Perhaps the three most disturbing phrase in the English language is one day of vacation left. Now it beckons like an executioner watching a condemned man approach the gallows.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, following a wicked storm that choked off power to many areas in New Jersey–including work, this is my vacation retrospective:

Electricity and running water, ticket stubs for Crazy Heart and Alice, a freezer full of fish sticks, a roll of toilet paper ( unused ), half bottle of gin, a cherry red tandem coffee maker, a diagram which shows the connections between the characters in next Mike Brody novel, a stack of index cards ( one card per scene, each card documents one plot point ), unfinished outline.

And cat hair. Lots of cat hair.

A relative recently posted a picture on her Wall in Facebook, and it stirred a lot of memories–and not just because one person in the photograph died three years back.

More notable than the picture surriving in storage, and the tremendous changes everyone in the picture experienced over the years, were the response from everyone after the shot circulated amongst friends and family. Of the six living people in the photograph, five commented multiple times.

Now there are plans to take the photograph again this summer, and strike similar poses, but hopefully with a collective awareness of current fashion trends and hairstyles.

When we do reshoot this summer, I’ll post the photos side by side.

Until then, behold the over the calf socks, big hair and tragic footwear:

After years or dutiful service my Treo cellphone died. An unexpected static shock shorted out the display.

Technically Treo still worked, incoming calls worked–a testament to its smart construction and design–right up until the moment of activating my new love, the Baybeh 9700 ( Blackberry Bold 9700 ).

After several days of relentless use, I must note that Baybeh 9700 is the finest Blackberry ever encountered. Though my main phone was the Treo, I’ve handled all sorts of devices in the course of duty at my day job. It’s light; it’s responsive and it just works–right out of the box.

Every weakness of the Blackberry in years past has been resolved. Configuring it to use any mail server and without paying for a Blackberry Enterprise Server license? Enter the email address and password and Baybeh does the rest. Low battery charge capacity? I can run this phone full out all day with all kinds of applications humming and it’s still over three quarters capacity. Poor camera resolution? 3.2 megapixels, bright flash and ways to override the automatic settings.

And speaking of the camera, behold my beloved Oedipus:

And so farewell, Treo. Hello Baybeh 9700.

To all my friends who are die hard Saints fans ( and were for years, and will be forever ) congrats! Who dat? Yeah, that’s who just did it!