Results of Poll by Email No. 14

        Apparently, more people than I thought are missing in action, as there were
only 22 responses to last week's poll, "What are you doing this summer?" The
results are as follows:
        A. No rest for the weary: I'm working straight through summer. (9 responses,
41%)
        B. I've got the entire summer off. (1 response, 5%)
        C. I'm taking a vacation or two sometime this summer. (5 responses, 23%)
        D. Other. (6 responses, 27%)

        A good number of you seem to be chained to the grind stone this summer; Tony
Hogard asked, "What is this "vacation" of which you speak?"
        And if any of you like kids, maybe you should volunteer to babysit Jan van
Steenbergen's six-month-old baby: "Most unfortunately, the answer will be A:
working, working, working. But since I work only four days a week, this isn't
so bad after all. Perhaps we will go to Italy for a week or so in September,
but since I am not the kind of guy who plans that sort of things months in
advance, the answer will probably remain A. Besides, where do you leave a
half-year-old baby for more than a couple of days, eh?" Jan also noted that
"this is definitely the easiest question to answer since the Earliest History
of Your Polls." Curses, I'm becoming lax! Although if memory serves, Jan
submitted a couple of poll questions himself. His question is already in the
docket for Poll 15.

        Stephen Degrace wasn't sure what category he fell into; see if you can guess
why I put him in "A": "I have to finish writing my Masters thesis (in
chemistry) or I'll be literally Damned to Hell (TM). You can see I have a
very positive attitude, but I'm determined to finally get it done, and the
sooner the better!! I'm not sure whether that's A, B or D."

        Philip Newton answered "B" with his plans: "I've got nearly four weeks (most
of July) off and will be spending two of actually away: in Switzerland
visiting family."

        In the "lucky stiff" category is Michael Poxon, who answered "C": "Well, it's
actually an astrophysics conflab, but since it involves a week in Hawaii (and
NASA are paying most of my air fare) I'd say this counts as a holiday!"
        Likewise, Taliesin is spending a week in London: "I'll wear my legs of
trotting through huge museums and hunting down books that other people would
use for firewood!" So if you live in London and have some books you were
planning on burning, better hide them away until fall. :)

        Mathias announced his happy news in answering "D": "I'm getting married in
August so I'll take a few days off to prepare the ceremony. Then we'll tour
France, my fiancee insisted so I'll try to take off a whole month. The French
system is still quite good in this respect with 35 working hours a week and 7
weeks of vacation a year. Shame on us. :-) (unfortunately, I'm not entitled
to the weekly 35 hours anymore...)"
        Metthew Kehrt tried to play with my mind when he answered "D": "I'm working,
but it's not my normal state of being.  I'm in school, so this is a vacation.
;-)" Right...

        And lastly, a mea culpa to Gustavo Eulio, Carlos Thompson, Andrew Smith, and
anyone else south of the Equator, who reminded me that it is not summer
everywhere. Or, as Andrew put it, "It's too early and too cold for me to be
celebrating my summer holidays, you hyperborean imperialist! ;)  Ask me again
in November."
        Thanks to everyone who responded, and stay tuned for Poll by Email No. 15!
        :Peter

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