Shutdown Redux: Some Good Advice

I've written about shutting down (a friend recently referred to it as "going off the grid") in the past....... well....... if you've sent me some email over the last 10 days or so I apologize if I have not replied yet. We've been on vacation in Clearwater the last couple of weeks - I'm typing this in the terminal of the Tampa Airport.

It was a good vacation - I can always tell it's been good when I answer the question most people ask - "What did you do"? If my answer is along the lines of "Not much" or "Not really sure" then that was a good vacation from my perspective anyways. Sure - we did a bunch of stuff - lots of snorkeling, swimming, eating, fishing - still have not caught a snook off the beach - yet. We did catch a bunch of other fish (some that we still cannot identify) and we got a lot better at throwing a casting net for bait.

We also connected with some old friends and made some new ones. My daughters (12 and 16 now!) have both been playing violin for a long time (12 years for the 16 year old and 9 years for the 12 year old) and yes - they brought their violins with them. They practiced (a little) and played a couple of times for and older couple we know - if I had to guess I'd say they are both in their mid 80's. Turns out the woman had once been an accomplished pianist - she started when she was 6 years old and ended up stopping when she got married. I found it ironic since she has a beautiful grand piano in their beautiful home overlooking the beach and the Gulf of Mexico - what an inspirational place to play.

After my daughters finished playing yesterday both her and her husband told us how upset they were that she had stopped playing and how her sister had not stopped playing. It's a pretty major regret for both them. We've all heard this same advice applied different ways but it's basically the same - don't stop. Pretty good advice I would say. I'm glad my girls had a chance to hear it from someone else and I know they'll remember it. Thank you Bunny and Mel.

I picked up one more little gem that I stuck in the back of my head from Pierre Thiry. Pierre is director of The Institute for Convergence of Optical and Network Systems (ICONS) at the City College of San Francisco. Pierre called me on my cell wanting to setup a call yesterday (Monday) to discuss an opportunity both of us are working with the same company in different parts of the country. I wrote back to him, told him I was on vacation but could still make the call. Pierre got back to me and said let's move the call to Wednesday. He finished with the line "Vacations are precious". Thanks Pierre.

Two excellent pieces of advice.

I'm late on some email - if you've sent me something I promise a reply tomorrow!