How I Survived My Unplugged Vacation

June 26, 2013

Two-thirds of the world’s population have no Internet access. I know fewer than a handful of them, including my father-in-law and my mother-in-law.

This month I spent two weeks in their computer-less home in the suburbs of Cincinnati.

My in-law's house has great curb appeal on the outside, but inside there's no Internet access.

On the outside, my in-law’s house has great curb appeal, but on the inside there’s no Internet access.

With no Internet access, I found the experience to be as unsettling as when I lived in Oregon and would go tent camping in primitive sites with no running water. Daily, I feel compelled to shower, and daily I feel a need to connect my electronic gadgets to other devices out there in cyberspace.

Of course, I had my laptop and my iPad with me, but they were mostly useless without being connected to the Internet. With envy I perused the list of neighbors with Wi-Fi networks, but unfortunately, each was protected by a password. Twice I slipped away to a local coffee shop to tap into the Internet. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Duane Hallock

Things I Love about My Wife

December 29, 2009

Today is my 35th wedding anniversary. Carol and I were married on a cold winter night in her hometown of Cincinnati.

We met in college and then continued dating when separated by hundreds of miles. Geography couldn’t keep us apart. I remember telling a man next to me on an airplane, “I’m flying home to Colorado from Tennessee where I attend college. My fiancée is from Ohio but she’s a university student in California and currently working as an intern in Florida.”

Now, 35 years later, we live in Kansas City and I’ve taken time to reflect on some of the reasons I love my wife more and more with each passing day.

  1. We are so much alike. We share the same priorities—family, faith, friends, finances, etc., etc.
  2. We are so different. I’m a marketing guy and she’s an accountant. Need I say more? The fact that I’m from Mars and she’s from Venus makes life much more interesting.
  3. We share so many memories. We’ve experienced so much together that I can hardly remember my life B.C. (Before Carol). We’ve lived our lives together “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Duane Hallock