The Amish Experiment – Weekend Edition

Because I’m not careful about what I say on this blog, I backed myself into a bit of a corner when I was challenged by our VP of Message Deployment to put up or shut up: spend the next 7 days without the joys of modern technology, and then write about it. No internet. No cable TV. No mp3s. No TiVo.  This was a bad idea.
As this experiment progresses, I continue to wonder if I just picked a lousy time to do this, or if any week I picked would be miserable. When I set the wheels in motion on this project, I didn’t realize that this weekend was the My Morning Jacket concert and Halloween. You’re probably thinking, “That’s great. Those things should keep you busy.” Not so much.
The day before the big show, I got an email from Creative Queen Allison Gibson, detailing the pre-show plans for dinner and drinks at CurrentMarketing. About 10 minutes later she made the trip all the way to the studio to tell me personally, since I was “off the grid.” The next day, as I sat in the courtyard with the CM gang, waiting for my wife to join us, she stood at the locked front door of our office with no way to let me know she was here. I told her to arrive at 6:30. She thought I said 5:30. With no email or text to back us up, we both assume the other is wrong. Fast forward a couple of hours, and we find ourselves in the new arena with no way to regroup with our friends at the show, since not only was I off the grid, but the entire AT&T network was an epic fail at the arena.
Saturday offered a bit of a respite, with multiple college football games to distract me, but with so many games every Saturday, it is almost impossible to keep up with just the TV feed. I have been completely spoiled by the instant access to scores and stats that my iPad affords me. It got so bad, that by the end of the first round of games, I was willing to do anything to get out of the house and since I was still looking to make up for the locked office fiasco, so we had our version of “Special Lady Day,” where we went shopping for clothes, had lunch at a new restaurant and bought a special flat iron to go with my wife’s new hairdo. Big Saturday.
Saturday night made for what might be the worst “Tech Jones” of the week. It’s the day before Halloween and there are no good scary movies on TV, and certainly none that are commercial-free. (Nothing wrecks a good horror movie like an ad for Extra-Strength Cheer! Fabric Detergent.) So I spent Saturday evening wishing I was watching Jack Nicholson chase Shelly Duvall around the Overlook Hotel instead of NCIS and Law & Order.
Sadly, Sunday was more of the same. Too many football games and not enough stats. I had no idea how my fantasy football team was doing. In fact, I couldn’t remember who I even started, since I set my lineup last Monday, so I spent all day not knowing who to cheer for.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. I am back on the grid Monday night at midnight and I’m pretty sure I’ll be awake at 12:01, digging out from under a pile of emails.
Things I missed out on this weekend: It was the first time this week I really missed Twitter, as I really wanted to tweet about the amazing concert and the Taco Bell 3 taco combo meal that the arena was selling for $12. I’m amazed, indeed. I didn’t get to read a review of the show until Monday morning when the Courier-Journal finally got around to publishing one.
Things I gained this weekend: I couldn’t place any bets on college football, which means I had my most financially successful weekend of the season. I couldn’t watch The Shining for the hundredth time, so I slept like a baby Saturday night. And now I know, what to look for in a flat iron and why the first 10 we looked at weren’t quite right.