Coming back from vacation is such a challenge. Even more difficult is coming back from vacation to over 1000 unread emails. Of course most of the emails are moot since I've been AWOL for so long, but I still have to read them to get caught up. I'm grateful for the speed reading classes I took.

The efforts I took to plan the vacation certainly does not match up with the work to unwind from vacation. It's good that I had a weekend to recover from my vacation before returning to anything resembling normalcy.

I find myself leaving certain unpacked items sitting around - which contradicts my anal retentiveness and drives me nutso. It's as if though I can still live vicariously through the novelty items which mysteriously found its way into my suit case. I suppose that would be a sign of a good vacation, that I don't want to forget it.

Of course, in today's world, the ultimate novelty item is the digital pictures. I snapped away thousands of pictures without any consideration for film or content. If I could record the entire trip in one big video, I would -- but I think that's still a few years away.

Friends criticize me for being so slow to send out the pictures I took on trips. What they don't realize is that my pace is deliberate. I take my time so that I can reminisce on the trip and continue to live out little portions of the vacation. I guess I'm a sentimental kind of person.

Tonight, after my typical monday rituals, I plan on spending some quality time in front of the PC navigating through the thousands of pictures I downloaded. You will probably only see a small percentage and have no idea what ended up on the "cutting room floor."