A BLOG'S JUST A THING
I had intended this blog to be my "CEO" blog. To share mistakes, challenges, successes, and just general information about running my company, Internet Databases, and our furniture industry B2B extranet, FurnishWEB. Well .... for whatever reason I have not done it. Excuses abound: writer's block, too busy, unsure that what I have to say is relevant, scared ... I don't know. But I'm here now and I'm going to use this blog for something a little different because ... well ... a blog is just a thing so I'm going to blog about my 'working' vacation, cross-country trip with my family. Its not exactly "CEO"-type stuff, but its a good venue to share our story.
CAN WE DO IT?
We've talked about traveling across the country since last summer. But life blew past us and we weren't prepared that first day of summer 2010. My two boys, Sam (13) and Casey (10), and my wife Allison finished school on June 10 we knew were going to Apalachin, NY for Allison's annual family reunion ... but nothing planned after that. So we were destined for a summer of sleeping in late, playing Wii, and whining there is nothing to do. So I suggested to Allison "Hey, forget renting a camper or researching Amtrak, let's just point our mini-van west from Apalachin and see the USA. What do you say?". Well, the rest is history. We've got our 1998 Toyota Sienna minivan loaded to the gills with camping gear, food, cooking supplies, laptops, chargers, cameras, et al. And we're doing it!
WHAT ABOUT WORK?
I'll post some details about this later. But essentially I needed to stay connected to my team at work, I needed phone, Skype/chat, email, FTP, file editing, etc. Internet connections would be spotty I knew, but here was my plan ...
I have a MacBook as my work horse. That would have to come with me and should prove very useful when we're in hotels or camp sites with WiFi. I have a Droid Eris phone from Verizon. That should give me some coverage in most areas. I bought an iPad 3G which uses AT&T's network. Maybe this would provide coverage in places Verizon doesn't. And, it would a great tool to boot up quickly while in the minivan and "communicate" ... email, chat, blog, tweet, etc.
This post is getting a little long. I'll end it here with a photo of me working late at night in a hotel room ... ah a fully charged laptop. How sweet is that!