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community weblog

Free Thread - Trip Preparation

How do you prepare for a trip? Work trip, vacation, emergency, errands, any type of trip is included here. Or just talk about life, food, the heavens etc with us.
posted by Art_Pot on Jun 08, 2026 at 12:03 AM

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I'm heading back to the states today for a family reunion and instead of doing a last min run to the pharmacy to get meds, running the washer, or anything else to get the apartment ready for the pet sitter, I'm refusing to move and posting this. I mostly packed last night, but need to add in that commonly forgotten item, the toothbrush! (and it's companion, toothpaste) Got three hours till I need to head to the airport, that's plenty of time, right?
posted by Art_Pot at 12:08 AM

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Just a thought, before the MetaFilter police arrive and gleefully flag DOUBLE!!! - why not just let both Free Threads roam at the same time and see where they go? People can add, respond to other comments, on either or both as they see fit. After all, this website continually has a hundred or so open threads on US politics at any one time, so it can manage a few open threads without drama.
posted by Wordshore at 1:41 AM

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I'll be traveling in Europe for most of July and have bought a few things in preparation: electrolyte packets and protein bars. Next to my desk, there's a little pile of stuff to take on the trip, including my power adapter and compression socks. Eventually I'll get my suitcase and start packing, but for now, there's plenty of time.
posted by wicked_sassy at 3:16 AM

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...and gleefully flag DOUBLE!!! - why not just let both Free Threads...

Or just add one more and have Three Threads.

(If I were to post a Free Thread, it would be "what's the best question somebody ever asked you?")
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 4:18 AM

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I am a HUUUUUGE fan of the app TripIt, which lets you forward your email travel confirmations to a designated email and then it compiles them for you into trips. You can also manually add plans. Via this, I am able to make a million notes for each trip: airport maps, which app to call for a ride, etc. It's very good in allowing me to overprepare for travel, which eases my anxiety. Please note: I didn't say "overplan" as we freestyle it a lot. But if we're away from home and my spouse wants to know where is open at 6 near our lodging that can make a proper espresso, this is a thing I have looked up and made notes on already and I like that this is possible.

We are currently on the annual trip to Romania and having a nice time.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:48 AM

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How do you prepare for a trip?

"Will my laptop trip in the metal detector? Do I need to unpack it and how do I make sure my precious 5-year-old laptop is not damaged by all the bumpin'?"

And other more relevant panic attacks...
posted by xylophone at 4:54 AM

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Lists. Lots and lots of lists.
posted by mikelieman at 5:25 AM

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How do you prepare for a trip?

Poorly and with considerable anxiety.

Will the dog sitter give my dogs their meds properly, will the dog sitter feed my dogs properly, will my dog sitter be nice to my dogs, wait I'm the one actually going on this three day trip do I pack 6 pairs of underpants or 7, did my dog sitter adequately understand the behavioral issues with the mean dog or is he going to bite someone in the house, are the dogs' meds labeled clearly enough, is the font on the sticker I put on their meds big enough to see, I take meds too have I packed all of my meds, of course I did that's the first thing I did 3 weeks ago but I should count them again, do I wear shirts.
posted by phunniemee at 5:25 AM

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(p.s. If anyone in the Chicago area would like to dog sit my dogs I will be traveling the first few days of October and I can't go back to my old sitter because the last time I went to pick my dogs up from her she was getting busted by Chicago Animal Care and Control.)
posted by phunniemee at 5:28 AM

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Prepping for a trip to the Republic of Ireland right now.

Lots of mental and physical lists.
List of clothes to take, even though I am probably going to change half of the list out based on forecasted weather.
List of stuff to be done before we leave.
Pile of things I can't forget to pack.

Empty the refrigerator and pantry of perishables - we have been eating our way through everything.

Shared map of places we want to visit.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 6:07 AM

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I generally pack about a week in advance (partly because I'm excited!), and come up with a whole list of ideas for things to do, and sometimes even plan out a daily itinerary (there's a free app I found that is fantastic for both). However, about 60% of the time when I actually get where I'm going, those plans go out the window.

The advance packing is especially handy because I try to plan out the clothing so that I can pack the smallest amount of clothing possible. I've been able to do weeklong trips to Europe with only a carryon this way.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:42 AM

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One always prints out one's tickets and hotel reservations, and one saves the addresses of one's lodging to an easily accessible location as well.

Contacting the staff of the lodging to confirm the reservation and to let them know when you are planning to arrive: also a good idea.

I get up super early, well before most hotel restaurants open. So I take my travel French press, which doubles as a tumbler, as well as some ground coffee in a Ziploc. A travel kettle is an asset too. And I lay in "breakfast" of a bag of nuts or something substantial and not very perishable. I don't do well physically if I have to wait even till 8 am for breakfast and coffee.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 6:45 AM

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We don't really travel. My wife's friend/boss is aghast: where do you go for vacations? Us: vacation? Who has the time or money to go on vacation?

I do go with my dad when he travels to visit my sister roughly yearly in Denver. Preparation is: report my time off to work, throw a bunch of clothes in a bag (and my toiletries, and a big Ziploc bag of meds, set my alarm for 2:30am because that's when we get in the car and drive 15 hours through North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming to get to Colorado.

We used to travel more to visit my wife's family in the Milwaukee area, but the whole time-and-money thing has slowed those down as well. Those are less leisure travel but perfunctory "need to see all the family on a schedule we don't control" kind of thing.

I did my film student update in the other Free Thread, so one little update over here: this Wednesday I start guitar lessons, or at least the first free lesson that leads to regular lessons. My dad played guitar, my late brother played guitar in a rock band, my sister plays a variety of other stringed instruments and her partner is an amazing guitarist....I chose choir in high school because it was easy so I never learned an instrument. My wife has told me many times I should just take lessons if I want to play guitar, and I finally bit the bullet and signed up. It is sort of film-related: a short film I worked on over a year ago had a musician on the crew, and once the film was done we went into the sound studio and he just sort of improvised an amazing score -- I want to do that. I know improvising/composing is a long ways down the road, but time passes quickly for this old person, it won't feel as long as learning something feels to a high school kid.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:46 AM

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Depending on the trip I am usually at least thinking about it a week ahead so I have the correct laundry done and reserved for packing. I pack the day before with space saved for last minute morning items.

I was in the practice of having an emergency bag in my car. When I was working in the office I got stuck because of a bad ice storm and wound up staying overnight at my parent's house and having to shop at the one clothing outlet that small town because I didn't have anything. Now that I work from home it's not needed. I wasn't fond of anything in that bag - it was all cast offs and unfavourite items. I wouldn't have wanted to rely on it for longer than a night and following day.

Speaking of working from home - this could be my forever arrangement with this job. Initially it was because of renovations and everyone playing musical offices. But there's still not enough room so WFH with the odd come in and use a temp desk when needed may be the solution right now. We'll see. It's a bit up in the air.
posted by eekernohan at 6:49 AM

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My rule of travel is that I will usually bring at least two big bulky things that I don't need, and leave behind one small and very packable thing that I do need, and packing lists don't work because the trips are always different to some degree and my needs change; like training for the last war instead of the current one, I make sure to bring the thing that I forgot to last time, but leave something else at home. It's usually not a deal killer, just an irritating inconvenience. At least I don't overpack the way I used to.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:07 AM

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This is kind of ironic, now that I think about it - I've been working on helping other people with their trip preparations. A lot of local businesses are coming up with all kind of special events, meal/drink specials, and such connected to the World Cup. And I've been on a team reviewing all of them, fixing any typos and publishing them to the city tourism web site. Which is tipping me off to some super cool shit (a couple of $26 meal specials at restaurants in my own neighborhood I wanna check out), and also amusing me with what people are trying to sneak through as a "World Cup special" (we've gotten people promoting hair transplants, facials, and a Labubu raffle).

This weekend I was also part of a small team doing beta testing on an AI app that was supposed to cater to visitors in town for the World Cup. That.....didn't go as well (I asked it a question that directly mentioned the name of a stationery store in NYC and it directed me to a UPS in a small town in New Jersey).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:20 AM

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I prepare for trips badly, with anxiety, and manage to forget something every time, despite making complex checklists and despite the fact that I have been to scores of countries and even more cities in my own country, often several times. I have also arrived in a city on the wrong day, and have made flight reservations twice for the same trip. I have arrived in a city only to find out I did not in fact have a hotel reservation I thought I had made. I once received an award from my association for having paid the most for a visa to a foreign country where we were meeting. I deliberately underpack and still arrive with too many things. Which is to say I am currently preparing for my annual trip to the shore with family, and trying not to be suffused with gloom because it always turns out fine.
posted by Peach at 7:55 AM

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When my wife packs for a trip where we will be eating at the place, she trawls our pantry and packs the weirdest most unusable food and my kids and I pack nothing but snacks.

So we always have to go to an actual grocery store to get meals, even though our car is filled with food.

My oldest kid brings her 30inch giant hard plastic suitcase even for like weekend trips. She prepares 2-3 outfit changes a day, not including swimsuits or specialty clothes.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:03 AM

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The_Vegetables: "When my wife packs for a trip where we will be eating at the place, she trawls our pantry and packs the weirdest most unusable food and my kids and I pack nothing but snacks.

So we always have to go to an actual grocery store to get meals, even though our car is filled with food."

I don't want to sound crazy here but you could try packing the actual food you need for the trip?
posted by phunniemee at 8:09 AM

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i've had to go to europe a few times over the past year and started trip preparing by:

1. whatever amount of clothes you think you need, halve it (with the exception of socks and underwear)
2. let your bank know you're traveling
3. bring more of your meds than you'll probably need
4. save social media posting for after you get home
5. when packing, put your laptop on top of whatever else is in the bag, and
6. wear shoes that slip on and off easily before getting to security
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 8:21 AM

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I don't want to sound crazy here but you could try packing the actual food you need for the trip?

She's in charge of food, we're in charge of snacks. It's the process. This was also not a comment about the superiority of our packing. You think we don't also buy snacks when we stop at every gas station and the store? If you think that, you are wrong.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:30 AM

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How do you prepare for a trip?

it all depends on the cheese I'm bringing along
posted by runsrealgood at 8:52 AM

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I recently went on my first road trip through Europe. My spouse and I went from Sweden through Denmark and Germany and then landed in the Netherlands where we were staying with some friends. We made it a three day trip and I loved just being able to take every damn thing I wanted to because I was in a car. That included a pee bucket which my husband thought was ridiculous. That was easy for him to think because he does not have the same bladder problems that I have. And when we were in Denmark and unable to find a place open with a bathroom I was exceedingly grateful that I had packed that emergency bucket. That's probably more travel information than you wanted but I'm just saying, it's good to be prepared for things that you know are likely. And in my case, a bathroom emergency is kind of likely. That's not bragging, that's realism.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:56 AM

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For me it depends on the trip to an extent:

A lot of times I am going to a place that HAS THE THINGS. Going to my mom's house and forgot my toothbrush? She lives walking distance to the supermarket, no problem. If I am going camping its more important I don't forget necessities because its a two hour drive to any civilization.

I'm methodical and I like to plan ahead, make lists etc., so I won't be stressed ahead of time. Of course Mr Supermedusa is the opposite and waits until the last minute and runs around like several beheaded chickens, which stresses me out.

I prefer to pack efficiently and only bring what I will need, which sometimes can backfire when "nice to haves" get left behind. But most places have stuff, if you aren't too picky. Do make sure to bring lots of your meds (as others have mentioned), cause you cannot necessarily get that.
posted by supermedusa at 9:25 AM

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I get stressed about traveling, make lists, double check bookings, like to arrive at the airport hours early. Mrs.43rd, otoh, does not get stressed (I suspect because she lets me do all the arrangements, know where the passports are, find adapters for the electrics, etc) and is a "will the last remaining passenger..." traveler. Oh well.

We have just come back from a trip to Greece, and it was magical to wake up in the middle of one night to see a spot of light on the bedcover, which turned out to be a firefly. I last saw one of those about 50 years ago, and it really took me back.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:37 AM

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this Wednesday I start guitar lessons ... time passes quickly for this old person, it won't feel as long as learning something feels to a high school kid.

I started learning piano a few years ago and that holds true for me as well, and I also recommend prioritizing simply having fun with it over setting particular progress goals. I knew I'd get frustrated with a perceived lack of progress if I tried to push toward a particular goal, so instead I just play when I want to and learn at whatever pace I learn. The result is that while I may not be as far along as I'd ultimately like to be "someday", every time I sit down at the piano I find myself enjoying the learning process and loving the sounds I make.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:48 AM

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I'm a firm believer in the AAA. Back in the day, before smartphones, AAA was a great source for maps. The US Geological Service is still a good place for maps, particularly if you're looking to travel off-road. Even today, I wouldn't trust an "app" over a good old paper map. ("Unlucky fellow! He died of exposure due to a combination of low battery and poor cell reception.")
posted by SPrintF at 9:54 AM

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I remember the custom triptiks my grandparents would get from AAA every time they went on a trip.

I still carry a Road Atlas in my car, even though my phone/GPS has never let me down - so far. Because Ya Never Know...
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:50 AM

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I'm currently planning a Route 66 road trip for August, and have:
- two books with post-it tags on pages
- one app
- one notebook
- one Pinterest board
- two reference websites
- a calendar with "aim to get here this day" with alternates for each day

and yet the motto remains "no plan is the best plan." I only have one hotel room booked and intend to keep it that way. I may wind up sleeping literally on the Mother Road, but that's part of the fun.
posted by queensissy at 11:32 AM

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and yet the motto remains "no plan is the best plan."

I'm an obsessive planner and I need to remind myself of this, but with the other meaning, since the phrase is ambiguous -- that there is no "best" plan; you can't optimize for everything.

Embarking on a trip with no plan? HA HA no. I'm getting itchy just thinking about it.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:40 AM

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I've spent a lot of my life traveling about 33% of the time so I'm good at knowing what to throw together. I used to have free access to a mountain house and sometimes stuff would get packed in 10 minutes on a whim.

That said, a lot of my trips are similar and I have pack lists for different style ones (this beach, that camping event, 4 day trip to work HQ, etc.). I save copies after each one with notes on anything that didn't get used that might be eliminated and anything I found I needed that wasn't on is
posted by Candleman at 11:51 AM

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A lot of times I am going to a place that HAS THE THINGS. Going to my mom's house and forgot my toothbrush? She lives walking distance to the supermarket, no problem.

Internalizing this thing has revolutionized my feelings about travel. I realized how much of my packing anxiety was just like, childhood rules about never buying something you didn't absolutely need and DEFINITELY never spending money to fix your own fuckup. When I went to Vegas last year I forgot to pack my pool hat and like -- instead of just getting a hundred sunburns as penance for being a fuckup, it just meant I got to buy a GIANT FUCKING VEGAS POOL HAT, and it was glorious.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:58 AM

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Road-trip planning ROYGBV style! Oh wait, isn't that flag like 14 colors now, instead of six? Anyway...

If it's somewhere we haven't been before, we go to that city and state's subreddit to get the straight D. "We" as in my ex whom I'm still friends with. Unless I'm just going to Chicago where she lives, then I'm driving solo to visit her (or family). I've been up there to Chicago so many times that I can't count and it's like my second home.

Elsewhere, we research subreddits to know: where the bad areas are, where the shitty roads are to avoid being stranded until AAA comes because I shredded my tire, areas that are heavily policed because being targeted for having out of state plates and being searched with your belongings including sex toys strewn on a highway shoulder will ruin a trip, best vegan and vegetarian food joints, best breakfast spots, good bars and ideally coffee shops open late, any attractions that are unique to that location and the more off the beaten path the better.

We usually just crash on other people's couches or get hold to comped casino rooms. If not, I look up the newest two star hotels that's ranked four or five google review stars. I like new hotels because there's less likely to be piss stains on the mattress, mystery brown droplets on the bathroom walls, and cum stains on the curtains. And, yes, less likely that someone has died in that room.

I check my tire pressure with metal gauge and check the tread depth and for any nails.

Clean my car, so if/when I get pulled over the cops won't think I'm a degenerate.

I usually pack right before I leave. But create my list a day or two beforehand.

A week before, I tell any relatives, friends, or buddies I know from the internet in the area that I will be passing through in a week.

If getting a hotel room we do walk-ins once we arrive at our destination. I don't do reservations. If shit's booked up, we drive to the outskirts and pass out at a truck stop or hospital parking lot (in the car)

Places we like to visit in every town/city: bike shops (lots of unique bikes out there), gun shops (lots of unique guns), breweries, college campuses (for the architecture), science museum if they have one.
posted by anoldfriend6 at 12:06 PM

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(I am still trying to bring my mother around to this way of thinking, at least when she travels to see me. As the person who must lug her bags from one end of Chicago to the other, I am begging her to understand that our house has things like hair dryers and popcorn.)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:08 PM

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(I am still trying to bring my mother around to this way of thinking, at least when she travels to see me. As the person who must lug her bags from one end of Chicago to the other, I am begging her to understand that our house has things like hair dryers and popcorn.)

I live in Chicago. My parents live in Georgia. When they visited me, they brought their own milk.

Literally just normal grocery store milk.
posted by phunniemee at 12:14 PM

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[Fixed spelling in the post's title. ]
posted by loup at 12:35 PM

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I live in Chicago. My parents live in Georgia. When they visited me, they brought their own milk.

Perhaps they hoped that by the time they arrived, it would have curdled and become Artisanal Homemade Cottage Cheese?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:48 PM

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Travel. We don't travel enough. For reasons, but they are really excuses. Working on that.

Mrs C is a master at trip planning. Our style is to pick a series of locations that we'll spend 2 to 4 days in each, then prearrange and book all the lodging and the intercity transport (trains are preferred). For each location, we'll have a list of things we are interested in seeing/doing, but once there... no pressure. We do what we feel. Sometimes it's just walking around. It's a great combination of certainty and freedom, and we have done several trips like that.

We follow Rick Steves' advice for minimal luggage: one carry-on and one personal bag each. No checked luggage. Our carry-ons are soft with good knapsack-style shoulder straps and waist-belt. This has been very liberating - easy to manage and keep track of. We can put on the packs and cross-body bags and easily walk a few kilometers - eg train station to hotel.. We've even done it when it's pissing rain (the packs have raincovers and we wear thin high-tech rainjackets). We spent over 3 weeks in France travelling this way, hitting a laundromat twice.

My wife got us some packing compression cubes and they really do help compress the volume of clothes, as well as compartmentalizing things nicely. If I want a shirt, I just open the "shirt" cube instead of having to root through the whole pack.

Devices: no laptops. Just tablets (for web browsing, making and checking reservations etc, e-books) and one or two phones. Last trip we just bought a 30-day SIM card with enough data in a train station; this worked out just fine. We now have inexpensive roaming data plans.

Just talking about this makes me want to plan our next trip. So thanks!

Life: the nice weather is finally here. We've had mainly sunny shorts weather for the last 10 or so days. Biking and sailing. Yay.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:54 PM

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Or just add one more and...

posted by Calvin and the Duplicator

I'm not surprised by this idea.... coming from you!
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:41 PM

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Ooh, very relevant to my needs. I read upstream that someone considers their trip outfits and accordingly does laundry. That's exactly what I need to do this week!
The most stressful thing about traveling is worrying whether Bart will suddenly be off-line the day of travel (that's how I get to the airport) so I end up waking up suuuuper early but once I've made it through TSA, all is well.
I love making trip lists: of outfits, of shoes, gifts for people on the other end, restaurants I want to eat at, things to do. And of course the weather affects all these choices too, so I'm checking the weather.
The local public schools had their last day on Friday and I've noticed *so* many kids walking around today, selling lemonade, bouncing balls, etc .
posted by honey badger at 2:16 PM

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I've found that with a reasonable amount of context, AI makes the packing list for me and then I never have to worry about it. It's really great. Yeah sometimes something is missing but it's never something essential and if I think it's essential I just buy one when I get there or reevaluate how essential it really is.
posted by paulcole at 2:51 PM

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This weekend I was also part of a small team doing beta testing on an AI app that was supposed to cater to visitors in town for the World Cup. That.....didn't go as well (I asked it a question that directly mentioned the name of a stationery store in NYC and it directed me to a UPS in a small town in New Jersey).

Bet anything the app was programmed to mention only businesses which had paid to be included.
posted by jamjam at 4:04 PM

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Money has precluded travel for me for the past few years, but when I did travel, it was generally motorcycle road trips. My bike has a couple of pannier bags, a seat-top bag behind me, and a tank bag.

Tank bag is reserved for phone, receipts, beverages, and whatever t-shirts I acquired that day. One pannier holds motorcycle travel needs, like a rainsuit, leather over-pants if I'm not actually wearing them (super-hot days, typically), waterproof gloves (which are nice but not as comfortable as my "daily" gloves, etc.) You can generally fit a soft bag with some squishy clothes in there as well. Which leaves the top bag and one pannier for my clothes, toiletries, etc.

I own enough socks and underwear to make it through a two-week trip without needing to do laundry (or do repeat wears). But the steady accumulation of national park shirts soon makes space a premium. I start by only bringing a few shirts and only one extra pair of jeans (I am not yet at the "soiling myself" stage of my life so unless I have an off in the mud a single pair of jeans will see me through the trip, but a backup is nice). Even so, you soon start to get short on space which is where the post office comes into play. About halfway through the trip I'll stop at some small-town post office, grab a couple of the larger free "priority mail" shipping boxes, and stuff them full of my dirty laundry and any bulky trinkets I may have picked up (I normally don't buy souvenirs other than shirts, but maybe there was a cool rock or a small piece of art a roadside vendor was selling...), and mail them to myself at home. That can effectively empty an entire piece of luggage, and now I can continue buying unneeded t-shirts!

I also do not much care for reservations on road trips. I'd rather be free to only ride half the distance I expected and stay somewhere completely unexpected on day 5 or if the groove is good and the roads empty, maybe go an extra 50 or 100 miles on a different day. There is always the danger of arriving somewhere without a room available for miles and miles (did that one year on a trip down the pacific coast and ended up getting the last room at a hotel 90 miles and a dozen hotels in five different towns inland), but the serendipity is generally fun.

Least useful extra thing I carried was another pair of shoes my first long road trip. My biker boots are pretty comfortable and I'm now happy to wear them at all times on a trip. Shoes take up crazy amounts of space!
posted by maxwelton at 7:31 PM

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Bet anything the app was programmed to mention only businesses which had paid to be included.

Yes, a small franchise is going to spend their limited advertising budget getting into an app designed for a sporting event an hour or more away.

The obsessive anti-AI thing here is well past ridiculous.
posted by Candleman at 7:41 PM

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I took a 18-day road trip one year and my credit card--which I had been using the entire trip--stopped working at a gas station in East Bumpis, Nowhere, about 15 days in. Thankfully there was cell signal, so just a short glacial epoch later I was able to get them to turn it on again ("it was flagged for being out of your home area" -- after TWO WEEKS? Four days ago I was 1000 miles further away than that, and it worked fine.)

So yes, tell your stupid bank you'll be traveling.
posted by maxwelton at 7:42 PM

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And set up mobile pay with at least one card on your phone in case you lose you wallet.
posted by Candleman at 9:18 PM

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I usually pack stuff from my donation bag for thrift shops so that I won't feel anything when I take them on holiday and leave them behind, in favour of the stuff I always find overseas that I want to bring back home. So I never take my favourite tee shirts or jeans, frocks or shoes just the also rans of my wardrobe that I haven't worn for a year. I am usually taking gifts for others that I am visiting so that also leaves room in my case for my homeward trip.

I get travel insurance, but I also have this weird superstition syndrome that the Travel Gods will collect some kind of payment for having the hubris to leave home - and just hope that it is a scam donation at MontMartre and not some kind of broken bone or flu. When basic shitty things happen on my trip like I dunno, someone has decided my seat on the plane is theirs, or I get the wrong airline meal, or a concert I booked excitedly sucks when I actually get there, that I have to sit on the tarmac for three hours to wait out a tornado or whatever, I kinda feel grateful that the Travel Gods were really mild in their demands this time. It helps me put into perspective that it is pretty amazing to get from my remote part of the world to anywhere else.
posted by honey-barbara at 11:58 PM

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Before I go anywhere, I join Metafilter.

Have you joined Metafilter.com yet? Why not? You want the best of the internet, not Facebook, not reddit, not instagram. Especially not 4chan.

Metafilter is small, and inhabited only by smart people, like you. It's like that one bar, or coffeeshop you go to regularly, to find the best of the web. It's only five dollars; for life. That's like a coffee at Starbucks. Or a third of a pack of smokes. If you join, you can post, and not just lurk. Then you can feel the brightness of a thousand suns. Maybe not in a good way.

On Metafilter, I'm valkane, and I've posted a lot of stuff that I wanted to share with friends.

Won't you, as a digital native, think about supporting an incredible resource? From down home and around the world?

We'll be right back, after this song from Gillian Welch. Or John Prine. This, is NPR. No, wait, I'm not on the radio: it's IPI, International Public Internet.


Full disclosure: I don't work for metafilter, and will gain no money if you join. I just love it, and want it to stick around. It's taught me so much. So has NPR, but the wife takes care of that. Hey, I'm doing my part.
posted by valkane at 2:38 AM

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So I'm not even a sports fan, but there's this adorable meme that's going around now - a hyped-up Knicks fan, celebrating after the team's second-game victory. At some point someone caught a clip of him shouting into a camera:

"My mayor's Muslim, my bagel's Jewish, my Christian's Dior, and the Knicks in four!"

That last bit isn't quite going to happen, but damn I love his energy.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:17 AM

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Ah, so that's what John Flansburg (of They Might Be Giants) was riffing on when he said "My mayor's Muslim, the president's stinko, my Christian's Dior, Los Knicks en cinco." Thanks for clearing that up, EC.
posted by mollweide at 6:48 AM

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Canal Days

I had the chance to meet my friend and co-worker Benjamin's parents today. His father was introduced to me as George, and I shook his hand and said, "George, it's nice to meet you."

I missed my chance. I was distracted. I should have said:

"George, it's nice to meet you. You have every reason to be proud of Benjamin. I've worked with him for two years now, and today, Canal Days, the act of running the bridge is hectic, at best. When you have 200,000 people stumbling across the bridge (and they do stumble) and four men working on the ground, trying to keep them safe, well, it's a lot of moving parts. It requires focus, attention to detail, and an ability to make executive decisions at the drop of a hat. People may think a bridge operator isn't that big of a deal, but when you have crowds of people, like today, it can be nerve-wracking. People don't realize it can be a life or death situation. Raising that bridge and making sure everyone is safe: boats, people, cars, trains, it takes a lot. It takes courage, intelligence, skill, and aplomb. And Benjamin has all of it."

Anyway, that's what I should have said. I missed my chance. It was Canal Days.
posted by valkane at 7:16 AM

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the motto remains "no plan is the best plan."

Eisenhower: "I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

2. let your bank know you're traveling

I used to do this, when traveling internationally. Not my bank, but the credit card company. However, now a week before they're sending me creepy, Clippy-style emails with Subject: "Your upcoming travel plans."

I don't do reservations.

I once met an older chap who claimed to travel like this, even the plane tickets - said when he wanted to go to Bali he packed, went to the airport, and THEN began the process of buying his ticket. I thought he was a) nuts and b) made of money, or at least, had no worries. And all the time in the world.

So, how do I pack? My Eagle Creek carry-on sized travel back-pack (which doubles as my bug-out bag) hangs in the closet. It contains my travel wallet, inside that are passport, a bunch of dollars, Euros, Yen, Yuan, and a Canadian silver dollar. It also contains the red-leather toiletries bag I fashioned in 1974 which has accompanied me on all my travels. Also a spare umbrella, and a supplemental pouch I once received during a very rare (for me) non-steerage flight, which contains stuff like band-aids/plasters, tea-bags, a rubber stopper (for those sinks missing one) and soap.

The first step, though; weeks before actual departure: when first plan made (usually a flight or hotel reservation) I open a text file containing this info. More is added to this file as it trickles in: sights to see, suggestions copied from elsewhere, etc. Then the night before departure this doc is printed out and folded into the travel wallet.

Another preliminary is charging up the neglected electric shaver; often can't tell in advance if hotel room entry will be accompanied by my deep sigh as I discover there's no bath-tub (so no immersion shaving tonight), have to use the Norelco.

Day before departure, set up timer for the outside lights; morning of, set thermostat (maybe that's just turning the heat off), dial back the water heater to "vacation" and lock (and recheck) all the doors. So much anxiety upthread, but this is where mine begins, driving away, will the house be safe in our absence? More thoughts intrude of possibly critical forgotten things but after about 45 minutes all those concerns evaporate as I shift completely in to travel mode.
posted by Rash at 7:44 AM

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