Unplugging
Mar 23, 2009 A day in our life
I took a little vacation last week. We didn’t go anywhere exciting. In fact we didn’t go anywhere at all. We stayed home, slept in, and spent time together as a family. [And I worked in some girl friend time too.]
We took the kids on a bike ride. Our first bike ride of the year. And the kids’ first time on the trail.
We braved ice skating at the ice arena again. Or at least Lee and the kids did. I sat on the bleachers and read a book. I wasn’t in the mood to break my ankle or freeze my butt off with numerous falls to the ice. And, yes, I do realize that makes me a huge wimp. So be it.
And we hung out at the park We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was beautiful.
But I didn’t just take a break from work. I also mostly unplugged for the week. I say mostly because I just couldn’t give up my Blackberry. What? A girl’s got to be able to call people.
I did manage to stay off the computer most of the week. And I watched almost no TV. When I plugged back in yesterday I have two inboxes full of email, 1000+ posts to read in Google Reader, and a week’s worth of TV on my TiVo. So I spent much of yesterday going through email (deleting almost all of it…sorry PR people, but your pitches are in my trash bin). I didn’t even attempt Google Reader…just marking all as read (so if you wrote an awesome, award-winning post last week you better send me the link). And Lee got a little caught up on our television addiction.
After all of that I came to a realization. I like unplugging.
No this isn’t one of those “I’m giving up blogging” posts. I’m going to continue to blog. In fact I hope to pick it up and post more often because I’ve really been slacking. But I am cutting back other things.
Yesterday I deleted half of my Twitter friends. I seriously considered deleting my whole Twitter account, but I decided not to be so drastic and at least think it over first.
My next step is to unsubscribe to a bunch of feeds in Google Reader (no, not yours silly).
And I discovered, I love not watching TV. I love not having the TV on. I love the silence. I’m not ready to give up some of my shows just yet (I’m looking at you Lost and Brothers and Sisters), but I’m definitely going to scale back (sorry, American Idol, but you didn’t survive the cut).
How do you unplug?
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March 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I had to unplug Twitter. Now I have a life once again.
creative type dads last blog post..Teaching Good Habits – with Coloring Pages
March 24th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I spend eight hours a day in front of a computer. I can easily give up the computer when I have a day or week off. Even email.
Cell phone, too. Who needs it? I don’t have voicemail turned on for my cell phone. Business calls and voicemail should be left on the business line. Personal calls and messages should be left on the home number. My cell phone is for my convenience. I never answer it unless I actually want to speak to the caller.
Two of the last seven years, we went without television (physically, we had no television). After the initial shock wears off, the experience is freeing.
Life Without Television
The best way I can describe life without TV is as taking off your pants in your own backyard. It feels odd at first then you become more comfortable. Finally, it is so natural that you forget you’re not wearing pants and go around the front yard to see if the mail has arrived yet.
Sure, those around you find it weird and even unAmerican that you don’t have a television (or pants) but they, too, eventually get used to the concept. (Assuming you stay in the back yard.)
Still, coming back to television (and cable) is nice, too, but equally unsettling.
TiVo: Better Than Life Itself
As for TiVo, it is as technology was meant to be: prefect and transparent.
I bought a TiVo in early 2002 shortly after the Series 2 was released. I was so confident in the technology, I bought the unit with a lifetime subscription. After three months of talking everyone I knew into buying a TiVo (and each of them forcing a dozen friends to buy TiVos), I bought a couple thousand shares of TiVo stock at a little over $3 a share. A year and a half later, I sold at a just under $11 a share.
So, my TiVo experience has been effectively free for the last six years. I’m pretty sure that is the only time I have ever made money on a single stock.
Because of our television-lite life, we haven’t upgraded to HDTiVo yet. We’re still using the original 2002 unit. I upgraded the 40-gig drive to a 160-gig drive and had to replace the power supply a couple years ago. Other than that, the machine has been perfect.
I still tingle at the thought of TiVo. I have never been so pleased with a technological device as I have been with TiVo.
Blogs, Tweets, Mailing Lists
I’m way down on my electronic stimulus. I’ve gone from consumer to creator and that is really cutting into my time.
Digital photos are where I’m way behind now. I have, literally, gigs and gigs of photos from my Nikon D700 that I need to edit and put online. I simply don’t have time. So there is the one area where I need to be more plugged.
—Matt—
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March 24th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I do not watch television much at all. I watch the news in the evening, and if I’m paying attention I’ll catch Two and a Half Men in reruns right after that. But I don’t watch anything else. During baseball season I have the television on to hear games, but other than that…nothing. We have satellite with Tivo and the kids and hubby watch and record all kinds of things, but I am not tempted. At all. Any show I ever get interested in just gets cancelled after four weeks anyway, so why bother?
As for the computer? I can give it up, but don’t like to. I work on a computer all day, and I’m also a writer, so I do a lot of writing in my off-time, especially since I make part of my living writing for professional blogs as well as my three personal ones. So giving up the computer, well, I can do it for a few days, but not much longer than that. Without it, I could not write.
Cell phone? I just have a phone, no smart phone. NEVER do I want to have to be that connected to anyone. I make and receive calls. And I never fell for Twitter, and don’t intend to. I don’t need that many people “following” me or etc. I don’t need it, don’t want it.
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March 28th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I wholeheartedly agree!
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