{"id":136,"date":"2008-04-18T18:27:47","date_gmt":"2008-04-18T23:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/136"},"modified":"2008-04-18T18:27:47","modified_gmt":"2008-04-18T23:27:47","slug":"lighten-your-load","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/136","title":{"rendered":"Lighten your load!"},"content":{"rendered":"

My backback I carry daily and on trips was extra heavy this morning. I was doing a bit of packing for an upcoming trip (trying to see what would fit, what wouldn’t) — and after filling my backpack with the necessities <\/em>and hefting it onto my back, my wife turned to me and pointed out how heavy the backpack looked. <\/p>\n

I emptied the various nooks and crannies to see what I was actually carrying. I’ll spare you a photograph of the pandemonium that is my backpack, but I will say that if your bag contains things like mine (did), it might be time to lighten the load:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Network crossover adapter<\/strong>. I don’t know if I’ve ever used this.<\/li>\n
  2. USB extension cable<\/strong>. Neat, but again, I cannot think of a time I’ve needed to extend a USB cable while on a trip. I should leave this in my den\/office where it might actually come in handy!<\/li>\n
  3. USB male-female inverter thingy<\/strong>. You’d think there had been a USB emergency at some point for me to carry this.<\/li>\n
  4. Three mini-to-full sized USB cables. <\/strong>I only have 2 USB ports on my laptop. It’s rare that I need more than one thing plugged in at a time while traveling.<\/li>\n
  5. Wireless mouse & wired mouse<\/strong>. I’ll stick to the wired mouse — it’s for travel anyway. I leave a wireless mouse at work. <\/li>\n
  6. Over $4 in change. <\/strong>Yeah, just in case someone needs change or there’s a vending machine that won’t take bills or a credit card. <\/li>\n
  7. Airport Express. <\/strong>When hotels didn’t have wireless, this was useful. Now, it’s just dead weight.<\/li>\n
  8. A unopened box of sleeping pills<\/strong>. This was for a trip a year and a half ago. But I’ve been carrying them around just in case I’m too wide awake….<\/li>\n
  9. Various ailments related to digestion<\/strong>… (I had a bad case of food poisoning at the last PDC which inspired me to always have these on hand).<\/li>\n
  10. 2 USB memory sticks<\/strong>. One 8GB and the other 2GB. <\/li>\n
  11. 6 cough drops. <\/strong>Hack, hack, hack. <\/li>\n
  12. Bandages<\/strong>. Maybe I’ll get a nasty cut from an extra usb cable …<\/li>\n
  13. Dental floss<\/strong>. (Just a small package — I can’t decide if this should stay or go).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What’s the silliest thing you carry around that you don’t need? I’m not a pack-rat at all … so I find it funny that I’ve been carrying around all of this unnecessary weight for so long!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My backback I carry daily and on trips was extra heavy this morning. I was doing a bit of packing for an upcoming trip (trying to see what would fit, what wouldn’t) — and after filling my backpack with the necessities and hefting it onto my back, my wife turned to me and pointed out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5QIe-2c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":917,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/917","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":0},"title":"Tom Bihn Smart Alec Backpack Review","date":"March 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently purchased a Tom Bihn Smart Alec Backpack. Tonight, I put it back in its original shipping box and will be shipping it back to Tom Bihn tomorrow. I wanted to review the bag here on my web site to provide some unbiased and alternative opinions to this bag\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Recommendations"","img":{"alt_text":"IMG_0329","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/IMG_0329.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1933,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/1933","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":1},"title":"Fitbit Flex, dead and won’t charge?","date":"August 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"My wife and I both pre-ordered a Fitbit Flex. While it\u2019s not a life-changing device, it\u2019s been generally fun to wear. I\u2019m always interested in the sleep tracking when I travel \u2026 \u201cAwake 16x, slept 5 hours.\u201d Last night though, my wife\u2019s Flex had stopped working. The lights wouldn\u2019t show\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1329,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/1329","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":2},"title":"My Nest Thermostat installation experience","date":"December 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"After the amazing mad dash for the Nest thermostats when they were first made available for pre-order, I ordered three thermostats for our home from Best Buy (as Nest.com had sold out). We\u2019ve got a three zone heating system, and I wanted to replace all at once (as the system\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Recommendations"","img":{"alt_text":"20111218-IMG_0096","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/20111218-IMG_0096_thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1773,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/1773","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":3},"title":"AV Club \/ Our home setup 2012","date":"December 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve done a lot of reworking of our computers and network recently and thought I\u2019d post some details about the various physical and digital parts that make our humble WiredPrairie home work. Using Google Docs, I created a labeled diagram with most of the moving parts of our house (WOW,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Recommendations"","img":{"alt_text":"Home Setup","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Home-Setup_thumb1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2119,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/2119","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":4},"title":"Geek gift ideas 2016","date":"November 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"If you're looking to buy yourself, I mean someone else some gifts for the upcoming holiday season, here are some items that I've found useful or handy around the house. It's all stuff that I use and would recommend. KMASHI 400A Peak 14.8V 800mAh Compact Car Jump Starter It's around\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/PlanetBike3H.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2011,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/2011","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":5},"title":"Kenu Airframe Portable Car Mount","date":"January 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever travel and want to use your mobile phone as a navigation device safely and securely? Our cars have built in navigation systems that we rely on normally, but when we rent a car, that\u2019s rarely an option. Have you tried a bunch of tricks and found that there generally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Recommendations"","img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/image.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}