April Vacation

In the day in, day out, year in, year out that is life, the end of April 2015 brings the requirement to use the final days of my 2014 vacation.  Six days of vacation and 8 out of the office with no agenda.  Well, maybe more accurately an evolving agenda.
I started the vacation's first morning by reading American Hunter, the NRA magazine.  Then I finished listening to the book Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris.  This is an almost incomprehensible pairing.  While the NRA is, in theory, a single-issue non-partisan organization, the positions of the two major US political parties means that the NRA is somewhat right leaning.  Anybody who has read anything by David Sedaris knows that he leans somewhat left.  But, the magazine was there and I had started to listen to Diabetes on the way home from Michigan two weeks ago and didn't finish it before I got home.  I've also, on occasion, listened to NPR while on the way to the range to target shoot, so the dichotomy is nothing new.
I've read just about every book David Sedaris has written and have enjoyed them.  This book did take a more decidedly political slant which I found a little sad.  Between that and the bizarre fictional-story end of the book, it almost seemed like his material was running thin.  I read When You Are Engulfed in Flames last year and thought it was great so I'll hold out any long-term judgement for now.

Later in the day, I got a tattoo.  This was a tattoo that was almost five years in the making, so was actually kind of momentous, but there will be plenty of time to talk about that later - maybe after it heals.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with my time off.  I have some ideas, but I probably need a day or two to decompress from work.  Sitting around sounded depressingly fine initially, but the urge to travel grows with each hour.  A plan is forming; I need to convince the weather and timing to cooperate.
It would be nice to think that weather this time of year is averagely warm and dry, but average in April really means highly variable.

In a lot of ways, waiting until the witching hour to take my vacation is not smart.  Yet, the "forced" time off this time of year is a both a good respite and good mental preparation that spring will lead to summer with more to come...