all-you-can-jet day 0

if there's one thing that mystifies me more than all else, it's people's relationship to packing and travel.  i can't even begin to tell you the number of times people have asked "are you packed yet?" (or worse, "are you packing yet?") when a trip is still a number of days, if not weeks, away.

i guess people take it super-seriously, or something, but for me it's very simple -- if the trip is longer than 8 days, you know you're gonna have to do laundry and that makes it easy to travel light.

here's a pic of everything i'll be taking with me (including the clothes i'm wearing) for the next seven weeks (it's looking more and more likely that i'll cruise back from FL after the trip) followed by an exhaustive run-down of what's there (and in some cases, why):

five pair of underwear.

five pair of sox -- three synthetic and two natural. i have heavy preference for the woolies, but my incidence of athlete's foot jumps if i wear 'em every day -- they're also not practical for more extreme forms of exercise. when i wear the woolies i very commonly get comments from security ... i guess people wear boring sox.

five shirts (there's one missing from the pic right now) -- two of them are all-you-can-jets(!), four of them are long sleeve t-shirts.  planes can get bloody cold and i'm so white i'm almost transparent.  i need all the thermal and solar protection i can get.

two pair of shoes.  i'll be back home in less than a week and these exact choices for reasons that will become obvious.

one track suit.  yes, it makes me look like a puerto rican drug lord (or at least the ones i know), but it's absolutely the most comfortable thing for plane and train rides.  jacket can come on or off -- you can always curl up on the floor of an airport in it if you have to.  it's hard to tell your exact social standing, so you always get treated a bit better than the jeans-and-t-shirt crowd.

one hat.  i prefer to wear an american western style because it seems to be the most well thought out in terms of wind, rain and sun combined.  the problem is it makes you stand out a bit in the crowd and i'm not really so eager to do that in colombia ... trouble is, i can't find the hat i'd rather wear instead.

GPS, charger and mount.

hiptop, case and car/wall charger.

netbook, cover and charger.  new for this trip!  i need to start writing more, this will be a good excuse ... (hey look, i'm typing on it right now!)

camera, battery charger and spare battery.  (you'll see [some] higher quality pictures here than you do on the arch.)

a clutch of disposable razors (shaved my beard off a couple of weeks ago).

toothbrush and tooth paste.

prescription sunglasses.

whiplock.  i'm becoming more an more attached to this as time passes.

smokehood.  yes, i actually travel with one.  the vast majority of people in an airplane crash survive the immediate event -- yet over half the people die before they get out from fire/smoke inhalation.  all i can say is, i'm not gonna be one.

binoculars.  i often travel with them in europe to look at architecture and street signs in the distance.  bo3b is loaning me his pair, which i welcome with open eyes.

bandana.  it's a napkin, a tablecloth, a washcloth, a bandage, a bag, a handkerchief ... you get the idea.

not pictured: vitamins and baby aspirin.  i rarely eat "right" and it's not a bad idea to do all i can to dodge both heart attacks and thrombosis.

and, even though jet blue gives you one bag free, this is all designed to be carried-on.  the irony here is i'll be checking later today because i'll have a gift for my first host that won't make it through security.

{not going on the trip:
the deposition files from the high-tech lawsuit i've been involved with [upper right hand corner]
tower CDs from that one time that they happened to, oh, go out of business [lower right hand corner].}


my plan for the entire all-you-can-jet experience is: to take a pic on my first exit from wherever i'm staying, no further than one block from where i step outside; a "pic of the day" of something i particularly like; and a write-up of the day's events ... i'll tend not foreshadow my activities much because i think the stories will flow better without hints ...

having said that, today is going to be pretty boring.  my flight doesn't leave 'til after noon and we're going all the way to BTV, with a transfer ... i won't get in until it's technically tomorrow -- and for the most part i tend to reference my life to a 24 hour clock ...

so really what you'll mostly get is my impression of jetblue ... but for starters, maybe that's enough.

thanks for following along.  it's gonna be high fun for me -- hope i can convey at least a little of it.