Outlook – Read the full out of office (a.k.a. vacation) notice in Outlook

Yes, just clear any text in the message area. You will be prompted with "An automatic reply message has not been entered and will prevent automatic replies from being sent. Automatic reply rules will work. Do you want to continue without an automatic reply message?". Just click the "Yes" button and you are ready to go!

"...sometimes Outlook sends an email to yourself when you hit the 'Reply All' button. This VBA example checks the list of recipients before sending, and it removes certain addresses from it.

http://www.vboffice.net/sample.html?mnu=2&smp=81&cmd=showitem&lang=en

Private Sub RemoveRecipients(Item As Outlook.MailItem)
Dim RemoveThis As VBA.Collection
Dim Recipients As Outlook.Recipients
Dim R As Outlook.Recipient
Dim i&, y&
Set RemoveThis = New VBA.Collection

' here add addresses
RemoveThis.Add "abc@domain.de"
RemoveThis.Add "test@domain.com"

Set Recipients = Item.Recipients
For i = Recipients.Count To 1 Step -1
    Set R = Recipients.Item(i)

    For y = 1 To RemoveThis.Count
        If LCase$(R.Address) = LCase$(RemoveThis(y)) Then
            Recipients.Remove i
            Exit For
        End If
    Next
Next
End Sub

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
On Error Resume Next
RemoveRecipients Item
End Sub

If you are unfamiliar with VBA see here http://www.slipstick.com/developer/how-to-use-outlooks-vba-editor/ Or How do I add VBA in MS Office?