Guilty vacation pleasures — here’s my top 10 list

Being on vaca­tion is not really con­du­cive to cre­at­ing a blog post; it’s more about unwind­ing, relax­ing and hav­ing fun. So, since I am on vaca­tion, I thought I’d blog about some of the guilty vaca­tion pleas­ures I’m enjoying…things you don’t nor­mally find the time to do in your every­day hustle and bustle. So, in no par­tic­u­lar order:

1. Become reac­quain­ted with my cam­era — this is cool. Last year my lov­ing wife sur­prised me with a Panasonic Lumix FZ-30. Yes, I’d been drool­ing over it for a while and fully expec­ted to get one before Christ­mas. Was I ever pleased that she picked one up for me last spring! I’ve had the year to become com­fort­able with it, but being on vaca­tion allows me to spend some sig­ni­fic­ant time apply­ing some of the things I’d read about over the last year.
2. Visit the rel­at­ives — I’ve got some cool inlaws in the BC Okanagan. It’s great to hook up with them again, find out what they’ve been doing, and share a good meal or two.
3. Review the per­sonal Five Year Plan — ah yes. Free time to think about where I’m going and what I’m going to be doing in five years. I should prob­ably do this more often, but it seems I rarely get enough time to clean out the work-crap that builds up in my head…it takes me about a week to get clear of it. But once I am clear, then I find it easier to build a plan to focus on the future.
4. Start to get back into shape — This last eight months has seen me fall off the fit­ness wagon. Again, the free time afforded by a vaca­tion lets me start get­ting back on. And I have time to explore new fit­ness routines..etc. Get rid of the Chub Rub.
5. Catch up on my pod­casts — This is kind-of work related, but I never have enough time to listen to For Imme­di­ate Release in my daily commutes.
6. Play com­puter games — Ok, so this is some­thing I do when not on vaca­tion too; I’m a Guild Wars gamer, reg­u­larly play­ing with our good friends and former neigh­bours. We have a very tiny per­sonal Guild (http://hairymoofers.com). But, what do I do when on vaca­tion? This guilty pleas­ure revolves around War­ham­mer: 40000 Dawn of War. It’s a neat real-time strategy (RTS) game in an inter­est­ing uni­verse. The three expan­sions all add new char­ac­ters and units. Fun if you like that sort of thing.
7. Spend the day read­ing — a few years back I dis­covered the Eis­en­hornomni­bus, a col­lec­tion of three War­ham­mer 40000 nov­els by Dan Abnett. Another guilty pleasure.
8. Go to a play or musical — Just saw God­spelllast night. Fun!
9. Enjoy a beer at two in the after­noon — espe­cially a beer that you’ve not tried before.
10. Spend qual­ity time with the ones you love — and this is the best part. Doing things together is more fun than apart.

Tech­nor­ati Tags: Vaca­tion, Hol­i­day, Top Ten List, List, Guilty Pleas­ures, Read­ing, Com­puter Games, Video Games, Out­door, Beer