What’s in my bag?

by Posted in Uncategorized

IMG_20160818_181550I’ve done a fair amount of traveling since starting Systecon, and in my jobs prior. In about a decade of work experience I’ve logged a little over 1M miles on United and close to 100K on American. This year I’ll hit 200K miles and likely log another 180 nights in hotels. Over the years I’ve refined, transformed, and completely started over several times with various carry on concepts.

With the amount of Coast-to-Coast travel I’m doing, I was forced to abandon the beautiful green leather briefcase I was using in favor of something a bit larger and a bit more utilitarian. After trying out a half dozen options (some of which were quite expensive) I settled on a very affordable and very highly rated eBags Professional Slim Laptop Backpack.

With the number of software demos we do on random projectors I carry a lot of adapters, chargers and cables. There’s a pocket or mesh compartment for everything keeping it all nicely organized.

Keeping connected on the road is a Lenovo Yoga 900. I have a love/hate relationship with this laptop. It’s damn light, runs our software, and looks professional. But I’m on my third motherboard in two years and I despise the charger. The two prong plug folds out directly from the converter brick which means it covers both outlets on a traditional wall socket and won’t plug into most conference room table outlets. So I have a 1 foot extension cord that also comes along in my bag. All in all the charger/extension cord weighs about as much as the laptop.

The laptop primary output is USB-C. So I carry around a USB-C to HDMI and an HDMI to VGA converter that I can daisy chain together for those customers who still don’t have HDMI input. Often times there is just a TV in the conference room with no connector, so I also carry an HDMI cable that I can just plug into the TV as well.

I carry two Anker backup battery packs to ensure my phone (a quick charging and quick draining Nexus 6P) stays charged. A pair of beats and an REI sleep mask make long transcontinental red-eye flights more manageable. I also have a pair on in-ear headphones for conference calls as the beats just aren’t practical for this purpose.

I also carry a notebook, two pens (a Sharpie ultra fine point, and a Pilot Varsity fountain pen) as I still prefer jotting down notes to typing list on my phone. The GPS watch and sunglasses make a post-flight hike possible.

I’m currently reading Guru Singh’s book “Levity,” an excellent collection of short parables. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for short chapters of highly spiritual and intellectual content.

I also carry a water bottle (to fill a the airport lounge) and an insulated coffee mug (to make the home espresso go as far as possible). Lastly, I have a collection bars, teas, and Bulletproof coffee Instamix to start the day. Nothing takes the edge off a red-eye like a Bulletproof quad espresso.

 

Cathedral Peak

by Posted in Hiking Tagged , ,

IMG_20160814_141756Sunday brought a hot day in Southern California. With temps in the mid 80s and a breeze that felt like a hair dryer what better weather than for a hike on one of the steepest trails in Santa Barbara? I had a red eye flight out of Santa Barbara that evening so we decided to brave the heat and stick with the afternoon hiking plans.

The Cathedral Peak trail is a relatively short 4.8 mile round trip hike that picks up 2400 feet of vertical climbing in 2 miles. It’s easy to find the trail head (think Inspiration Point trail head) with parking along Tunnel Road. Cathedral is one of my favorite trails with lots of boulder hopping, climbing and general fun.

We began heading up a bit later in the afternoon and a pair of downward hikers confirmed what we already knew: “It’s awfully hot, are you all really heading to the top?” Yup we sure were.

After a 1:45 hike to the top and two stops in the limited shade of a couple of the bigger boulders, and consuming most of the three liters of water we had brought we finally reached the top. The views are worth it. Between the limited trail traffic, fun full-body hiking requirements, and the views this trail is definitely one of my favorite local trails.

Screenshot_20160814-184113IMG_20160814_142332I’ve been playing with my new Garmin GPS watch and while the elevation and distance seem to be quite accurate I just don’t know about the calorie estimates. I burn 1600 calories an hour on a rower and I’m pretty sure I burn 275 calories just sitting in the sun for three hours so I don’t know about that.

Definitely more investigation is needed and I didn’t wear the heart rate strap so perhaps there is something to that.

After making it back to the car it was off to find a shower, a quick dinner, and catch an overnight flight. No better way to start the week than with a hard hike, a lot of sweat, and the greatest lady in the world.