Mark W. Shead

Gary Lee (www.mrgarylee.com) is running a workstation contest for people who work from home, so I thought I’d enter my photo of the work area I had setup in Mexico. (My current desk is undergoing the tax season and newborn baby insurance bill attack, so it will probably be a few weeks before I see my entire desktop again).

Anyway if you click on the photo you’ll get a bigger version and a longer description. Basically this was the setup I used when we were in Mexico. There is a cable modem behind the monitor and all of our voice and data ran through that connection. On the desk are two cell phones. One is a Blackberry with the voice part forwarded to our Vonage phone line. I used it for email. The second is a phone our friends loaned us that had a local Mexican number.

I don’t know that my workstation on the little plastic table will win any awards in the US, but for a place to work full time in our bedroom, it worked out great.  I’m a big fan of large monitors so the 24 inch flatpanel was almost a necessity. I was a little worried about being able to take it into Mexico.  If the custom’s officials thought it was a flat panel TV, I could of had a problem.  I had it packed in a large monitor bag that was designed for carrying around the big iMac.  It worked out well because the officials didn’t even try to look in the bag.

One problem I had with this setup was the folding chair I was using.  It was slightly bend so three or four times a day it would just collapse.  I’d generally catch myself before I ended up on the floor, but it kept me on my toes.  I must say that my trusty leather desk chair that I’m back to using in the US is very welcome.