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Small vacations from the internet...highly recommended

RetiredNSmilin

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Location
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Hello friends,

I just got back from a small vacation to southern California for about 10 days and during that entire time, I did not even once look on the internet for anything except to see if any local festivals were going on. I did not even bring my computer.

I highly recommend it.

I rented a rowboat on Lake Daley(sp) and got a nice workout while catching a few uprooted plants from the lake bottom with my fishing line,
Went to the beach and watched in awe at five very confident and happy plump young ladies wore bikinis and enjoyed their day in the sun,
Ate all kinds of good Japanese food I cannot find here in East Texas,
watched furry little critters scamper around the hills at night with my UV flashlight,

and....and...did I mention, not once looked at anything usually associated with the internet during this whole time.

No flame wars, trolls, intellectual snobbery, personal attacks, or things like that.

I highly recommend everyone take a week off from the internet at least once every few months for their mental health.
 
Just to fill you in on what you missed. Trump is a blowhard idiot and Clinton is the biggest crook ever. And that just about covers everything you missed.

It is great to take a break from all of this. Good for you.
 
Just to fill you in on what you missed. Trump is a blowhard idiot and Clinton is the biggest crook ever. And that just about covers everything you missed.

It is great to take a break from all of this. Good for you.

:mrgreen: :( :mrgreen: So then, nothing has changed in the past ten years or so ???
 
I work as a System's Admin and have to keep my phone with me all the time 24/7 in the event a site goes down. I take at least one big wilderness backpacking / fishing / climbing trip out west every summer so that I can have a week or so in the wilderness without any cell coverage at all. In fact, as I am usually 2 to 4 days walk from the nearest road, I am completely unreachable. Which I love.
 
I would not want to do it. I read paper copy of stuff like Atlantic but otherwise all my news comes from the internet, and has for years. A few weeks back I watched a cable news show with my daughter, it was awful, how was I ever a cable news junky? I tried for about 6 months to get back into what had been a decades habit of reading the Sunday NYT's front to back, OMG a lot of weeks that thing looks like it was produced and written by college kids, WTF happened? Seriously, the Sunday Times has at best 40% of the useful content it had back in the 90's.

Two days away from the internet is all I would be up to, after that I start feeling out of sorts.
 
I would not want to do it. I read paper copy of stuff like Atlantic but otherwise all my news comes from the internet, and has for years. A few weeks back I watched a cable news show with my daughter, it was awful, how was I ever a cable news junky? I tried for about 6 months to get back into what had been a decades habit of reading the Sunday NYT's front to back, OMG a lot of weeks that thing looks like it was produced and written by college kids, WTF happened? Seriously, the Sunday Times has at best 40% of the useful content it had back in the 90's.

Two days away from the internet is all I would be up to, after that I start feeling out of sorts.
Totally relate. There is an angst created, at least initially, when I don't have access. Down here the internet is slow at best in the mountains, and sometimes its out for a week or more at a time, no reasons given by the provider. As an addict, the need initially like one needing the drug, and then the sigh, the welcome exhale of relief when finally regaining access...

But hell I get a lot of stuff down when its down and not raining.
 
Sounds nice. I'll be taking a trip with my family next week to the beach and I think I am going to take your advice.

I think there is also benefit in cutting yourself off from the news in general for a few days. Yes, it is important to be in touch with what is happening around the world but it is ok, even beneficial, to take a break from it now and then.
 
I work as a System's Admin and have to keep my phone with me all the time 24/7 in the event a site goes down. I take at least one big wilderness backpacking / fishing / climbing trip out west every summer so that I can have a week or so in the wilderness without any cell coverage at all. In fact, as I am usually 2 to 4 days walk from the nearest road, I am completely unreachable. Which I love.

I call it, " recharging my batteries ".

I have no doubt you are very relaxed and ready mentally and emotionally when you put yourself back into the rat race after all that.
 
Sounds nice. I'll be taking a trip with my family next week to the beach and I think I am going to take your advice.

I think there is also benefit in cutting yourself off from the news in general for a few days. Yes, it is important to be in touch with what is happening around the world but it is ok, even beneficial, to take a break from it now and then.

There is a major benefit from pulling the electronic plug for a week or so.

I have found they tend to beat a dead horse on a story by repeating the same thing, and showing the same video over and over again, kinda like any episode of Nancy Grace.

Being informed of what is going on in the world is nice, but I also found it better to be out in a large rowboat with my wife, her daughter and her 8 & 11 year old kids fishing, hiking in the hills, going to the beach, having dinner together where we all sit down at the table all at the same time.

My wife and I stayed at her house and I did all the cooking, so it was a treat when I set up a menu the day I got there and did some grocery shopping.

Her daughter really appreciated me doing all the cooking, and we all sitting around the dinner table discussing the days events and what we might do later. SoCal is so cool at night and has cool breezes during the day making it a pleasure to pull the plug on electronics and get back to some good old human interaction.

The two kids, of course, were stuck on anime in between our sojourns outdoors.

What was funny is I had to be very careful what I was watching. Even the season premier of Big Bang Theory was too much for their young ears, as was every episode of American Dad and Family Guy. Oh well. I brought a book called "The Secret History of the World", that I started on, as recommended by a member here. I intend to give a full report on it when I am done. It is a struggle to get through.
 
Yep, whenever I visit my parents out on the Cape, I usually don't do anything on the internet.
 
I fully support taking days off from internet.

I don't care if that's your "only news source" or not.

A few days away from all the crap is wonderful, refreshing, and highly recommended.

I try to do it at least once a year.

Being completely tied to an electronic device (and/or internet) 24/7/365 seems like a sign of weakness.


Go old school every now and then. It's highly underrated in my opinion. :mrgreen:
 
Hello friends,

I just got back from a small vacation to southern California for about 10 days and during that entire time, I did not even once look on the internet for anything except to see if any local festivals were going on. I did not even bring my computer.

I highly recommend it.

I rented a rowboat on Lake Daley(sp) and got a nice workout while catching a few uprooted plants from the lake bottom with my fishing line,
Went to the beach and watched in awe at five very confident and happy plump young ladies wore bikinis and enjoyed their day in the sun,
Ate all kinds of good Japanese food I cannot find here in East Texas,
watched furry little critters scamper around the hills at night with my UV flashlight,

and....and...did I mention, not once looked at anything usually associated with the internet during this whole time.

No flame wars, trolls, intellectual snobbery, personal attacks, or things like that.

I highly recommend everyone take a week off from the internet at least once every few months for their mental health.

reported
 
Maybe it's not a vacation, but often my life is too busy to go online. There are days though when I consciously decide to turn off my cell phone and computer, and just do other things, because I've become too sucked in.

I really do love the internet though, just for pure learning! Social media, I could take it or leave it, but it's so amazing that we live in an age where you can type virtually any question into a search engine and get an answer. My son was remarking some time ago that it's crazy that just a few decades ago you would've had to go to a library and use index cards to find out stuff.

We live in interesting times!
 
Just to fill you in on what you missed. Trump is a blowhard idiot and Clinton is the biggest crook ever. And that just about covers everything you missed.

It is great to take a break from all of this. Good for you.

Clinton has gotten millions but Trump got over a billion from suckers who took a bath with his bankruptcies. I'd say liar, crook, narcissist, liberal covers Clinton and Trump fairly well.
 
Ten days with my dog fishing in the mountains of Colorado.
A week backpacking in the desert of southern Utah.
Backpacking in Wilderness Areas in the Rocky Mountains.
A month visiting friend in Hawaii with no internet connection or television.

I got rid of my television over 20 years ago. One of the better things I've done.

Years ago. Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio. Fibber goes out to get the paper, doesn't see it, and finally finds it under a spreading juniper. As he drinks coffee he's telling Molly the news. Then he hits a story about how the war is going. He stops. "My golly, Molly, this paper is three months old." They'd not noticed it from the news stories until they got to the war. The news does seem to repeat a lot.
 
Hello friends,

I just got back from a small vacation to southern California for about 10 days and during that entire time, I did not even once look on the internet for anything except to see if any local festivals were going on. I did not even bring my computer.

You have no idea how much you missed here at DP though... the Abortion forum debated hotly about Child Support and the Conspiracy Theorists debated the Controlled Demolition of the Twin Towers. You are so far behind now!
 
:rolleyes:

funny getting all defensive over nonspecific general comments.

Pretty sure he was being sarcastic. "reporting" you for not being on the internet.
 
Pretty sure he was being sarcastic. "reporting" you for not being on the internet.

Then the mistake and misunderstanding is mine, and I apologize for it, justabubba.

Thank you for pointing that out, Bodhisattva.
 
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