Planning the trip...

Ok, so I leave in a couple of weeks.  This is like a big adventure, but I'm not going into the wilderness.  No, I'm going home to visit my family and see the old sights.

But in this day and age, I live, eat, breathe, and even sleep with technology.  I am a slave to it.  

So I started looking at batteries, solar chargers, and all sorts of things to "survive" away from home for two weeks.  :))

I have a "new" camera case from Craigslist.  Brand new, and made for carry-on.  It's the ThinkTankPhoto (is that all one word???) Airport Acceleration bag.  I got a screamin' deal from the guy, who's wife got it in a promotion at the camera store here in town where she works.  This way, I will travel much like I did when coming to Alaska on a vacation way back in the early 90's; travel with "real" camera gear, not just the good ol' point-and-shoot.

I still have to partition the bag, and figure out what I am going to take with me.  The Nikon D300, and not the D2H.  (Sorry, trusty Mr. D2H.)  Of course the 18-200mm zoom, the 12-24mm zoom, 80-200mm f/2.8, and the 10mm f/2.8 fisheye.  The dilemma is the 300mm f/2.8.  Sure it will fit fine in the bag, but there is the challenge of a mono-pod or the Gitzo.  I don't think I want to (comfortably) haul one or the other of those.  I would only need it with the 300, and how often would I really use it.  I'll take the 1.4x teleconverter, and maybe even the TC-201. Ok, thinking out loud, maybe I am talking myself out of dragging the 300 along.

Then there is the laptop situation.  Of course, I'm a Mac guy.  I still have my 12" PowerBook, which is great to travel.  But I really use this 15" MacbookPro these days; actually everyday.  I have Windows (XP and Vista), as well as Ubuntu Linux on an external Firewire drive, that I can access via VMware.  

The question is, do I drag along my "work" Dell D420?  I can access my email via the web client, or through XP and Outlook 2007 on the VMware install.  I can back up all my document files to a portable drive.  But the big thing is the email archive (personal folders) on my Dell.  What if someone needed a file I had already archived? And, to clean up my server mailbox, I archive almost everything beyond a few weeks.  Ok, I am talking myself into dragging the 3.5 pound Dell along.  :((

Batteries (for everything), compact flash, SD, adapters, chargers, portable drives, and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Good thing I don't leave tomorrow.  Oh, wait, I have to pack some clothes, too.