"Vacation From My PROBLEMS."

- Bob Wiley

We got away to the coast for Labor Day and boy howdy, did we ever need it. These tan lines are the first to speak of for the summer, if that's any indication.

We got a house in Newport, RI with a few other couples and thoroughly enjoyed a weekend without a schedule and heavy on the sandy beaches, rocky beaches, kabobs, lighthouses, great conversation, games, sand volleyball, friends, mansion walks, skim boarding attempts, salt water taffy and tandem bikes.Most great vacations are typically measured in number of seats and handle bars.You'll never believe it, but the tandem bike wasn't our nerdiest point of the trip. No, no - we hit that low early on when we suggested to the Wrides we play "name every country beginning with A, now B, now C... D... you get the picture" on our drive to Newport. That game got us 4/5ths of the way through a three-hour drive and probably 9/10ths of the way toward the Wrides refusing to ever be in a vehicle with us ever again.

But I suspect we weren't the only nerds in the bunch. There were more games of Acquire (The Game of Corporate Acquisitions - naturally) than I can count on both hands, where I learned to stick with my wicked geography and country-naming skills because my savvy planning and corporate conquest skills are sub-par. I'm clearly not cut out to be a titan of industry.

When we weren't amassing large fictional fortunes, we were contemplating how to spend real ones and dreaming about the day we'll own one of these. Or one of these.Or one of these. Or at least be good friends with someone who does. (Who was the ultimate Acquire champ? We're counting on you...)