In the Garden, and Trouble at Gino’s

We’re home!

I’ll probably have more to write about our trip in the future, but at the moment it’s all so overwhelming. There’s so much to tell — where do I begin?

Kris caught a cold in New York, and so has spent the last several days under the weather. I, on the other hand, am full of energy and ideas. After visiting so many beautiful places on our trip, I decided it was a shame that we don’t make Rosings Park everthing it could be.

For example, we visited Jane Austen’s house at Chawton, just south of London. While the house itself was rather unremarkable, I loved the yard. (Or “garden”, as the British call it.) It reminded me that outside spaces can, with creativity, be turned into “rooms” of sorts.

“I want to do that with our yard,” I told Kris.

“Fine,” she said. “As long as the house is still screened from the road.”

I rose early on Saturday, and one of the first things I did was begin ripping out the undergrowth and dead wood from the shrubbery in front of the house. It had occurred to me that there was enough space in this spot to create a sort of quiet reading place. It’s near the road, true, but it’s shielded enough by holly and laurel to be relatively private. (And our road has light traffic, anyhow.)

At first I had planned to rip out the huge laurel near the house, but after spending an hour inside the grove (as I’ve come to call it), it was clear that the laurel was actually responsible for both screening the house from the road and providing a good deal of shade. Besides, after clearing away all the other crap inside the grove, there’s a large open space perfect for my intentions.

So now I’ve cleared an open area in the shrubbery in front of the house. The next step is to determine exactly what to do with it. Do I lay down some gravel? Some paving stones? Leave the hard ground as it is? Do I build a bench? Buy some outdoor furniture from Craigslist? Do I need to plant another bush or hedge to screen the grove from the road?

It also occurred to me that it’s ridiculous that I haven’t finished my horseshoe pits. I started that project nearly eighteen months ago, did about two-thirds of the work required, and then stopped. The area had become overgrown with blackberries, cherries, and locusts. So, I took the time on Saturday to pull these invasive plants up by the roots. There’s still a lot of work left to finish the job, but at least the area’s presentable now.

On top of these two projects, there are two similar jobs I want to do. Underneath our redwood tree is a perfect space for a bench to overlook the side yard. Right now, though, the space is filled with three years of branches from trees and shrubs. We need to rent a chipper and clear this space. Finally, behind the smoking porch is another section of overgrown shrubbery, beneath which could be another nice sitting area. The trick here is that the compost pile is just outside the space, and will have to be moved (where?) in order for it to be usable.

So, I’ve been busy working outside. The camellias need pruning, as do several other hedges. The lawn needs to be mowed. (In August? Unheard of!) Often I view this sort of work as a burden, but now, because I have a goal, it’s fun. This is what I want to be doing. I’m even working on these projects at the expense of my web sites.

Paul and Amy Jo have moved into the neighborhood. They’ve purchased a house about a mile down the road, and are in the process of gutting it. They dropped by our place last night to pick up some stuff (Rosings Park is acting as one staging ground for them), and we convinced them to help make pickles and then to go for dinner at Gino’s.

Gino’s is our current favorite restaurant. It’s not cheap, but it’s not expensive either. The food is excellent, and generally the service is as well. Last night, though, was a different story. For whatever reason, the place was slammed at 7:30, despite the fact it was a Monday night. The restaurant was understaffed (and some of the staff that was there was new). This made for a very frustrating dining experience.

We arrived at 7:30. We were seated at 7:54. It took forever for anyone to take our drink order, let alone the order for our meal. We received our appetizers at 8:32. We didn’t receive our meal until 9:09, more than ninety minutes after we had arrived. As I say: a very frustrating experience.

This has not, however, soured us on the place. The food was excellent, as usual, and there was no question that the restaurant was far, far busier than anyone had expected. If we hadn’t been so damn hungry, the wait might not have even been an issue.

An Englishman in New York

O Foldedspacians — the few, the proud, the brave. I have no idea if this entry can even be posted once I reach New York, but at least I’ll give it a try. We’re over the Atlantic Ocean, due south of Iceland, literally chasing the sunset. We left London Heathrow at 20:30 local time and are scheduled to land at New York JFK at 22:38. What that means is a two hour sunset stretched to seven hours in length. Of course all I can see is an ocean of clouds below — we’re cruising at 9,753 meters (32,000 feet for those of you in Oregon City).

When we land, we’ll still have two or three hours of Stuff before we’re actually able to get to sleep (at 1 or 2 Eastern — 10 or 11 Pacific). Basically, we’ll have been up for 24 hours straight!

Why haven’t I posted sooner? The reality is I haven’t had time to post before now. I have five hours of down time now before we land. That’s the largest block of time I’ve had since the flight from Portland to London. As a guy who likes his alone time, you can imagine how I must feel.

So how has our trip been? It’s been great, but not without bumpy spots. It’s been l-o-n-g, that much is for sure. And I miss the cats. Even Toto.

We arrived in London on the 15th of July and spent a couple days hitting all the major tourist sites. We saw Big Ben. We saw Westminster Abbey. We saw the London Eye. It was awesome to be in the presence of such history. I love the juxtaposition of the modern with the ancient. I loved seeing sights I’d only read about in books.

My feet hurt for the first several days. I heeded advice from a close friend — Dave, I’m looking at you — that said, “Don’t wear sneakers in London. You’ll stick out as a tourist.” First of all, I was traveling with Kris’ parents, who graciously funded this trip, but who are dead giveaways as tourists. Secondly, there are plenty of Londoners who wear “trainers”. Sure, they don’t wear them to the office, but so what? They wear them because they’re comfortable. Based on the advice I’d received, I picked up a new pair of shoes before the trip. Big mistake. My feet hurt for the first 50 miles.

Since I’ve walked a lot on this trip, however, the shoes were eventually broken in. I’m over 120 miles on them now in sixteen days, with more to go in New York. I hope to have clocked 150 miles by the time we fly home on Friday.

The walking has actually been the highlight of the trip. The best times have been those where I’ve left the group and wandered off on my own, strolling across London or Dublin, setting my own pace.


My favorite part of the trip so far: Avebury

Another highlight was the three-day car trip we took across the English countryside. Despite the great things we saw, London was mostly underwhelming. It all seemed so ordinary. I’d expected more. The English countryside, however, did not disappoint. Again Dave was the purveyor of misinformation. (Dave, it’s almost like your trip to England was to a different country.) He’d warned that driving in the U.K. was a surreal affair, with narrow unmarked country roads and confusing roundabouts.

There were many roundabouts, it’s true, but we found the roads well-marked. There were places with narrow roads, too, but they were mainly in the villages, and these spots were plainly marked to indicate who yielded to whom. In fact, Tiffany (my navigator) and I came to prefer driving in the U.K. to driving in the U.S. The traffic laws make sense. I wish I could be more articulate, but I can’t. Everything seemed obvious and we wondered why Americans haven’t adopted certain practices. I also found British drivers pleasantly polite.

Now Irish drivers — that’s another matter. Everything Dave had told me about driving in Britain certainly applies to Ireland. I can’t imagine a worse hell than driving in Dublin. (Note: I didn’t actually do any driving in Ireland, but I walked many miles through Dublin, and took all sorts of rail and bus tours across the country.)

Here’s where I had a completely different experience from another set of friends. Paul and Amy Jo visited Ireland a year or two ago and they loved it. I was nonplused. Dublin seems like Portland, but dirtier and with a little more history. Ireland seems like Oregon, but with a better climate. (Meaning it’s cool and showery, even in the summer.)


The Irish countryside is beautiful — very much like Oregon.

We found the Irish people rather surly, especially as drivers. They were worse than American drivers! The Irish are also very dirty. The country has an annual “clean towns” contest. This contest isn’t there because the towns are naturally clean — no, it’s because of the opposite, in fact. It’s meant as positive encouragement to clean up the mess. We visited a town that had won the “cleanest town” award several times (Killarney maybe?) and I had to laugh at how messy the streets were. The Irish particularly have a problem with chewing gum. The sidewalks of Dublin are pockmarked with the stuff. It’s bizarre. There’s a country-wide campaign to deal with the problem, but it doesn’t help.

Also, the Irish drink. A lot. But then you probably knew that. They also smoke like crazy. I thought London was filled with smokers, but it’s nothing compared to the near constant presence of cigarettes in Dublin.

I’m sure that Ireland has its charms, but we saw few of them. I don’t mean to make it sound like a bad experience, because it certainly wasn’t. It just wasn’t what I had expected. It was like something out of a depressing U2 song.

We’d also heard bad things about the food in both England and Ireland, but again we found these notions to be false. The quality of the food was good in both places. It’s the selection that is lacking. Dining out in both countries centers around the pub, which is well and good if it’s a once or twice per week thing, but when it’s every day (twice a day), it gets old. Ploughman’s? Jacket potatoes? Fish and chips? Mmmm…. Which one haven’t I had in 24 hours?

(I have to confess that the pub around the corner from our London hotel has an awesome dessert: a Texas fudge cake (a common dessert in both countries) surrounded by warm vanilla pudding. Y-u-m-m-o.)

I’m sure this sounds mostly like complaining, but I don’t mean it to. I’ve had a good time. I’m glad to have seen these two countries, or parts of them anyhow. I’m grateful to Chris and Claudia for heavily subsidizing this vacation.

When I return, though — and I will return — I’m going to do things differently. I’m not going to Ireland (unless Paul and Amy Jo are able to provide persuasive proof that I ought to try again). I’m going to focus most of my time on rural England, which is what I truly loved visiting.

Now, however, it’s time to turn our attentions on New York. We have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the city (as well as a bit of Friday, I believe). We’ll lose much of tomorrow to sleeping in (I hope). Thursday is spent at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. And one night we’re scheduled to go see Wicked. That leaves us about a day-and-a-half to pack in the rest of the city. It’s not going to happen, of course, but we can give it a shot.

Meanwhile, Anil is still working on trying to get this weblog repaired. I appreciate his help. I hope to have things working by mid-August. If things stay broken, I’m just going to pack everything off to WordPress.

I hope you’re all doing well. I miss my kitties…

p.s. My fantasies of surviving a mid-air catastrophe over the Atlantic Ocean are just that: fantasies. (You wouldn’t believe how much imaginative time I’ve put into this scenario.) It’s frickin’ cold up here — -53 degrees centigrade. (Those of you in Oregon City will have to convert that number yourselves…)

An Englishman in New York

O Foldedspacians — the few, the proud, the brave. I have no idea if this entry can even be posted once I reach New York, but at least I’ll give it a try. We’re over the Atlantic Ocean, due south of Iceland, literally chasing the sunset. We left London Heathrow at 20:30 local time and are scheduled to land at New York JFK at 22:38. What that means is a two hour sunset stretched to seven hours in length. Of course all I can see is an ocean of clouds below — we’re cruising at 9,753 meters (32,000 feet for those of you in Oregon City).

When we land, we’ll still have two or three hours of Stuff before we’re actually able to get to sleep (at 1 or 2 Eastern — 10 or 11 Pacific). Basically, we’ll have been up for 24 hours straight!

Why haven’t I posted sooner? The reality is I haven’t had time to post before now. I have five hours of down time now before we land. That’s the largest block of time I’ve had since the flight from Portland to London. As a guy who likes his alone time, you can imagine how I must feel.

So how has our trip been? It’s been great, but not without bumpy spots. It’s been l-o-n-g, that much is for sure. And I miss the cats. Even Toto.

We arrived in London on the 15th of July and spent a couple days hitting all the major tourist sites. We saw Big Ben. We saw Westminster Abbey. We saw the London Eye. It was awesome to be in the presence of such history. I love the juxtaposition of the modern with the ancient. I loved seeing sights I’d only read about in books.

My feet hurt for the first several days. I heeded advice from a close friend — Dave, I’m looking at you — that said, “Don’t wear sneakers in London. You’ll stick out as a tourist.” First of all, I was traveling with Kris’ parents, who graciously funded this trip, but who are dead giveaways as tourists. Secondly, there are plenty of Londoners who wear “trainers”. Sure, they don’t wear them to the office, but so what? They wear them because they’re comfortable. Based on the advice I’d received, I picked up a new pair of shoes before the trip. Big mistake. My feet hurt for the first 50 miles.

Since I’ve walked a lot on this trip, however, the shoes were eventually broken in. I’m over 120 miles on them now in sixteen days, with more to go in New York. I hope to have clocked 150 miles by the time we fly home on Friday.

The walking has actually been the highlight of the trip. The best times have been those where I’ve left the group and wandered off on my own, strolling across London or Dublin, setting my own pace.


My favorite part of the trip so far: Avebury

Another highlight was the three-day car trip we took across the English countryside. Despite the great things we saw, London was mostly underwhelming. It all seemed so ordinary. I’d expected more. The English countryside, however, did not disappoint. Again Dave was the purveyor of misinformation. (Dave, it’s almost like your trip to England was to a different country.) He’d warned that driving in the U.K. was a surreal affair, with narrow unmarked country roads and confusing roundabouts.

There were many roundabouts, it’s true, but we found the roads well-marked. There were places with narrow roads, too, but they were mainly in the villages, and these spots were plainly marked to indicate who yielded to whom. In fact, Tiffany (my navigator) and I came to prefer driving in the U.K. to driving in the U.S. The traffic laws make sense. I wish I could be more articulate, but I can’t. Everything seemed obvious and we wondered why Americans haven’t adopted certain practices. I also found British drivers pleasantly polite.

Now Irish drivers — that’s another matter. Everything Dave had told me about driving in Britain certainly applies to Ireland. I can’t imagine a worse hell than driving in Dublin. (Note: I didn’t actually do any driving in Ireland, but I walked many miles through Dublin, and took all sorts of rail and bus tours across the country.)

Here’s where I had a completely different experience from another set of friends. Paul and Amy Jo visited Ireland a year or two ago and they loved it. I was nonplused. Dublin seems like Portland, but dirtier and with a little more history. Ireland seems like Oregon, but with a better climate. (Meaning it’s cool and showery, even in the summer.)


The Irish countryside is beautiful — very much like Oregon.

We found the Irish people rather surly, especially as drivers. They were worse than American drivers! The Irish are also very dirty. The country has an annual “clean towns” contest. This contest isn’t there because the towns are naturally clean — no, it’s because of the opposite, in fact. It’s meant as positive encouragement to clean up the mess. We visited a town that had won the “cleanest town” award several times (Killarney maybe?) and I had to laugh at how messy the streets were. The Irish particularly have a problem with chewing gum. The sidewalks of Dublin are pockmarked with the stuff. It’s bizarre. There’s a country-wide campaign to deal with the problem, but it doesn’t help.

Also, the Irish drink. A lot. But then you probably knew that. They also smoke like crazy. I thought London was filled with smokers, but it’s nothing compared to the near constant presence of cigarettes in Dublin.

I’m sure that Ireland has its charms, but we saw few of them. I don’t mean to make it sound like a bad experience, because it certainly wasn’t. It just wasn’t what I had expected. It was like something out of a depressing U2 song.

We’d also heard bad things about the food in both England and Ireland, but again we found these notions to be false. The quality of the food was good in both places. It’s the selection that is lacking. Dining out in both countries centers around the pub, which is well and good if it’s a once or twice per week thing, but when it’s every day (twice a day), it gets old. Ploughman’s? Jacket potatoes? Fish and chips? Mmmm…. Which one haven’t I had in 24 hours?

(I have to confess that the pub around the corner from our London hotel has an awesome dessert: a Texas fudge cake (a common dessert in both countries) surrounded by warm vanilla pudding. Y-u-m-m-o.)

I’m sure this sounds mostly like complaining, but I don’t mean it to. I’ve had a good time. I’m glad to have seen these two countries, or parts of them anyhow. I’m grateful to Chris and Claudia for heavily subsidizing this vacation.

When I return, though — and I will return — I’m going to do things differently. I’m not going to Ireland (unless Paul and Amy Jo are able to provide persuasive proof that I ought to try again). I’m going to focus most of my time on rural England, which is what I truly loved visiting.

Now, however, it’s time to turn our attentions on New York. We have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the city (as well as a bit of Friday, I believe). We’ll lose much of tomorrow to sleeping in (I hope). Thursday is spent at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. And one night we’re scheduled to go see Wicked. That leaves us about a day-and-a-half to pack in the rest of the city. It’s not going to happen, of course, but we can give it a shot.

Meanwhile, Anil is still working on trying to get this weblog repaired. I appreciate his help. I hope to have things working by mid-August. If things stay broken, I’m just going to pack everything off to WordPress.

I hope you’re all doing well. I miss my kitties…

p.s. My fantasies of surviving a mid-air catastrophe over the Atlantic Ocean are just that: fantasies. (You wouldn’t believe how much imaginative time I’ve put into this scenario.) It’s frickin’ cold up here — -53 degrees centigrade. (Those of you in Oregon City will have to convert that number yourselves…)

Fly Like an Eagle

We’re off!

Matt is safely ensconced as housesitter (soon to be relieved by Paul and Amy Jo), Get Rich Slowly has four weeks’ worth of posts scheduled (just in case I don’t feel like writing upon return), and everything is packed.

Upon the advice of many, I’ve put almost everything into a single carry-on sized suitcase (which I do plan to check, actually). The stuff I want for the plane ride is in a backpack with an extra set of clothes.

I’m bringing a minimum of gadgetry. That is to say, I’m probably taking more gadgets than you would take, but less than my natural instincts dictate. I have a digital camera. I have an iPod. And I have the small Mac laptop, which I haven’t really used since last November. (That’s when I got my large MacBook Pro — that beast isn’t travel-worthy.)

If I ever travel regularly, which I hope to do some day, this will be Too Much Stuff. But it’s a start. It’s much less than I took to San Francisco last fall.

If all goes well — and my blog software doesn’t hang — I’ll be making posts from the road. Video posts even!

Take care, my friends. See you in three weeks…

Whose Line?

Here’s one last batch o’ fun before our vacation. I’ve spent far too much time over the past few weeks watching old Whose Line Is It Anyway? clips at YouTube. Here are some of my favorites.


Helping Hands


Songs About Marriage


Newscasters — Hillbilly Woman


Sound Effects: Tarzan and Jane


Songs of the Cowboy


Bartender


Butterstick

Tears. falling. from. eyes.

World of Warcraft on an iPhone

Okay, so I don’t play World of Warcraft anymore, and I’ve resisted the urge to buy an iPhone. But this video is like an absolute geek fantasy:

Don’t you get it? He’s playing World of Warcraft on his iPhone! Wow! The future is now, baby. I want an iPhone so bad, but Im going to wait. I don’t want the phone part. I want all the other parts. And I’ll bet dollars to donuts that a similar non-phone device will be released by the end of the year…

A Reasonable Explanation for My Absence

Whew.

It’s been a long time since I posted, I know. I’m not abandoning this site, despite all appearances. I’ve just been swamped. It’s not a state I relish, and I’m glad that there’s an end in sight. (We leave for Europe on the 14th, so the busy-ness is going to come to an end on that date, whether the world is ready or not!)

Here’s a partial list of things that have kept me occupied:

  • This blog. Behind the scenes, I’m working to get things repaired. Anil is working on the old database. Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out what is slowing down the current database. These two problems make me want to switch to WordPress, but Anil is lobbying for an upgrade to the latest version of Movable Type. I know this is gobble-dee-gook to most of you, but translated it basically means: there are technical problems with foldedspace that I’m attempting to resolve.
  • Life and death. My cousin Ron died last Sunday. He was 46. The cancer that curses our family took him. (This is why I’m so anxious to get a colonoscopy now despite assurances that it’s not necessary until I am 50.) Ron’s death was not unexpected, but unwelcome nonetheless. Nick has been spending much of his time with the family, which means he doesn’t have time for Custom Box.
  • Custom Box Service. Speaking of the box factory, we’re busy. July is not a busy month, but it is this year. To top things off, our truck driver is in jail. This is bad news because he’s an awesome employee. Jeff has done a great job filling in for him, but the fact remains that we need to hire a replacement. We’ve had no luck with Craigslist, so we’ll turn to the newspapers. When we have time. Which we don’t. Because Nick has been taking care of family matters while Jeff has been driving, leaving me alone in the office. On a normal day, this is just a minor nuisance. But now, when we’re busy, it’s a frickin’ pain in the ass.
  • Get Rich Slowly. Because we’re busy at Custom Box, I don’t have “slop time” with which to work on my web sites, most especially Get Rich Slowly. That site now accounts for 50% of my income. Put another way, I make as much from GRS as I do from CBS. Guess which one I enjoy more? It has been a mad scramble to get entries written and posted lately. I do have a pile of guest entries I could tap, but I want to save them for vacation.
  • Vacation. Our vacation looms large. I have a packing checklist (thanks, Paul H.!) and have been working toward getting things ready. One of my big chores is making sure that Get Rich Slowly has a full log of scheduled guest entries to publish. So far, so good. This site will be barren, I’m afraid, aside from occasional notes from the road. I’m still half-tempted to purchase an iPhone, use one of the many tricks to opt out of phone service, and use it as a mini-computer on the road. For now, though, I’m taking a Mac Powerbook, an iPod, and a digital camera. (I am not taking a cell phone. Everyone else in our group will have one. There’s no need for mine.)
  • Ron’s funeral. Coming back to Ron, his funeral is on Friday afternoon. I’ve agreed to create a video presentation commemorating his life, but that takes time. I’ve spent the last two hours scanning slides and photos. I have several more hours to go. Then I have to piece them into a coherent video. (Nick will help me do that tomorrow.)
  • Backpacking. Our annual Opal Creek backpacking trip is this weekend. There’s no way I can make the group hike in, but I still hold out hope that I can join the guys on Saturday. This is beginning to look like a feeble hope. I’ve put off many, many things to tackle the urgent tasks in my life. I’m going to need time to get things in order before I leave, and about the only time I can see is this weekend, if I don’t go backpacking. And yet I love backpacking. (In fact, I just spent $80 on a new tent!)

These are just a few of the things that have me buried. I’d write more except I can hear that the scanner has stopped scanning. It’s time to go start the next batch of slides. (In a feat of geekery that amazes even me, I had three Macs in use an hour ago. Each one was doing something related to Ron’s funeral. That, my friends, is efficiency.)

All this is to say: Have no fear — foldedspace will return, and with vigor. But right now it’s experiencing a moment (or thirty) of silence.

Back to the Future

Although I know you readers like the current format of this blog, it’s just not working for me. The Moveable Type engine behind the scenes is archaic. It’s frustrating to work with. The database is basically dead, drowned beneath a sea of spam. This site is no fun to maintain in its current state.

What am I trying to say? I really am going to move this blog back to WordPress. I made an aborted attempt at this last fall, but this time it’s for real. I’ll see what I can do to maintain the look-and-feel that we’ve all grown to love, but there are certainly going to be some changes. It’s very likely, for example, that the flotch will have to die (sorry, Paul!). I don’t know of any way to replicate the current flotch format in WordPress. (Actually, the new blog may become mostly flotch. Who knows? It’ll probably be a category.)

Also, I’ll be moving to a “multiple posts per page” format. Again, I know you all like to read the comments on the main page without clicking through, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to exercise that mouse finger. I want to be able to have multiple entries on the front page, which is far and away the standard blog format nowadays.

I don’t have a timeline for this change. I want to say “soon”, but in reality it may be the beginning of August before it occurs. Meanwhile, posting around here may be sporadic. I can’t get the damn blog to work half the time, and that frustrates me.

If you have any requests or suggestions as I prepare for this transition, please let me know.

Lost Post

Last night I wrote a long entry about how tired I am, about how I’ve been run ragged the past couple of weeks by nonstop social engagements. I wrote that I wasn’t going to do anything for the next ten days except for two things already scheduled: Writers Guild this Wednesday and book group on Sunday.

I made a list of all the things I’ve had to neglect because I’ve been too busy. I described how I feel like I’m on the edge, not wholly here.

I spent an hour writing this entry, but I did not save it. Obviously, my computer crashed. A hard crash on a Mac is unusual. This is the third time I’ve had one one this machine since I got it six months ago. But they do happen. And they’re never fun.

The computer crashed because while I was writing that lost entry, I was also creating a short video to post on YouTube:

Those are the MNF kids frolicking at our house last night. In the first clip, they’re eating dinner in the library, mere feet from my precious comics. In the second clip, they’re burning off energy. One of the adults suggested they run around the house, so they are. In the next couple clips, they’re descending on our raspberries like a flock of hungry birds. In the penultimate clip, a couple of the kids are digging in the dirt around Kris’ tomatoes with my weedpopper. And in the last clip, Isabel is attempting to climb onto a chair while Jeff and Emily watch.

These clips are from my new camera. It’s probably no surprise that I’m overanalyzing our upcoming trip to Europe. I’m overthinking everything, and I know it. I had grand plans of taking a carry-on suitcase and a backpack, and not checking any luggage, until Rhonda said, “Aren’t you going to shave?” Drat. I’m still going to take just those two bags, but I’ll have to check the suitcase.

I’ve made a list of things to include in the suitcase, and I’ve begun to acquire those that I don’t yet have. I’m going to use my upcoming backpacking trip as a dry run: I want to be sure I’ve learned to pack light.

Anyhow — one of my new purchases for the trip was a digital camera. I decided I don’t want to lug my SLR equipment around England and Ireland, so I researched digital cameras that met my requirements: ultra-compact with wide-angle lens. There were only two cameras from which to choose: Canon Powershot SD800 IS and the Panasonic DMC-FX01.

Both of these get good reviews, but are not without flaws. The Panasonic is well-made and attractive, but its image quality is sub-par. The Canon, on the other hand, has excellent image quality, but feels like a piece of cheap plastic. Ultimately I chose the Canon. I’ve had it for a few days now, and I must say that I’m pleased with the choice. It really does feel poorly made, but it produces great images. Plus, it’s easy to produce short video clips. (I actually think I could take video up to ten minutes in length, but so far I’ve confined myself to short 30-second clips.)

This video ability pleases me more than you know. Look for more YouTube clips in the future!