81 days to go...

Bitching about the weather

Some random thoughts I’m pondering…

As I look outside at the blowing snow and the cold, one thought keeps entering my mind. If I get my way, I won’t ever have to see snow ‘in person’ ever again. It’s fine to look at in pictures. It’s nice if I desire to travel to get to it. But never again should it come to me.

I’m looking around my place and realizing that I really don’t have a lot of real worth. Nothing that I think anyone else will really be interested in hauling away. Just stuff I liked. The dumpsters may have a busy time coming up.

If my Great Experiment (aka ‘Living out of a backpack’) goes well, then I will work on figuring out what to dump and what to pass on to – well, lets face it I only have two friends who live close by. Don’t know what they’ll be interested in. Shelving, printer, computer, two tables. Other than that, I’m not really sure I’ve got much that anyone wants. So, it will be a matter of packing The Bag, getting a plane ticket out of here and going.

If I can handle living out of a bag.

If not, I’m really not sure what my ‘plan B’ is. Although Blacksburg, VA has some nice people in it I’ve met, it really doesn’t have a lot of interesting (to me) stuff in it. I’d much rather be in Africa, Europe or Asia. Hell, even Central America is starting to look good. They don’t get much snow on the Equator. I suppose right now my plan B is just sticking it out here until I come up with a better plan B.

I have started to think ‘Do I even want to scan my gaming stuff that I haven’t used in a long time to put on a hard drive?’ I mean, it would be nice to have but hard drives can be a bit fickle and I’m not sure how well they’d survive in a backpack. And am I ever going to be running that stuff again? I’d like to be able to run stuff while I’m traveling around – I’d just need electricity and the internet and all of my friends are literally a skype call away. Hell, skype is even free.

What if I primarily lived overseas and just popped back to the USA once or twice a year to get my medical done? Would that work? I’m not really sure. Ironically, medical reasons are what would allow me to travel yet they hold me to the USA. In my mind, the best solution would be if I were able to get socialized medicine in Europe somewhere. But getting a dual citizenship isn’t easy. They actually want you to have some sort of good reason to move to their country. Being married, being an engineer, doctor, having some sort of useful skill set. Which I really don’t. It seems I’m either stuck with the USA or Central America. I will probably have to travel down there to see Costa Rica though I’ve got to admit that I’m not drawn to it the way I am to …well… Europe, Asia and Africa.

Here are some good cowboy scenes for those into them:

Dinner with the family. Dining out. Recreation. Who says nothing good came from the 1970’s?


About the European trip:

With regards to the poncho and keeping things dry – I’m now starting to think about electronics. These days, everyone – including me – has a lot more. I’m thinking they don’t do well with water. I’ll have to figure out some extra measures to keep them dry.



Weight test:

Today I did my ‘weight test’ – carried around both my backpack and my laptop case for about an hour. Didn’t have any serious problems with them although I am concerned about the plastic clips – they feel pretty cheap on the backpack. But weight wise I was OK. I’m going to try it again once I’ve got the bag fully loaded. Due to my crappy physical health I don’t think I’m going to be able to go too much heavier on either bag. The laptop case will give me a place to carry my electronics without them getting crushed. Side note for anyone with a backpack on – you will be leaning on it. Trust me here. It will happen. If you can’t fall down on your back with the backpack on and not worry about something delicate getting crushed, you’re doing it wrong. I think the most important strap on a backpack is the waist strap – which fortunately this bag has. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the waist strap is what you can use to put the burden onto your hips instead of your shoulders. You need it.

I am also going to bring along a small bag for carrying camera and other little things when I’m wandering around. We’ll see how that goes. If I don’t use it, no big deal – it’s small and light to carry but made of canvas so that I’m not worried about someone yanking it off of me and running. If someone had my bag and ran off, my chances of catching them are about equal to being elected president in whatever country I’m in.

I’m wondering how much stuff other people will be bringing. Fortunately, I will barely be able to handle my own stuff so I don’t think I’ll get stuck lugging someone else’s stuff who wasn’t smart enough to pack light. If you are wheeling a bag over cobblestones and through the mud, you’re probably not going to be happy about it later. People who pack a lot of stuff on an extended trip usually end up throwing it out. I understand this ahead of time and will hopefully not be making that mistake.