‘LIKE a military operation!” I boasted to my brother, flourishing the book in front of him. The book was actually a sheaf of 79 pages that I had holepunched and bound up in a plastic report cover. Through the clear plastic front could be read the title: DERBYSHIRE FAMILY VACATION, 2005. Eight little divider tags told the story: “Schedule,” “Planes,” “Car hire,” “Hotels,” “Train,” “Maps,” “Addresses,” “Notes.” This was a two-week European vacation, meticulously planned, mapped, ticketed, and scheduled. We had just got as far as England at this point, and I was visiting my relatives. My brother, who actually spent 22 years of his life in Her Majesty’s armed forces, smiled cynically, and passed a sardonic remark about the usual progress of military operations. I could see he was impressed, though.
He certainly should have been. Vacations bring out the systems analyst in me. Though in daily life I am a rather slovenly, ill-organized person, the prospect of a family vacation impels me to frenzies of administrative zeal. The arrival of the Internet has made this kind of project much easier, of course. You can summon up everything-maps, ticket confirmations, train schedules-on your screen, then just print them off. That’s how I ended up with 79 pages.
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