Monday, September 1, 2008

O Give Me Room, Lots of Room....

One of the things I did not think about too much was the amount of space I would need to
work. I figured I would stay in bed, answer a few calls, type out some notes. I would be the David Ricardo of the 21st century. Ricado stayed in bed till about 1pm and sent runners all
over to make his day trades. Those were really day trades. He would decide what he was
going to buy (pork bellies, whatever) and send some poor young waif out to the streets, on
to the trading market. It literally took all day.

But then again, I'm not David Ricardo and this is the 21st century. Staying in bed is great
for sleeping, reading and, oh right, sex. Jeez, I'm getting old. I almost forgot about sex.

Getting scary.

So bed is not the greatest place for work. OK, let's not go there again. Bed is not the
greatest place for most kinds of work, certainly not mine. The laptop gets a little too hot
on the lap and there is a constant positioning for better position. Never really works that
well. So give me a hotel room, b&b room, never a hostel, that has enough, well, room.
It's not that I want a full blown office next to my bed. Hotels sometimes have "business
centers." What a waste. Too much room. Too much equipment. It says "office" all over it.
It says, "You can't get away from me. I am WORK. I am OFFICE. I am the 4 WALLS OF HELL."

Maybe I'm getting a little dramatic but I don't want the office as the primary focus of my
travel. Work is secondary. I'm not traveling to Madrid or Rome to be in an office. I'm
traveling to see places and people I've never seen before. Work is secondary. Five hours a
day, tops. I'll work those 5 hours the best I have in me. But I'm not in Rome to WORK. I'm
there to SEE and EXPERIENCE and make friends with a different culture. I'm there to see
what I've only read about. I want to touch a wall in Pompeii, sit on one of Gaudi's benches
in Barcelona.

I have found that a small desk off to the side is good but not ideal. You actually need a decent sized room that has a small desk and chair far enough away from your bed that you don't get claustrophobia. If you're working on your laptop and your right leg is touching the bed and left leg touching the wall, that doesn't work. I get a little crazy. I can do it but all the while my eyes are getting twitchy, my heart rate pops up a bit and I start thinking I might be better off out on the ledge of this 8 story building. Not good. Conducive to an unflattering death and more unflattering open casket funeral.

It doesn't take much room but 8x10 won't make it.