Hippo, birdie, two ewes...

...to sexybass!! Have a good one!

And to everyone I missed while away from my home browser over the last week, I hope yours were good, too.

Travels with Plink and Rolly [part 3]

Wednesday at Mom's was fairly quiet -- breakfast with the Hochstuls[sp?], a Mac demo, a firedrill, an outing to A Southern Season, buffet dinner with the Rodins (family friends and neighbors from back in Connecticut), a Mac demo, and ending with sitting in the living room jeering at Bush's speech. I love my Mom!

Thursday was mostly spent getting ready to go; easy because I was already packed from the night before. I had a three-hour layover in Atlanta; since I hadn't had much exercise and since the airport is nearly a mile long (6 terminals with 1000' between them, and an underground corridor that runs the full length) I got in almost 4 miles worth of walking before I settled down to some Chinese fast food and a bit of work on the laptop.

My reading on the plane was Stars, edited by Janis Ian and Mike Resnick. Excellent; I'm about 2/3 of the way through it.

Finally got home to my family, and hugs. I like traveling, but... Had a late but fantastic home-cooked dinner of chicken and dumplings, a nice hot bath, evicted the stuffies from my side of the bed, and a good long snuggle with my flower_cat.

Got up at 5am, of course, due to the time change. Used it all catching up with LJ and Groklaw. I definitely need to cut back on blog reading -- I need to get some stuff done this year. I'll prune when I get home this evening.

Travels with Plink and Rolly [part 4: gear]

I'm still not really satisfied with my travelling gear, but I don't think a whole lot of changes are needed to make it work well for me. But let's go through it piece-by-piece.

Plink: My little Vagabond travel guitar worked just fine, of course. It fits easily in the overhead compartments on most planes. The only problem would come about if the plane is very crowded -- it really has to go in back. It does not really fit in Delta's box, though it used to when they had an extension for garment bags. I lied and told them "it fit the last time I checked." I brought a little amp intended for MP3 players, but never had occasion to try it. (update 1/14 it doesn't work. Not really surprising) One of the tiny guitar amps would probably be smaller and would actually work better.

On the way back I found that Plink's side compartment holds a thick paperback, and that it's convenient to wrap my coat around it and hold it on by tying the arms. Provides a little extra padding.

Rolly: My Travelpro rolling briefcase just barely fits under an airplane seat. And it has to, because Plink doesn't. In most cases it has to go sideways, too, which makes it harder to get at. On the way out it actually didn't fit until I pulled out the phones, my shoulder bag, and the Science magazines. Things fit much better on the other two legs of the trip, but it was still a bit marginal. I think that if I get a bigger suitcase and take all of the miscellaneous cables and other electronic gear out when travelling, it will work OK.

Plink and Rolly go well together -- wrapping Plink's strap around Rolly's handle results in a convenient stack, though it makes it a little difficult to get at the computer.

Headphones: My Vic Firth headphones performed admirably in the air, blocking most of the engine noise. Delightful. The only real problems are that they're uncomfortable to wear for more than 45 minutes or so at a time, and that they're very bulky. I usually dealt with the latter by pulling them out of the rolly and putting them in the literature pocket in front of me. Not entirely satisfactory.

Recording gear: I brought the Edirol UA25 and a couple of microphones, but never used them. Still too much trouble to haul them out, set them up, find a place to perch the laptop, and fiddle with settings. For circles and audience-recorded concerts, I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and get a recorder. Or build one. The little Zoom H4 flash recorder is starting to look tempting again. It was probably a mistake to pack the UA25 in the Rolly for travel.

Suitcase: I probably need a bigger suitcase. Everything fit, but it was pretty tight, especially going out. A little more space would let me pack things like the UA25 and a lot of the other junk that I had in the Rolly but didn't need on the plane.