assassination but has to live for five years in the past in order to make his bid, never knowing what saving Kennedy's life could do to the time line. At heart, this is a love story and a particularly good one. 

I also took along John Irving's In One Person but when I got to it I wasn't in the mood for a serious read. I picked up Michael Connelly's Chasing the Dime in paperback instead. Connelly is a great writer but this is one of those books that's better when you're done. The hero in this book is like Jamie Lee Curtis going up the stairs in Halloween but just imagine her going up the stairs and then following Michael Myers around for three weeks and wondering why it isn't quite working out. After a while you think "man, you are just stupid".

And then of course the entire two weeks was haunted by this golum. 

Most of all it was two weeks with really good friends, kayaking, golfing, biking, beaching and doing nothing at all. 

If I could only wake up there tomorrow again.