My page

 It's time for another Blog for class, Late again because I misplaced my syllabus that told me when it was due and what to write about, Seems normal for me, I need to be better about these things. This Blog is to be about a day without the Internet, and how I deal with it, and about my thoughts and reflections on the event. 

     My day without the Internet started Friday morning. My wife and I were traveling to Ocean City Maryland for the weekend. I got up, and started to get ready for my trip, my first instinct was to log on and check email, I remembered I was spending the day without the Internet, and decided not to check it. I also had an urge to check out my Facebook, and twitter accounts. I declined to do both. I had a printed copy of my directions to my hotel, and I remembered to get them from the printer. We set off, about an hour after we had planned, nothing new there. We often joke about how that keeps happening to us. I drove to OC, as we call Ocean City, and listened to the radio in my can, normally I would use Pandora, or Spotify while driving, but since I was doing without the Internet I decided that would be cheating. I got to the hotel and learned it had a free Wi-Fi connection, I would not need that today.

The first event of our convention was to begin at 5:30, so we crossed the street to the convention center. Once we got there my friend Ritchie asked if I had seen the Facebook post about Mike Rowe (the dirty jobs guy). It seems he was there at our convention. I told him I was on an Internet free day. So, he told me all about it. Cool. Mike is a member of our barbershop hobby, his High School music teacher was a famous man in our world. Mike rarely gets back for one of our conventions, and this doing away with my Internet for the day was looking a bit more difficult as I progressed.   I already missed checking in to see what was going on, and the news. During the first contest session, I kept my phone off and in my pocket. That’s not so bad. When the contest was over my family asked me to see where we could get something to eat at 11 pm, but without the Internet I was unable to do it. We drove down the street until we found a burger place, and stooped in for a late supper. The back to the hotel, and to sleep for the night.

Saturday morning I decided to again forgo Internet for the day. It was nerve wracking not being able to check in and get the latest news. Funny in years past this was how my weekends used to be. Now I am so addicted to my RSS feeds and Facebook/twitter and email, that I missed being in touch. I was lonely, at first, then I got involved with the events at the convention. My only slip was after the afternoon session, the presenter (otherwise known as the MC) said that to determine who did a better job presenting the contest to log on to twitter and cast my vote. OK, I pulled out my phone, and tweeted that Tony had done a better job. Oops, I was doing without the Internet today. Oh well, it that is my only slip I’m still good. Saturday continued and my phone stayed in my pocket. I missed the news from is continued until I arrived home, It’s about a 3 hour drive to OC, and I had a hard time with the radio, but my wife understood I was conducting an experiment, and did not complain. I put in a CD after a while and we listened to some good music. We got home, unloaded the car, and took a nap. That nap lasted until Monday morning. I got up, logged on and realized I had missed a lot of stuff. Big wreck in Indy Car racing, drivers hospitalized. In NASCAR my favorite driver had a really bad day. Wow, I didn’t used to follow a lot of that stuff, politics, and sports, and similar stuff. I really felt out of touch.

It seemed worse to me after I got back online than when I was locked out, I did not seem to care about it if I didn’t hear it at the time. Once I got back in, I really noticed that I was behind. Being connected really enhances my day. So much for being able to turn it off. I bothered me more after the fact than it did while it was happening. Interesting!