I’m a geek who is usually constantly connected to people on the internet via a (computer) screen of some sort. On my holidays I like to disconnect and live ‘in the moment’. Last week, during my holiday at Middleton in South Australia I learnt a couple of things about myself and technology: - When I disconnect from online activity I find things like phone calls and txt messages annoying at first, then distressing as I choose to ignore anything that is not life-threatening. - Even with a conscious effort to disconnect (no computer, interenet, phone off or hidden most of the time) we are surrounded by technology and I am drawn like moth to flame. This trip it was a new digital SLR camera that not only gave me a lot of buttons to press and a screen to look at, but promised a way of connecting my online buddies with my holiday when I got back home. I found myself carefully grooming the hundreds of shots I took, with a view to preserving the contents of the memory card as my shareable holiday keep-sake. You can see a bunch of the shots I took on that holiday when I upload them to http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeblogs Having spent that holiday with a bunch of teenage kids from several families I can also report that while we spent most of our time in and around the water or doing jigsaw puzzles, in a rental house that boasted ‘TV, VCR, DVD and CD-Player’ that the following devices found their way into our little retreat: - at least three amplifier/speaker setups for sharing ipod tunes with the whole group - more than 5 ipods, 8 phones with .mp3, camera and games, two idenitcal ipod chargers + several others - an analog recording studio (tape deck, decent microphones, headphones and monitor speaker setup) - a sony playstation (causing the only forced power outage by a mother whose son played one too many games) - my digital camera plus several others with an array of battery chargers - so many phone chargers it looked like a rodent infestation at the kitchen power strip and a few other electronic devices in the range from microwave oven to pacemaker Inspired as I was by the prospect of documenting my technology encounters for sastories, I also compiled this list (in descending order of importance/frequency of use) of non - electronic technology employed in the service of my holiday enjoyment: - bottle opener - wetsuit, boogie board, sail board, flippers - sunscreen (including some nanotech invisible zinc) - thongs (footwear on days over 40 c) - esky/ice (when out of range of refrigerator from the electronic list above) - corkscrew - automobile - board games and puzzles - books (even more anti-social than computer games in my opinion) Fang