Bon voyage and back

I'm a big believer in vacations. It's really important to get away - physically,
mentally, emotionally - from work to, as the cliche goes, recharge. I can't unwind by just staying at home, so I've got to go somewhere.

Somewhere this summer was Alaska, by cruise ship and then by train through Denail National Park. Multi-colored glaciers, lush rainforests, totem pole parks, Alaska Indian villages, wildlife unheard of in these parts (caribou, bear, bison, moose). Bon Jovi and New Jersey may boast of my home state's many attractions, but there's no comparison.

Of course, then there's coming back to reality, which means facing up to all those e-mails that accumulated in your absence. (We can't turn them off.) The total was really about 1,500 over the 17 days, but thanks to some kind of spam, I was blessed with deleting 3,000 items when I came into work over the weekend. But it's all good now.

As for those stories about public officials, particularly school superintendents, who accumulate thousands of hours of vacation time over their tenures, they clearly don't appreciate what a vacation can - and should - do for them. Somehow their district survives without them. Their management skills are lacking if they think that they're indispensable..