Long Weekend

Over the long weekend, we went down to KJ’s family beach house. It’s a fair way away from home – probably about a two and a half hour drive. I absolutely hate car travel with a passion. The second someone invents a teleport device I will be their first customer, no matter what the expense. If I could afford it, I would buy a helicopter and fly everywhere - I hate car travel that much.


Two and a half hours is pretty much my limit for being in a car non-stop. I used to be able to go a lot longer, but then we decided one year that driving to Queensland would be a good idea. By Dubbo I was so car sick that I still felt like I was still in the car even when I was out of it. I even felt car sick while I was driving, which is a pretty impressive feat. By the time we reached Redcliffe, I couldn’t go on. We stopped by the side of the road while I attempted to systematically throw up all of my internal organs in alphabetical order, and after that I didn’t really feel like going any further. I managed to make it back to Surfer’s Paradise eventually, where I lay in a pathetic heap for a week and then I flew home. Not exactly the holiday I had dreamt of.

That trip ruined me for car travel. So I don’t particularly relish the idea of travelling to the beach house for the weekend, although I do enjoy my time there once we arrive. The next hardest thing, after the car travel, is the fact that there is no internet access. If you have an iPhone or something similar you can get a very poor internet connection by holding the phone up to the highest point on the window while carefully balanced on one foot on the fireplace hearth, but that’s not exactly ideal.

Now, I have access to the internet pretty much 24/7. I’m online all day at work, then permanently at home. I’m a massive internet nerd. It’s my go-to place for everything. Don’t know the answer to a question? Google it. Don’t know where a town is? Look it up on an online map. Want to know what’s going on in the rest of the world? Read the news online.

So three days without any access to the internet was absolute torture. I had to let such questions as “Can dogs lose their sense of smell?” and “If your eyeball was hanging out of the socket, could you still see out of it?” go unanswered. (I have a Dr. Karl podcast to thank for that last one).

Life is hard for a nerd without the internet. So I’m happy to be home and back to my constant connection to the big, wonderful worldwide web.