September 24, 11:15 PM (Mountain Time)
It’s the end of my first full day at the Kessler Canyon workshop and I have to admit, it’s been a good day. However, the internet outage has completely thrown the carefully crafted blog schedule I had worked out for the next day or so, leading to a bit of an on the fly rethink. Assuming that I won’t be able to post anything until Saturday afternoon at the earliest, I’m going to prepare a couple of posts over the next two days, and send them off as soon as I hit somewhere that’s actually connected to the rest of the world. Wonderful as my wife Clare is for transcribing my last post over the phone and posting it on my behalf, I can’t really ask her to keep doing it.
Especially when I’m writing at 1:15 in the morning DC time!
What I was going to write about today was what this workshop in the middle of no-where is all about, and why I thought it worth dragging myself half way across the country for. But I’ll leave that until tomorrow now.
Instead, let me tell you about one of the harder aspects of the trip.
Just under three weeks ago, my daughter started as a freshman at high school. I missed the big event because, surprise surprise, I was off traveling somewhere. In fact, since she started, I have only been at home for three school days days. My son has also just started middle school, and with the changes, the family has had to work out and adapt to a tough new morning schedule.
In theory, I have a vital role in this new schedule to help things run smoothly.
In practice, Clare and the kids have been covering for me for the past three weeks – not something that makes me feel particularly good.
But to cap it all, today was the first chance for Clare and I to meet my daughter’s new teachers. I really, really wanted to be there. Instead, I found myself committed to being a long way off and, once again, leaving the important stuff to my wife.
This is a part of traveling that really sucks.
And comfortable as things are here – and I would say that the surroundings and amenities at this workshop are exceptional – it doesn’t make up for what I’m missing, and what the rest of the family are having to do without me.
Should I have bailed on the travel?
Probably not.
I have a job to do here, and I’m well qualified to do it.
But it does take the edge off a trip that on the surface might look like a lot of fun.
Long flights and yodeling cowboys at 3:00 AM are manageable. Being away from family – not so much.
Follow the whole “On The Road” saga at http://2020science.org/category/on-the-road-again/
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I recently “attended” a conference on digital marketing, along with 1000′s of others, from my home. It was a virtual conference with all the same trappings of an in-person conference – presentations with q&a sessions afterwards, chat rooms, and vendor booths to visit. It was quite remarkable, and if there was more than one presentation that I was interested in being given at the same time, I could catch up on it (without being able to ask questions, of course) at my convenience on the website. I believe we will see more and more of these for many reasons, so while there is no substitute (yet) for face-to-face discussions of many subjects, it may be that your travel requirements will begin to reduce soon. Another thought that occurs to me for your situation . . . could you attend the school meetings virtually, i.e. be on a cell phone with the speaker turned on so they could hear you? Your photo could be displayed on the phone – a mini-virtual-you
. While it wouldn’t be the same, at least you would be participating and know what was discussed. Just a couple of thoughts on your dilemma.
Hopefully we will see more – and better – virtual meetings in the future. It seems the technology is getting there, but we need a bit of a push to both make it more acceptable, and to get rid of some of the rough edges that still occur.
I like the “virtual me” idea btw – something to work on