This week's Friday Five -- vacations

Every Friday, a set of five personal questions are posted at the Friday Five website, as a sort of conversation starter for bloggers. I'll give it a try -- maybe I'll do it most weeks.

1. How are you planning to spend the summer [winter]?

Working on a couple of high-priority projects at my job. Playing with the kids. Swimming with the family at the neighborhood pool. Keeping nature from utterly reclaiming our yard. And for the next week or so, trying to influence Tulsa's Dialog / Visioning leadership team to come up with a plan that I won't feel compelled to oppose.

2. What was your first summer job?

A programmer for Valuation Systems Company, writing depreciation software in BASIC for Wang and TRS-80 computers. The office was on the 30th floor of University Club Tower, south of downtown Tulsa, with great views of the entire city. I was making $6 an hour without having to sweat, and the fridge had all the free pop I could drink. That job spoiled me for life. It certainly spoiled the expectations I had of life in the software business.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer [winter], where would you go?

Paris, not withstanding the French. My son, nearly 7, has been hearing about Paris from his art teacher, and he wants to see the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and most of all, the Louvre, to see all the art works he's been studying at school. It would be a thrill to take him there and to see it for myself for the first time.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?

Hard to say, because any vacation that involved traveling to new places had something to commend it to me.

5. What was your best vacation ever?

Another tough one.

The "Rest and Be Thankful Tour" -- our June 1994 trip to Scotland and Ulster -- has to be near the top of the list, along with our return to Ulster in September 1995. We stayed at this B&B on both trips, hosted by some of the nicest people we've ever met.

Those were both before kids. A favorite family vacation was our trip to Florida last fall, which included Sea World, Kennedy Space Center, a week on the beach at Siesta Key, and a visit to friends in Fort Lauderdale.