Voice of the DBA

Tag: vacation

  • Au Revoir for now

    No, I’m not quitting or retiring. Just going on vacation, but I leave tonight for Brussels and this is my last day at work for a couple of weeks. My wife will try to catch my daughter between classes tomorrow before we fly to Rome for a 10 day cruise. We’ll also stop back in Brussels for a day with the kid to see how she’s loving European life.

    I have rarely disappeared for more than a week from work, and this will be an interesting test for me. It’s not a planned sabbatical, but rather a long vacation, one I’ve been looking forward to for months.

    Don’t break anything while I’ve gone.

  • The Fringe Festival

    I was lucky enough to take a vacation a decade ago in Edinburgh with my wife. She came over to the UK with me for a quick trip. We had never been to Scotland together, so we trained up and stayed in Stirling. We walked around the area, visited the Wallace Monument and toured Edinburgh.  We hiked up Arthur’s Seat and piled stones on a sunny August afternoon.

    2026-07_0161

    We hadn’t planned it, but the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was going on at the time. We saw lots of street performers and wandered into a few comedy and music shows in random places. It was a fun time and we’ve always wanted to go back.

    We’re back this year. We trained up earlier today and are spending a few days here, taking in a few shows and unwinding from life. My wife has had a busy year with work and we’ve been aiming to get away every month and recharge a bit. This is our August trip after a few days in Napa in July.

    In the spirit of Amy Abel learning to recharge and detoxing, we’re getting away. I don’t know that we’ve avoiding technology, but we are avoiding the work things that create stress and take away from life.

    Make sure you take your vacation and get breaks away from the things that stress you out.

  • A Spread of Vacation

    I’m off on vacation today.

    Which is a little weird as I just got back from a week long vacation in May, cruising with my family. Usually my trips for personal stuff get a little more spread out, but I’m slowly learning to relax and try to take advantage of the benefits and balance out my life better.

    I travel a good bit for work, taking 13 trips for work, 2 as a coach, and 1 vacation in the first half of 2026. It was a busy time, and for the first time in a quite a few years, my wife didn’t come on any of the work trips. That made it a hard six months for both of us.

    It’s not one’s fault, but we decided to do better, both to enjoy our lives more, but also to ensure we’re recharging and refreshing. Our changes for H2 are to take these trips together:

    • Jul 3-6 vacation
    • Jul 17-20 Day of Data Baton Rouge + 2 nights in New Orleans
    • Aug 10-18 – Cambridge for a week for me and then 5 days at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh
    • Oct 10-19 – Cruise in Europe
    • July TBD – Camping for a long weekend
    • Sept TBD – a long weekend in the mountains of Colorado

    It’s a nice set of things to look forward to, which will break up my work periods with something coming every month to look forward to. With Thanksgiving and Christmas, this feels like a relatively relaxed H2 for me, which is great.

    I’m learning to relax and work a little less, enjoying life more. Many of you do this better than I do already, so thanks for all the comments, ideas about trips, and sharing about things you enjoy outside of work.

    This also might be the first time I get to Q4 without any extra vacation that I have to start burning without plans.

  • Vacation Week

    It might seem I’ve been gone a lot, and I have been. April had me taking three trips, and May wasn’t better with 3 before this, but those were for work. This week the family and I are on a cruise to Alaska, spending a week traveling with the kids.

    I know it will be amazing, but no blogs this week while I take some time to recharge.