Disconnect Yourself

So a week ago I came home from work and sat down at my desk to look at something, only to discover my home PC was completely frozen. Couldn't refresh. Couldn't reboot. Zilch. Had no choice but to pull the plug, literally.

I gave it a few seconds, ala Sam Jackson in the first Jurassic Park when he had to cut power to the whole park uttering those famous (nearly) last words "hold on to your butts" before throwing the master switch, hence turning off the fences, hence unleashing hell's fury in the form of angry, giant reptiles!

Sadly when I turned the power back on, the chaos I experienced was simply a computer that refused to reboot.
Don't know what happened, as I'm not a tech guy by any stretch. I get the DELL load screen, I get a progress bar, and then I get a black screen.
For a week I've been without the internet. I have limited access at work, but given that I'm at work I'm really supposed to limit how much I use it. Not too mention our firewall blocks out everything. Heck, they even block out a Disney site I like! I can only imagine there's a risque shot of Minnie in a bathing suit.

I confess my initial reaction was one of panic. I usually get a couple of spouse-free hours in the evening as my wife owns her own business and works later. I admittedly spend a fair amount of time online at home at night. It's how I relax. I don't think in this day and age that's too uncommon. There are a handful of entertainment news sites, blogs, and the dreaded Facebook, that I like to visit when I'm unwinding. Not too mention I'm always thinking of songs I want on my iPod.

I admit the first couple days of coming home to no internet connection, let alone Microsoft Word (which of course goes out the week I really feel inspired to write) were incredibly frustrating. But then there came a shift.

I suddenly found myself finding things to do. I got down on the floor and
played with my son. Not just found him something to pacify him while I stared at the monitor or even the television. We rearranged the entire track layout on his train table. We played for hours (though I'm never allowed to be Thomas. That's always his.) He and I wrestled on the floor. Played with cars. Went outside and he rode his tricycle. It was so strange and new to be a human being again. It was like the olden days. You know, before Al Gore invented the internet.

Being away from my computer has also been an amazing accelerator for my creative engine. I've been going over things I wrote (or rather started) a long time ago. Editing with a red pen. Finding hidden treasure I'd long ago forgot about, or simply cast off. And this weekend, while the boy napped and the wife worked, I sat down at the table with an old sketch pad and set of pencils I found in a box in the garage. I still doodle on my notepad margins at work all the time, but I haven't actually set out to "draw" in a long time. Between Saturday and Sunday (when on top of all else, the cable went out too) I just sketched and sketched, and colored, and created, and just had a great time, all by myself. Well, me and the characters that have been residing in my brain for a few years anyway.

Ideas have been flowing out of my head like crazy. I can't keep up. In fact the most frustrating thing is that I don't know what to do with all of them. What's the next step? Usually this is where I'd go hit the internet to find out. But you know, there was no internet (hell there were no computers) when my hero I wrote about prior to this got started.

I have to admit, it would be nice to go home and log on tonight. I want to update the iPod. Look at a couple things, etc. And I'm sure my Farmville on Facebook is in terrible shape right now.
I could probably have this problem remedied quite quickly with a simple phone call. There are a number of services that will come to you in funny cars to fix your computer now. Something is keeping me from dialing. Yes, the added expense could be the reason. But truth be told, it might actually be me.

I'll get to it, eventually. But there's been something pleasant about not having it. True, my current day job does not require an internet connection at home as many of my friends' careers do. I'm just enjoying playing with my kid, looking out the window, reading a book, drawing pictures, moving around the house. None of which, it turns out, require a high-speed connection.

Pull the plug sometime. You might like it.