Multi-tasking Gone Wild

* * *COUNTDOWN: 8 DAYS TO LA/XC-4 * * *

You start recognizing the things on your to-do list that you really can’t afford to not get done when you’re up against a hard deadline.  And I’m there — with a cross-country road trip that really needs to start early Friday morning, March 27.  My internal ticker has already begun the triage:  Get over to UPS to return those hideous white Oakley sunglasses with the Day-Glo orange lenses?  Not gonna happen.  Go to the pet store for a couple of bags of Kemba’s low-fat kibble?  Damn well better happen.

For the most part, this last-week pressure has made me sharp and efficient over the past few days.  Although last night . . . I might have gone overboard.  Driving home from Hartford after teaching my penultimate writing class of the winter term, I was simultaneously a.) keeping track of the North Florida-Robert Morris NCAA play-in game (all right, First Four game) on Sirius; b.) trying to locate the UConn-Arizona State N.I.T. game on AM radio, which I never found — probably because they don’t bother broadcasting Not In Tournament games; c.) listening to country music on my iPod; d.) testing out my new Olympus voice recorder that I just bought specially for LA/XC-4; e.) familiarizing myself with the Waze app for GPS and traffic, since my son Greg swears you have to be insane not to use it, and f.) trying to place phone calls to my wife, who was on a business trip in Nashville, and g.) to my old buddy Jeff, who lives in Virginia.  Now I know that multi-tasking isn’t the safest thing to do while driving — and it also happens to be something I’m not especially good at.  But things were going fine.  Until I reached Jeff on the phone.

I’d called him because my first 3 days of LA/XC-4 are projected to take me through Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Smoky Mountains — all areas Jeff knows well.  He was tipping me off on where to stop and what to see and who to call . . . all the intel I needed.  When we signed off, I noticed it was almost 9:30, and I was thinking — shouldn’t I be home by now?  Then I saw I was entering Darien.  I had overshot Westport by two towns.  So much for multi-tasking.  More to the point, I hope this isn’t a harbinger for my navigation as I drive across the country.

So this is the part where I tell you that much as I love my dog’s company, it sometimes can get lonely out there on the open road.  So please follow my progress on Beagle Man, and check in with your “Comments” from time to time.  Love to see ’em!  I know Robby will tell me this is like begging for likes on Instagram, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

LOOK FOR A NEW BEAGLE MAN POST EVERY THURSDAY.  OR PRETTY CLOSE TO THURSDAY.  COULD BE WEDNESDAY.  OR FRIDAY.  LET’S NOT GET TOO OBSESSIVE HERE . . .  OH, AND BTW, YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK,  TWITTER, AND INSTAGRAM.