Well, I missed it.

bob X 4 (Photo credit: jacob earl)

I know how much our faithful readers count on getting regular doses of cantankerosity and until now I’ve been committed to living up to my responsibilities here at COC. Heaven knows, somebody has to do it. Justin may be the grand visionary and slave driver but lets just say that he goes AWOL from time to time. Between the kids and the kettle bells, it is hard to keep his attention. Then, of course, there is Bob. You wouldn’t think that life in the wilds of rural Georgia would be so complicated but I’m afraid that every so often Bob goes all nuanced on us. Lately I fear he has his sights on Oprah and her wide-ranging network of influence. Becoming a network mogul keeps his eyes on the prize and distracts him from the mundane production of content. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he is trying to displace Justin.

Anyway, since I’m the only Indian left actually producing content here at COC, it is a heavy responsibility and yesterday I just flat out wimped. I had a post half written when I ran out of steam. The vim and vinegar necessary to season the post just turned to watery gruel and I had to stop. It sits there still, filed away in my computer waiting for future inspiration. I feel bad about that and I hate to go Bob and Justin on our faithful readers but it is not my fault. I have been distracted lately and I feel I must confess my lack of focus and offer an excuse.

It’s not much

when compared to Justin’s kids or Bob’s frozen pipes and it perhaps reveals that the strong focused mind that has carried me through life to this point may be failing, perhaps even drifting into senility but the faithful readers here at Coots deserve nothing less than the truth. In four weeks, this Coot, along with my long suffering wife are leaving the country to visit Europe. It’s been 40 years since either of us set foot in Europe so we are excited and anxious at the same time and it is hard to focus on business as usual..

It’s not the trip itself

Plugs look different

Making the trip isn’t what raises the concerns. We are great tourists. It’s the details. What kinds of electrical adapters will we need to power our electronics? Do we need a voltage converter for our computers. Is my Skype account set up correctly to call home and will our ATM cards work on those foreign bank machines? Will I go crazy in a cramped coach airline seat on an 11 hour flight and will the sleeping pills my doctor gave me actually allow me to sleep on the flight. And thoseare just the things I can think of.

I know that nothing that I worry about will actually be a problem. That is the major life lesson of my seven decades so far. I have pretty much learned to stop worrying about problems I can foresee. What I really worry about is the ones that don’t occur to me now. I can’t possibly prepare for them but maybe if I continue to fuss about what I do know, I will stumble over something else that really requires my thinking.

Enough for now.

I’ll close up this posts for now and promise to do my best to keep the content flowing, maybe even from the continent itself but maybe you can help me. If there are world travelers reading this, there is one thing I ask from you. Share with me the things that you never anticipated during your travels that you should have thought about before you started. I still have four weeks to work on them. It just may be enough.