A very valuable thing to do, that little sojourn in the countryside with your family and no distractions. Wishing you and your family all the best for the new year and I feel sure you are feeling a lot more settled this year than you were last year!
One of my favourite breaks was a number of years ago, I took my family to Jamaica, and we rented a house in Treasure Beach, halfway between Kingston and Negril. For the week, we did not have access to telephone or the internet, or power (so the Gameboys only worked as long as the batteries would last). It turned out to be a truly wonderful week for us with our family. Once all of the devices were unavailable, we were able to enjoy just being connected with ourselves, and found we could live quite easily, and the world did not end because we were disconnected from the world. I think it has had an impact on my family’s use of, or more accurately, lack of use of social media.
Glad you were able to get away for the day. Welcome home.
Happy Holidays! Ticket to Ride is awesome. So many different games and my grandkids love to play! Have truly enjoyed your posts this year and looking forward to the coming year.
Nice update, Chris. During the child rearing years, I think it is especially important to disengage from the phone/internet to spend time with the family, as well as just the solitude. Our lives become so busy in general and the phones/internet suck us right in. I have found that as I get older, I so enjoy the quiet and the time to decompress and not feel guilty that I am not doing something. Happy New Year to you and your family.
Yeah, I loved that game at our Wednesday 5pm after-work-in-the-conference-room get-togethers. One of my fellow players would sometimes try a “hail-Mary” strategy: near the end, when he’d connected his original cities, he’d just acquire new destinations in the hope that he’d already connected them! Not me …I just tried to build as much track as possible to score safe points
Every summer, my family spends a week at a family camp on Lake Erie, east of Cleveland. The whole point is to unplug for the week and be present. The first year we went was 2001. There were very few people with cell phones and they had to drive into town to get a signal. Now, most people bring cells and laptops and the camp even provides a wifi hotspot. I understand the realities of it, but it makes me sad too.
I've finished taking down the Christmas tree and all other holiday decorations. I've vacuumed the living room and stored everything in the boxes that I keep in my spare room closet. And I'm proud to say that I listened to my sister and my husband and DID NOT attempt to get on a ladder to take down the outside lights -- after recovering from a nasty fall off a ladder a month ago -- which led to three weeks of excessive pain from sciatica.
Instead I texted the guy who handles my lawn in the summer to ask him if he'd be willing to take my lights down, and received a text from him thanking me for thinking of him and stating he'd be happy to help me Tuesday this week.
And I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year and thank you for the fond memories you stirred -- first, from seeing the Wizards shirts you were wearing in your video and also you brought back wonderful memories of times I spent at a getaway at the foot of the Shenandoah Mountains. My husband and I used to enjoy quite a few autumn weekends there, sometimes with friends, sometimes just the two of us and our dogs.
As the year comes to an end, I was grateful to have you refresh my memory of the great times I had living on the East Coast 44 years. I'm retired now and live in Northwest Arkansas, but I still treasure my memories of Washington, D.C. and the life I had there.
Thank you for your efforts and for the memories you triggered.
Why did I connect “16 hours without a phone” and “unread stack of papers behind you”? I guess you wouldn’t consider that a smart use of your Downtime. I LOVE “ticket to ride”…we used to play after work on Wednesdays, and along with the original US map, we had Switzerland (tunnels) and India (ferries) variants. I always tried to quickly capture routes I needed where there was only one link between cities (like Portland to Seattle). Didn’t always work, so had to build an awkward circuit to get from St. Louis to Chicago. Fun times…
Great idea, glad you and your family were able to get away. As an aside, is there any way you can get closed captions added to your videos. I am hard of hearing, and most of time have audio turned off anyway, especially at 3 am!
::Chris when he turned back on his phone::
Wait, Maine did WHAT??
A very valuable thing to do, that little sojourn in the countryside with your family and no distractions. Wishing you and your family all the best for the new year and I feel sure you are feeling a lot more settled this year than you were last year!
One of my favourite breaks was a number of years ago, I took my family to Jamaica, and we rented a house in Treasure Beach, halfway between Kingston and Negril. For the week, we did not have access to telephone or the internet, or power (so the Gameboys only worked as long as the batteries would last). It turned out to be a truly wonderful week for us with our family. Once all of the devices were unavailable, we were able to enjoy just being connected with ourselves, and found we could live quite easily, and the world did not end because we were disconnected from the world. I think it has had an impact on my family’s use of, or more accurately, lack of use of social media.
Glad you were able to get away for the day. Welcome home.
A great start to the New Years!! Glad you got some quality family time.
I homeschooled my children without a tv for 5 yrs of their elementary yrs. And my childrens’ best memories are during this period of time!!!
Mrs. Cizzilla is a very smart, intuitive woman!
Happy Holidays! Ticket to Ride is awesome. So many different games and my grandkids love to play! Have truly enjoyed your posts this year and looking forward to the coming year.
Nice update, Chris. During the child rearing years, I think it is especially important to disengage from the phone/internet to spend time with the family, as well as just the solitude. Our lives become so busy in general and the phones/internet suck us right in. I have found that as I get older, I so enjoy the quiet and the time to decompress and not feel guilty that I am not doing something. Happy New Year to you and your family.
Chris, as a Nets fan, that Wizards shirt already annoys me.
It annoys Wizards fans as well. Should consider renaming them the Washington Turnstiles (I was thinking Washington Generals but that's the Pistons).
Happy Holidays Chris!
Ticket to Ride is the GOAT in family games. Geography, math, critical thinking… what's not to love?
Yeah, I loved that game at our Wednesday 5pm after-work-in-the-conference-room get-togethers. One of my fellow players would sometimes try a “hail-Mary” strategy: near the end, when he’d connected his original cities, he’d just acquire new destinations in the hope that he’d already connected them! Not me …I just tried to build as much track as possible to score safe points
That is until your kid can play Risk, which is the ultimate GOAT.
Every summer, my family spends a week at a family camp on Lake Erie, east of Cleveland. The whole point is to unplug for the week and be present. The first year we went was 2001. There were very few people with cell phones and they had to drive into town to get a signal. Now, most people bring cells and laptops and the camp even provides a wifi hotspot. I understand the realities of it, but it makes me sad too.
I've finished taking down the Christmas tree and all other holiday decorations. I've vacuumed the living room and stored everything in the boxes that I keep in my spare room closet. And I'm proud to say that I listened to my sister and my husband and DID NOT attempt to get on a ladder to take down the outside lights -- after recovering from a nasty fall off a ladder a month ago -- which led to three weeks of excessive pain from sciatica.
Instead I texted the guy who handles my lawn in the summer to ask him if he'd be willing to take my lights down, and received a text from him thanking me for thinking of him and stating he'd be happy to help me Tuesday this week.
And I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year and thank you for the fond memories you stirred -- first, from seeing the Wizards shirts you were wearing in your video and also you brought back wonderful memories of times I spent at a getaway at the foot of the Shenandoah Mountains. My husband and I used to enjoy quite a few autumn weekends there, sometimes with friends, sometimes just the two of us and our dogs.
As the year comes to an end, I was grateful to have you refresh my memory of the great times I had living on the East Coast 44 years. I'm retired now and live in Northwest Arkansas, but I still treasure my memories of Washington, D.C. and the life I had there.
Thank you for your efforts and for the memories you triggered.
good for you!
Why did I connect “16 hours without a phone” and “unread stack of papers behind you”? I guess you wouldn’t consider that a smart use of your Downtime. I LOVE “ticket to ride”…we used to play after work on Wednesdays, and along with the original US map, we had Switzerland (tunnels) and India (ferries) variants. I always tried to quickly capture routes I needed where there was only one link between cities (like Portland to Seattle). Didn’t always work, so had to build an awkward circuit to get from St. Louis to Chicago. Fun times…
Great idea, glad you and your family were able to get away. As an aside, is there any way you can get closed captions added to your videos. I am hard of hearing, and most of time have audio turned off anyway, especially at 3 am!