Road Gear
I’ve just returned from a trip to Austin, where I attended the Linux Collaboration Summit. Fun show, but I’m really really tired from getting shitty sleep and then catching the 8:00am flight. I can’t think of a better time to write about all the stuff I drag with me when I go on the road.
Everything I take (well, everything that isn’t clothing) usually goes into my Briggs & Riley Rolling Expandable Computer Case. I’m quite fond of that case - it’s reliable, durable, and somehow manages to fit everything I need.
Each trip I take has a different set of required tech, but there are nine items and three smaller bags that stay in there pretty much all the time. The nine items are:
- My seriously beat up 15″ Macbook Pro. Because everybody needs a mac or two.
- My Sprint EVDO card. Don’t let it deter you that this neat little gizmo will set you back about $200 and requires a service plan that costs close to $50 a month. Compared to $10-$12 a night for hotel internet (and providing near-ubiquitous access), is a necessity for any value-conscious road warrior.
- Shure SE210 Earphones with the iPhone Music Phone Adapter. I was looking for an “upgraded” version of the iPhone headset, complete with the ability to listen to music and the answer/hangup/play/pause/next button. These two items are the perfect solution for me - the Music Phone adaptor has an inline mic and button and fits into the bizarre iPhone headphone jack. The earphones integrate nicely with the adaptor because the lead is pretty short - you just throw out the cord that comes with them and replace it with the phone adaptor, leaving no extra cord length.
- My Amazon Kindle. The device’s design is one of the least inspiring things that’s come out lately, but it ends up being very practical and ergonomic. Style be damned! The free EVDO that comes with it would be much more useful on a different device, but as a book reader it is absolutely top notch.
- Logitech VX Revolution mouse. Mostly to save my hands. Nice design! Don’t WoW without it.
- Three different business card cases: a small one for walking around with, one that carries a larger amount of cards and generally stays in my hotel room, and one that contains my MOO MiniCards.
In addition to these items, I have two cable bags: one for my MacBook charger and one that contains various retractable USB cables, my airplane MacBook charger, my iPhone cable, the special funky USB cable for my camera, a card reader, and a bunch of other crap.
What probably ends up taking most of the space, though is my Lowepro Omni Sport camera bag. The Omni Sport is the perfect size to fit into the Briggs & Riley case vertically, and it allows you to take your camera out from the top. To get to the extra lenses, though, you have to remove it from the rolling case and open it up from the side…but it’s got the best gear/space ratio of any other bag I’ve looked at. And it seems that they sell a hard outer shell for it now…but I don’t have that.
In the camera bag is my Sony A700 digital SLR camera back along with three lenses. Usually I take a vintage Minolta 100 f2.8 macro, a Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6 wide angle zoom, and a vintage Minolta 28-105 f3.5-4.5 zoom. Occasionally, I’ll swap out one of those for the Minolta 100-300 f4.5-5.6 telephoto zoom. There’s also a charger in there, along with a lenspen and cleaning cloth.
Sometimes I throw a Sony HVL-F56AM flash in the bag too, depending on where I’m going.
So that’s what’s in my bag! What’s in yours?
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