Greensboring.com | Greensboro, NC

Adjustment at arriving home has been filled with some interesting dilemmas. For instance, the other day at Greensboro Imaging, I was asked four times, by four different people "you ain't from around here are you?" Mind you, this phenomenon did not occur (or at least as often) before my departure. I'm not even sure how to answer that. I've lived hear for nearly a decade, and grew up here during a good-part of my childhood. Also, this isn't a one off occurrence, it's been happening daily. I'm a tourist in my own home. I'm an EFFING TOURIST!

I think I just want to go home.

Perhaps it has something to do with being Allocentric. Yes, there's finally a name for me. There's two types of people in this world- Psycocentrics and Allocentrics. Psychocentrics are tourists who typically go to the same resort over and over again, choose safe, local, American locations, and like bundled packages. Allocentrics (meaning varied) love far off places, exotic locales, and forging the path to wild and new places. Some of us even immigrate into these cultures even when we're forced to return home, and when we do, we bring that part of us back. Perhaps where I'm from, at least partially is Belgian (or at least European)?

But this "issue" is not why I decided to write tonight. It was some interesting personality traits of the psychocentric personality in Stanley C. Plog's "Why Destination Areas Rise and Fall in Popularity" that really made me see, today's American (or most), as psychocentric:

As a result of this research, we developed a number of hypotheses which we wanted to test:

Non-flyers are fearful or anxious individuals who fear many things in their lives, not just flying.
People who do not fly are also non-adventuresome in other life areas.
People who do not fly also do not travel by other means of transportation.
Non-flyers did no travel as much as flyers when they were children.
Non-flyers generally feel ineffective in dealing with many areas of their lives.

Those last two say a lot to me. If you don't travel with your children, then you''re basically dooming them to an un-adventuresome life that they can't deal with.

These and other hypotheses about the non-flyer were tested and found to be true in the research.

But it gets for worse for those of you committed to a bi-monthly trip to Myrtle Beach:

Pychocentric is a heavy television watcher and especially contributes to most of the high ratings of the top ten shows on television. The Allocentric, on the other hand, is much more print-media oriented, prefering magazines and newspapers, and he watches television less.

Now before you grab your latest I-Phone 5 and send me hate mail, consider this:

Allocentrics... are also pragmatic and practical. New products which sound gimmicky or without quality or substance do not appeal to them. A product must have inherent worth and offer an important advantage over an existing product.

So by nature, I'm a tourist... and I love to run, to explore, to be more. I'm okay with that. Now if I can just find my way back home.

I only spent significant time away from here while in Mississippi. So not different at all, really. Except perhaps for the size of the skeeters. The place I'd love to spend significant time trying to make a living would be Maui. Alas, they appear to he very little use there for the likes of me.

Have you thought of Bermuda? There is a regular demand for IT folk to go work there on contract, the salaries aren't super high but there's no income tax and the fringe benefits are good

I do intend to visit there some day. After all, it's more or less a straight shot east of NC...

That's where the sensible NCers live.

And considering how many such people exist, the island is certainly right-sized. LOL!

And where else could you go to work dressed in pink shorts?

A Person wrote:And where else could you go to work dressed in pink shorts?

Maui. Duh.

I'm such a stationary tourist. I was supposed to fly west last night to sign papers over the house sale, then on to London next week. First my flight was delayed, so I went to the airport to find it had been cancelled. I rebooked for tonight and now this flight has been delayed - I'll have to go to the airport to see if it's cancelled

Yeah wouldn't want to have to be somewhere this week with the NE storm.

A Person wrote:I'm such a stationary tourist. I was supposed to fly west last night to sign papers over the house sale, then on to London next week. First my flight was delayed, so I went to the airport to find it had been cancelled. I rebooked for tonight and now this flight has been delayed - I'll have to go to the airport to see if it's cancelled

Wait -- what sort of world are you living in where you can't check flight status over the Interwebs? Or even the phone?

That only works when the airline provides accurate and timely announcements. On Friday they said it was delayed - and then changed the status when I got there. On Saturday it was showing delayed but I'm 45 minutes from the airport - a lot can happen in that 45 in that time. I was able to rebook my flight online at the airport, but the cell covering the airport was overloaded with people all doing the same - and so it kept timing out