(no subject)
Jun. 12th, 2012 04:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psipsyA little under three weeks from now and I'm gonna be completely stoked. STOKED, I tell ya. The reason why should be fairly obvious. (Hint: It is not related to an anime convention.)
Something I've noticed in past major trips and a few major conventions is that right after I set off, I discover I forget something, and I end up having to stop somewhere en route to pick it up, or even turn around and go back home for if I'm close enough or it's important enough. Stopping somewhere for an otherwise trivial item often results in a time penalty of no less than 30 minutes, after accounting for wading through side traffic and searching for it in the store itself. If they don't have it? There goes another 30 minutes to find somewhere that does. Hopefully this time I can avoid that with my handy checklist app on my phone, with another version as a spreadsheet. This way I can make such supply runs well in advance, when I'm out getting other stuff anyway.
Overkill? Maybe, maybe not. Listing out everything also forces me to make sure I have small-but-important items on hand, such as spare headlight bulbs and wipers and basic tools, including aviation snips. Why that particular tool? Well, you know that blister packaging that almost everything comes sealed in, that if you try to force it open with your bare hands you run the risk of slicing your hand off or almost destroy a good pair of scissors with? Aviation snips are designed to go through metal, so they laugh at that blister packaging shit while chewing through it. So yeah, in case I buy something while I'm out, and it comes packaged that way.
Egads! Does this look like planning? Organization? Preparation, even? For someone like me who is known to just up and go, this is blasphemy! Or it just might be me not feeling like making a dozen stops to pick up something I should have already had on hand. I dunno. I guess it's more like Spontaneity and Planning called a truce and made a bargain.
The whole idea behind using the checklist app and spreadsheet is to make Zero Day (the day I embark) that much less of a scramble, keeping last-minute items to a minimum by taking care of them on Delta Weekend (the weekend before the actual trip). Ideally I would only have to throw my pre-packed luggage into the trunk, grab my laptop and camera, and go. In comparison, for my '08 road trip, I didn't get moving until about 2pm on Sunday, far later than I wanted, because I spent several hours just gathering everything up, and I was still missing things. (Ok, I also woke up later than I wanted. But last-minute packing and other distractions didn't help. And the reason I didn't start on Saturday was because of anime club. Since I don't run that anymore, I have that much extra time to work with.)
Anyway, according to my magical checklist and spreadsheet, my preparations are a bit over halfway done. Not bad for having a couple tactical weekends left.
Something I've noticed in past major trips and a few major conventions is that right after I set off, I discover I forget something, and I end up having to stop somewhere en route to pick it up, or even turn around and go back home for if I'm close enough or it's important enough. Stopping somewhere for an otherwise trivial item often results in a time penalty of no less than 30 minutes, after accounting for wading through side traffic and searching for it in the store itself. If they don't have it? There goes another 30 minutes to find somewhere that does. Hopefully this time I can avoid that with my handy checklist app on my phone, with another version as a spreadsheet. This way I can make such supply runs well in advance, when I'm out getting other stuff anyway.
Overkill? Maybe, maybe not. Listing out everything also forces me to make sure I have small-but-important items on hand, such as spare headlight bulbs and wipers and basic tools, including aviation snips. Why that particular tool? Well, you know that blister packaging that almost everything comes sealed in, that if you try to force it open with your bare hands you run the risk of slicing your hand off or almost destroy a good pair of scissors with? Aviation snips are designed to go through metal, so they laugh at that blister packaging shit while chewing through it. So yeah, in case I buy something while I'm out, and it comes packaged that way.
Egads! Does this look like planning? Organization? Preparation, even? For someone like me who is known to just up and go, this is blasphemy! Or it just might be me not feeling like making a dozen stops to pick up something I should have already had on hand. I dunno. I guess it's more like Spontaneity and Planning called a truce and made a bargain.
The whole idea behind using the checklist app and spreadsheet is to make Zero Day (the day I embark) that much less of a scramble, keeping last-minute items to a minimum by taking care of them on Delta Weekend (the weekend before the actual trip). Ideally I would only have to throw my pre-packed luggage into the trunk, grab my laptop and camera, and go. In comparison, for my '08 road trip, I didn't get moving until about 2pm on Sunday, far later than I wanted, because I spent several hours just gathering everything up, and I was still missing things. (Ok, I also woke up later than I wanted. But last-minute packing and other distractions didn't help. And the reason I didn't start on Saturday was because of anime club. Since I don't run that anymore, I have that much extra time to work with.)
Anyway, according to my magical checklist and spreadsheet, my preparations are a bit over halfway done. Not bad for having a couple tactical weekends left.
