I’m Taking A Vacation

As you might have noticed, my postings the last few weeks have been a bit sporadic thanks to some major projects occupying all my time (see related posts here and here). The last month or so I’ve been averaging about 10-20 hours a week of overtime, and logged about 200 billable hours at the new (and now open) Sunriver Fitness Center. There have been the marketing projects: huge marketing package to our owners, huge marketing package to other company’s owners, huge marketing package to all of our past guests (50,000 postcards are going in the mail in a week), huge Web marketing package that’s coming, too. On top of all that, I purchased, ordered and setup four desktop systems, two point of sale systems, a server, a firewall, two switches, and then got roped into wiring up the cable TV system for 16 TVs at the place as they hadn’t bothered to bid it out. This has been on top of all my other duties already tying me up at the office. Long story short, I’m frickin’ tired. And while it probably will be more exhausting taking a vacation with the almost-two-year-old and my five-year-old, I still need to get the hell out of here for a few days.

So what’s my plan? Tomorrow (Wednesday) night we’ll be staying in Salem, visiting the AC Gilbert Discovery Village and taking a ride on the Riverfront Carousel while we’re there (and of course, hit up Lydia’s favorite restaurant). The next couple nights I’m going to be in Newport, staying at a privately-owned place in Nye Beach. We plan on hitting up the aquarium and possibly the Hatfield Center while we’re there, and we’re certainly hitting Mo’s while we’re there.

Sadly, because I’m a geek, I’ll have my laptop with me and will get online when I can (we also plan on using it to watch DVDs for the kids, so it’ll get used). So if you really need to get a hold of me, e-mail me.

I’ll be back in Bend on Sunday. Don’t expect any blogging until then. There are lots of good Bend Bloggers to keep you occupied, so be sure to check some of them out.

Meanwhile, if you guys have any links you want to share, feel free to post them in the comments here so things don’t get too stale. Hell, make a mess out of the place, I don’t care as long as you clean it up before I come home. If I come back and see 100 comments on this entry, I won’t be disappointed (unless it’s entirely spam, then somebody’s getting a cyber-spanking).

Update on 7/20 at 1:00PM: We’re in Salem at the Phoenix Inn. My daughter is taking a MUCH needed nap (it was a long drive here, let me tell ya). My other daughter and my wife are at the pool, and I’m sitting here relaxing on the bed. They have free Wi-Fi here (a bit sketchy of a signal however, despite being right next door to the control room). So I’m downloading my e-mail, and feeling good because I can ignore it all. I think I’m going to go take a nap — I haven’t had one of those in years.

Feel free to post more comments here. I expected more than the two I’ve received so far.

Update on 7/21 at 9:00PM: Salem, while still fun, wasn’t nearly as cool as it could’ve been as the Carousel was closed for the week for maintenance. That would’ve been great information to put on your Web site, folks…

Anyway, we’re in Newport now, and I’m hijacking off one of the five open wireless networks I’m picking up. The place we’re staying in is pretty nice, but being above a schoolhouse isn’t as cracked up as I thought it would be. I assumed that by “schoolhouse” they meant “a place were kids were at during the middle of the day.” At 8:00, when we were putting the little ‘uns to bed, they were playing musical chairs downstairs, and the teacher lady was banging away on the piano. They’ve all gone home now and it’s nice and peaceful, but I don’t recommend staying here during the week if you want peace and quiet.

Otherwise, the place is fairly nice and quiet. And while I’m hijacking off somebody else for ‘net access, there’s no phone or cable TV here, so I’m relatively un-wired (I have my cell phone, but it’s muted, as that’s the only connection my office has to me and I don’t plan on answering it).

I’ve forgotten how much I hate driving around Newport, however. I was trying to get to Papa Murphy’s for some take-and-bake pizza, and I drove by it the first time. Getting turned around, and into their parking lot was a chore, that’s for sure. It looked a lot easier to get to on the map.

Anyway, I’m off. We’re hitting the aquarium in the morning, Hatfield center in the afternoon.

Update on 7/22 at 8:40PM (though because of limited ‘net access, this might not go online until much later): Is it time to go home yet? Please, somebody beat me senseless if I ever say I’m going on vacation ever again before the kids are at least 12.

Last night was a fierce thunderstorm in Newport and the thunder clasps were the loudest I’ve ever been in, shaking the windows pretty steadily from about midnight to about 2:30AM. My kids, amazingly enough, slept through the whole thing (at least Hannah said she didn’t hear anything). The bed, however, was FAR more comfortable than the bed at the Phoenix Inn, so I didn’t wake up with nasty back pain.

The wireless connectivity has gone down hill a bit since the thunderstorm. While I know it’s not really related, it was just good timing, as my wireless card is now (litteraly) coming apart (I don’t have a laptop with built-in wireless — so wish I did). We had trouble getting on most of the day, so I popped the card out, and the outer sleave nearly fell off. I managed to pop the thing back together, but I’ll probably be shopping for a new card when I get home. Just the same, I’ve still had better luck with Wi-Fi this trip than this guy did (thanks to Barney for that).

Anyway, about the kids being awful. While going down to the beach this morning was nice, as it was fairly calm (no wind is always nice), and the kids were decent, the trip to the aquarium was a nightmare. Michelle (my nearly two-year-old) did nothing but scream and cry the entire time. My ended up leaving so we could take the baby back to the room here so she could nap, and then my wife and Hannah (my five-year old) went back to the aquarium so they could actually enjoy themselves.

After Michelle (and I) both took naps (I was tired, too, after last night’s storm), we went down to the beach again, as the sky had cleared up a bit. It was foggy down on the beach, but still really nice. My legs are dead, however, from carrying Michelle up the hill from the Nye Beach access area (which is a LONG, steep hill) about 50 times. Oh well…she had fun on the beach, at least.

We finished off the evening with a trip to Mo’s (which actually went surprisingly well), spent a bit more time at the beach, and now, we’ll be calling it an evening here shortly.

One more gripe about our current lodging arrangements: We have to do our own dishes, and clean up the entire place for the next guests — in other words, leave it how we found it. I can understand doing that if this were some place we were borrowing from a friend, but we’re paying over $100/night for this little place. I’m on vacation — I don’t want to have to scrub a place down.

Anyway, done ranting. The current plan is to be back in town late tomorrow after playing on the beach a bit more (we’re hoping we can get a late check out from here so the baby can take a nap and make our lives all that more pleasant, but I’m not holding my breath).