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February 4, 2000
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don't leave home without it Is it traveling light if you have 39 pounds of luggage? I finished packing tonight. For pleasure trips I pack for weeks. For business I tend to put it off. So tonight I got my master packing document up, filled in the specific stuff I was going to take, eliminated stuff I didn't need for this trip (sun block, bathing suit, after five clothes, like that) and printed it out. I got everything out on the bed, picked the luggage and did it. It seems awfully heavy even though I thought I was travelling light. Forrest has to host our benefit for Project Transistions alone tomorrow night. (Well, he has two friends helping and the caterers so not really alone.) But we didn't want to make a big mess cooking so we went out. We tried to go to Peony but we couldn't find a parking place so we decided against it. I called Ella's on the cell phone and Sharon said she'd set us up. We had a simple duck broth with asparagus essence soup and a monk fish entreé with a delicious crawfish sauce and baby vegetables. Yes, we both ordered the same thing. Rare indeed. I got right to my packing when I got home. Even though it's a business trip I decided to take my Nikon Nuvis-S, a tiny APS camera. I got it at Precision Camera. I like the people there, know the owners and I've purchased a couple of cameras, a couple of digital cameras, a color printer (Epson Stylus Photo EX) and a scanner from them. I just ask what's right for me and buy it. Saves research. Heck, they delivered the printer when they got one in and I really like it. I wish there were a computer store where one could get similar good advice, even if one paid a little more. Don't get me started on CompUSA. Of course, if you know what you want or want to research it, you can buy stuff on-line. Anyway, the point of all that is that in the middle of packing I decided I needed a spare battery for it and sent Forrest to Eckerd's. He's so sweet. While I was packing, Forrest sat in the big room sorting the magazines piled up on the end tables. He made a huge pile of ones he would consign to recycling. After I finished packing, I went through them and put them in grocery sacks for recycling day. I only rescued a couple of The New Yorker issues and one New York Times Magazine. I always look at the Table of Contents in The New Yorker before dumping one. The result is that I occasionally find decades old copies that I've saved through many purges, intending to read something. Know what? In 1991, every ad didn't have a WEB address. He was watching one of those new quiz shows while he straightened things. You know...the ones where they have question about jello flavors or Koolaid flavors. Quiz shows are hot all of a sudden. Yawn. So now I have to travel tomorrow and get to Amsterdam on Sunday and then we go somewhere else for our first meeting Monday. Sigh. I think I'll take a nice dog walk early to relax a little. At lunch today, SuRu and I ate at Edge City Café which I really like. The tuna steak salad with basalmic vinegar is really tasty. The flaky roll they serve with it always busts my attempts at low-carb (it's very tasty), however, and I always seem to end up with little brown decorations on my shirt. Today was no different. I succumbed to the roll and decorated my shirt. Fortunately, it was a rag bag shirt, something I rescued from the charity sack when Forrest grew larger but so did I. Wasn't it nice of him to have once worn a size that now fit me? Hopefully, Shamrock Cleaners will remove the little vinegar spots and this one will see another wearing. Wandered through Barnes & Noble after lunch. Sometimes when I'm going on a trip, I look for books through a special filter: small and intense. Computer books are good for this as even a skinny one can occupy you for quite a while. However, you have to reject things like 'ISDN Primer' and 'SAP R/3 in Ten Minutes.' I ended up with an amusing little book about Java I'll probably never read. Well I'll disappear for a few days. But I hope to update you, when I return, on what I see between business meetings . Happy Valentine's Day. |
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"What's the
use of worrying? George H. Powell |
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grand tour |
