It’s this thing called technology - a tool that lets me get away with multi-tasking and overbooking and telecommuting life - combined with my insatiable appetite for new experiences and more, more, more. Am I addicted to information? To fixing? To conversation? To caffeine? To challenge? And even… to stress? To flying by the seat of my pants?

I am always too busy, and always find myself saying yes. Sure, I can do that. I can handle that. That sounds exciting. Let’s do that. And yet I… can’t… get… enough. I love life so much, I think I’m squeezing it to get every last drop of experience out. And while it’s all good and fabulous that my can-do attitude has taken me on many adventures and through some epic opportunities, I am constantly exhausted. And I miss the friends I’ve made along the way. I’m the busiest bored popular lonely kid I know.

And I’m not sure what I’d do with myself if it ever wasn’t busy and crazy, for once.

Is it just me?

1.) To be fair, “travel light” is probably the first tip. If you can avoid checking your luggage, only you’re at fault if it ends up lost/battered. If you must check luggage, try the ol’ toss a gun in the bag for good measure trick. Hey, it always worked for Indiana Jones.

2.) Roll your clothing. It helps eliminate wrinkles, and seems to ease efficient packing. Think of those long four block single row pieces from Tetris - they always came in handy.

3.) Wear all your heaviest clothing/shoes/outerwear on your person, even in layers if you must (in the northwest, it’s quite en vogue anyhow).

4.) Do you really *need* to bring liquids at all? I mean, they have Suave shampoo in city XYZ, don’t they?

5.) Figure out exactly how many outfits you’ll need, and plan in advance. I like to wear all black-based outfits, or all brown-based outfits, per each trip. This eliminates doubling up on staples like a brown belt and a black belt, or brown shoes and black shoes. If you’re worried about looking like Wednesday Addams, pick brown.

6.) When checking in to the hotel, I always ask for a late check out. Because you never know, and if they’re going to give it to you, why the heck not? They’ve never said no. It’s like buy 20 hours, get 3 free!

7.) When you check in for your flight, try to use the kiosk to avoid lines (if you haven’t pre-printed via the Intertubes). Always check for a better seat, even if you already did so online. There’s a certain method to trying to hit the traveler’s jackpot (i.e., no one in the seat next to you) - if you see an option where there’s an open window with two open seats next to it, or an open window, open middle, and sold aisle seat, always pick the latter combination, even if it’s a few rows further back. Chances are no one is going to pick the middle seat in between, as there’s usually lots of these to choose from. But a couple trying to move up to the front of the plane will jump on the middle and aisle seat combo.

8.) Postcards are great souvenirs that you don’t have to pack, if you have time to write a thoughtful note on them. “Wish you were here!” does not count. If you don’t have time for postcard hunting, stamp finding, and mailbox depositing, there’s a cool app for the iPhone called Shoot It! that allows you to turn any photo into a postcard with customized text printed on the back which they then mail to whichever lucky recipient(s) you’ve picked form your Address Book. It’s quite nifty, and nice because unlike postcards, you can actually be in the photo you are sending to Mom. Shoot It! is a free app but each postcard costs about a buck, which really is more than I usually spend on a postcard plus stamp anyhow. If you’re handy with your Google-fu, you can probably find a lot of coupon codes for free credits too. *cough* :-)

Alright, time for bed. Oh wait, one more:

9.) Talk to everyone, and bring memorable business cards. You never know how soon you’ll be back to this city.

Signing off from Los Angeles,
Cass

P.S. Don’t judge me too much for the overly obvious or poorly flushed out stuff herein, this post was written entirely stream-of-consciousness style. :-)

UPDATE: Wearing a skirt will automatically get you padded down in LAX it seems, so avoid skirts! Unless of course, you like that sort of thing.

I’ve always thought it poor form to blog publicly about phobias, just in case your evil arch-nemesis subscribes to your RSS feed. But what the heck, this one is hardly a secret: I loathe chickens. Seriously, seriously loathe. I don’t know why. There are only two creatures I dismiss as an entire species (ah, not so fast - thought I was going to reveal both, didn’t you?), and I can explain the other but have no clue why I hate chickens so much. Maybe it’s the way they always attacked me (aka Link) in Kakariko Village.

In any case, this only reaffirms my overwhelming yet unexplained fear of chickens:

Posted via web from firewallender’s posterous

Looks like she’s going to be okay.