Efficiency = Compactness = Love

The beauty of the Eagle Creek system is its compactness and compatibility. I'm going to Europe for 4 months with a laptop bag, a carry-on and a guide bag. That's it. There will be no checking of baggage. I packed everything tonight that I'll need; it's tight, but possible. The interior of the carry-on is precisely stuffed thanks to all of the "packing solutions" designed to fit inside. The laptop bag is a good 4 years old, but the handle of the new carry-on is robust enough to handle it's extra weight and correctly sized to fit through the special flap on the laptop bag allowing it to sit on top of the carry-on when the handle is extended. This sounds like an ad, but what a great line of products.

What a month

London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Prague are right around the corner (Wednesday, Aug. 3rd, to be precise). I've got a new roommate and a subletter all set up, my luggage accessories have all arrived, and, so, to Europe!

I'm, of course, excited about my new discoveries in software. Skype will let me talk to my computerized and broadbanded family/friends for free through our computers. Quite handy. And infoRSS is such a nice extension for Firefox. All of the websites that I was monitoring via my Live Bookmarks can be added to a rolling ticker at the bottom of my browser in the Status Bar. When a headline is clicked it automatically opens in a new tab. So thoughtful. Headlines disappear when read or if I click the orange x next to them. It's even supposed to work as a Gmail notifier, but I'm having problems with Gmail notification at the moment. I hear they've changed their login code, again.