I'm late by a day with my weekly blog update, but you'll have to cut me some slack because I was on a badly needed vacation. I took the family to Catalina Island, about 20 miles off the coast of Southern California.

I think it's important to take off from work every now and then. We've gotten to a point where we're consumed by our jobs, especially with the advent of cell phones and e-mail. As we rode the ferry boat from Long Beach to Catalina, I watched as one fellow passenger spent most of the hour-long ride on her cell phone, making business arrangements of some sort. When she wasn't on the phone, she was playing with her BlackBerry.

Oddly, I felt a little envious of her. I kept thinking about how much work I had to get done over the next few days and, unlike me, how much she was accomplishing on the ride over to the island. And yet I knew that I was doing the right thing: leaving my work behind and focusing on my vacation.

Although I did check my e-mail once while I was at the hotel, I spent the next two days trying to keep the kids from getting bored. The one thing you hate to hear from your children while you're on vacation is, "When are we going to get to go home?" They did wonder about how our cat was doing at home by himself, but, other than that, they were focused on the trip, which was gratifying.

Now, of course, I have to play catch-up. For me, and probably for most people, a vacation is a double-edged sword. It's nice to get away from the office, but no one is doing your work while you're gone. When you get back, you're even further behind than before, but at least you have some fond memories to draw upon. More importantly, your children will also have those memories. Twenty years from now, they'll remember this trip as the time they went kayaking together in the ocean. Hopefully, they won't remember that they spent most of that time calling each other names and arguing about which direction to go!

I'm already looking forward to my next vacation.

Until next time.

Steve