Little Black Guidebook

Pearl Harbor Memorial – Honolulu, Hawaii

I refuse to use the cliche staycation, its like fashionista, recessionista, and other annoying “now” words. I think of what that word refers to as really just making the most of your time that’s not at work and enjoying the pleasures of home with or without taking time off. This weekend is probably the last one before the snow sticks for the winter so its got my thinking cozy thoughts.

Half the time when we have the weekend together without Army or travel to interfere we spend it mutually tuning each other out with the tv on, the laundry running and both of us on opposite ends of the sofa on our laptops until one of us says “That’s it, am I seriously killing time on Stumbleupon at home?!” and then we actually do something. This weekend we got a headstart and made a list of things to do together to enjoy the pleasure of being home. Tonight we’ll cap it off with an end of summer BBQ. May as well get some use out of the deck before the snow flies, even if it means flipping burgers and watching our breath rise. Smores are definitely in order.

This list is my version of the one on this Zen Habits post. Since we are still childless I edited down to more couply ideas for a weekend in, but see the original list for family ideas.

1. Play together in the snow, rain or leaves, then go inside for a cup of hot chocolate made with real chocolate and marshmallows.

2. Make a large bowl of popcorn and snuggle in front of the DVD to watch a movie you’ll both enjoy. No chick-flick that he pretends to like, but something you are actually both interested in.

3. Have a picnic. In wintertime, it’s just as fun to have a picnic indoors.

4. Snuggle together in bed on a cold Sunday morning.

5. Go out for a leisurely Sunday brunch.

6. Just talk. The art of really truly communicating with each other takes practice.

7. Grab a board game. My husband and friends play a mean game of Risk

8. Cook together. Then eat without turning on the tv.

9. Visit the library. Part of the beauty of staying home and not traveling is that you don’t have to buy books to enjoy new reading material.

10. Have a family make-your-own-pizza night.

11. Go for a hike. Maybe in your neck of the woods its still warm enough for this. Right now we’re in that odd period where its too chilly for mountain hikes and not cold enough for snowshoing. Fall actually makes for nice bike riding too.

12. Go to the museum. Play tourist in your own home-town by hitting up the local museums.

13. Go ice-skating/skiing/snowboarding/sledding.

14. Make breakfast foods for dinner, together. Then eat it in bed. Almost as good as room service and a far better value.

15. On a warm fall night, it’s fun to go camping in your own backyard and sleep in sleeping bags, under the stars. We actually drug our mattress into the living room once when it was -20F out just to shake things up a little. We lit candles instead of a fire. Silly, but memorable.

16. Get moving together. Our community has free dance lessons on Saturday nights and Latin dance nights once a month. We have also tried Aikido, fencing, swimming and ultimate frisbee together.

Uploaded by mrtwism

If you look at the tagline for this blog you’ll see that it is about making life an adventure. To me making life an adventure means that I do things that are sometimes outside my comfort zone. In Hawaii this meant trying scuba.

I swam in high school and snorkeled before, but had never tried scuba. I didn’t want a big group class, but I didn’t want to spend too much either. I ended up finding a structural engineer on sabbatical who is a professional scuba diver and under-water photographer in his new-found free-time. He teaches through Deep Ecology on the North Shore of Hawaii.

Deep Ecology is a full-service, five-star PADI Dive Center and a National Geographic recognized dive center, located on Oahu’s famous North Shore in historic Haleiwa. In addition to the classes they give they participate in environmental activism activities such as turtle rescues, ghost net recoveries and the creation of the North Shore’s first marine sanctuary.

Our intro to scuba class was held at Shark’s Cove on the North Shore. (so named because of the shape of the rock formations in the caves not because of the number of sharks) There were a bunch of other classes out there that day, but most of them were groups of 6-8 whereas ours cost no more and was just the two of us and the instructor. Also, they were all out of the water before us and didn’t go as far away from the shore. Since we weren’t held back by whoever was the least comfortable in our class we got to progress a lot further in our class, learning a few extra skills including confined diving in a lava cave with sea turtles.

After our class we chatted with our instructor about life on the North Shore, being an engineer in Hawaii and got a lunch recommendation. If you’re ever on the North Shore of Oahu with a hankering for Mexican look up Chollos Authentic Mexican. They have the best nachos and margaritas. I would drive the hour from Waikiki just for their nachos. Hubby loved their mojito as well.

I will admit I freaked out a little bit before getting used to it. But looking back it was one of the most amazing things I’ve done in a long time. We saw so much wildlife and a totally different view of our world. If we get another chance to go back to Hawaii we’ll definitely try and do our Open Water dive certification in 3 days.

Cost $109.00 for 1/2 day of scuba. $20 for lunch.

Mexico/San Diego Wedding+Army

Hubby will also be taking three pairs of shoes, but that’s because he flies out directly from San Diego only a few hours after the wedding for a week of Army duty. All of his clothes have to be washable and reusable because he can’t check a big bag, schlep it to Mexico and back and then jet off for training easily. He’s trying to go carry-on only with wedding clothes, a week of Army clothes and a laptop, which is quite difficult with how bulky those uniforms and boots are.

He packed his REI Adventure pants, which as he said “If I made it through Italy in August, I can handle Mexico.” He’s also bringing a Horny Toad button down shirt which he can sink wash and wear over again if necessary if he has any free time in the evenings after duty. I’ll probably be bringing his one wear only pretty wedding clothes back with me. His other lightweight favorite is his Marmot Ion windshirt which folds down to the size of a handful of Kleenex and really is the perfect layer for planes and humid climates where all you need is a little extra something to keep the air off of you and not a heavy jacket. I tried talking him into using his Army PT shorts as swim trunks, but he said he’s not allowed to use US Army uniform items while in foreign countries.

So there you have it, my no-wash Mexican weekend and his carry-on only 10-day Army packing list.

Since sophomore year of college hubby has had one hand tied behind his back as far as doing what he wants because of ROTC in college and then Army Reserve duties. We can’t just take a three week trip because he has monthly drills and obligations. He also has to be contactable all the time. He went from doing homework in the evenings and ROTC field exercises on the weekend in college to handling all the issues and paperwork to take care of his soldiers which basically amounts to working a part-time job as an officer in the reserves on top of his full-time job.

So, when we were discussing the fact that he has just three more years to go the other night it was in the context of, “What would you like to do with all that free time and freedom to do what you want that you will have?” This led us to start talking about taking a one-year sabbatical from our full-time jobs and traveling the world. We would like to do all the random things we put off doing while he was serving his country. When I ran into this article on how to put your travel on your resume I perked up. Of course, we won’t actually be quitting our jobs, just taking sabbaticals, but others might be worried about how to come back from the trip of a lifetime and start job-hunting with a gap on their resume. My favorite part is the excerpt of an actual resume which shows exactly how the author put travel on their resume. How to Make Travel Look Good on a Resume.

I had a friend ask me to type up these instructions for staying in touch on the cheap for their boyfriend who is deploying to Iraq this week with no laptop, but just an iPhone. Basically it is the method I use for most of my international travel.  I don’t have an iPhone, but this method works for any unlocked wi-fi enabled phone. Hopefully someone else will find this useful. I’ll have to post a follow-up after they have been using this method for awhile.

For US to Iraq -
Method 1. Him computer, you computer
Simple enough. For folks back home to reach him in Iraq, they need to download and install Skype software and you can talk to each other as long as you both have an Internet connection and a computer with Skype installed. This allows him to cancel his cell-phone plan (early cancellation fees waived for military) and save that cost while he’s away.

Method 2. Him cell phone, you computer/cell phone with Skype installed
We want this to work without him needing a computer to receive calls.  The first thing he will need is an unlocked mobile phone. In the United States, some carriers will unlock your phone if you ask. I’m not sure if AT&T will unlock the iPhone, but there are ways to jailbreak it yourself. Whenever he arrives in Iraq he can buy a local SIM card (the tiny, interchangeable chip inside the phone that actually lets you connect to a particular carrier; they’re sold at mobile phone stores and kiosks for $2 to $25, depending on the country) and make local phone calls and send text messages without paying exorbitant international roaming fees. The best type of SIM card to get is the kind that allows unlimited incoming calls.

Every SIM card has its own local number associated with it. Fortunately Skype also lets you call out to mobile phones and land lines (with SkypeOut) so you can call him with SkypeOut and it will ring on his Iraq # on his iPhone. Iraq is inexpensive to call this way, but not free like the first method (calling computer to computer). It costs $ 0.372/minute from a US computer or a US cell phone with Skype installed on it to call an Iraq cell phone.

So, here’s how a call to him would work:

You dial his Iraq # using Skype, and it rings on his iPhone at his Iraqi cellphone number.

Cost to you: $0.372/minute. Cost to him: zero.

This system lets anyone with Skype, reach him, at a minimal cost to him (just the cost of the SIM card assuming he gets one with unlimited incoming calls). All he needs to receive a call is a cell phone signal.

Cost to you: zero, cost

Method 3. Him cell phone with Iraq SIM card or computer with Skype, you any US cell phone or landline
We also want this to work without you needing a computer as well so if you’re having that really bad day and need to give him a ring (assuming the 12 hour time difference and his military duties don’t have his phone turned off), you can. To do this he needs to purchase a SkypeIn number that has a U.S. area code so his friends and family can use normal phones to call him using a local number to reach his computer. ($60 a year or $18 for three months) He can also forward his American cell phone number to the new SkypeIn number by calling AT&T before he goes and giving them the new SkypeIn number. He can then go online and set the Skype software’s preferences to forward the new SkypeIn number to the new Iraq # associated with the new SIM card he buys in Iraq.

SkypeIn has a relatively low fee. ($60 a year or $18 for three months)

So, here’s how a call to him would work:

You dial his regular American cell phone number, which forwards to his SkypeIn number, which, in turn, forwards (via SkypeOut) to his Iraqi cellphone number.

Cost to you: zero. Cost to him: $0.372 miniute.This system lets anyone, anywhere, reach him, at a small cost to him. All he needs to receive a call is a cell phone signal.

Of course if this were another country than Iraq you would be paying like $0.021/minute to France for instance and this whole method becomes a lot cheaper and more attractive than the alternative (phone cards at pay phones).

Calling from Iraq to the US -
If he wants to call home, he’ll use a slightly different and far simpler system. Tell him to download Skype for the iPhone while in the states (and data is cheap), be in range of a wi-fi signal and make SkypeOut calls to anyone he wants to for $0.021/minute, or for free if the person is online and logged into skype.

Hawaii Wishlist

Hubby has an upcoming trip to Hawaii in May for an Army meeting. He’ll be busy 3 days and they will pay his airfare, but we are planning on extending the trip a few days on either end and spending a week there total. It is providing just the necessary motivation to stick with the Weight Watchers meetings and complete food journaling. I call this image my Hawaii wish list. If my wishes are full filled I’ll be wearing the two-piece bathing suit, but I would be content rocking the coral colored one piece as well. I could totally go a full week packing only the items above. Two dresses and two pairs of shoes and a cardigan to throw over-top in the evening. One of the dresses is nice enough to go to dinner in at night. All I would add is some toiletries, a pair of jammies and maybe my new Macbook for blogging. A girl can dream anyway, especially in this weather. So that’s my wish list.

I’ve received more than my normal hits on this blog since posting my packing list so I figured I would add hubbies to the mix. Unlike me, his 3-1-1 bag will probably have aftershave and toothpaste in it and he’ll rely on a combination of bar soap and hotel freebies the whole trip. I have also shifted some of the books into his bag and he’ll be holding onto a few of our common items such as the laundry supplies and camera.

Hubby will also be toting along the 3 Skype phone. Not yet available in the US, I am going to be given one when we land in Europe to review. Hopefully my review will help future world travelers who are thinking about traveling abroad and renting or buying a Skype phone. I’m certainly looking forward to putting it through its paces. It will have tough competition, stacked up against my Nokia N95 with its 5 mega pixel camera, video camera, wifi internet, GPS and maps features, and Skype through Fring. And no, I’m not being paid to do this review, I’m just trying to make life easier on my fellow travelers and satisfy my geeky curiosity.

The reviews I’ve read say that the “3 Skype phone will allow users to make free Skype-to-Skype calls and send free instant messages over 3G, in addition to making normal phone calls and browsing the Internet. 3’s Skype phone also packs a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, an expandable micro SD card slot (up to 1GB) and weighs a pocket-friendly 85g. The star feature however, has to be the ability to make cheap Skype calls. You can call friends or relatives anywhere in the world via Skype and not spend a penny, or have to be tied up to a laptop or PC — we like.”

We’ll see how it pans out. Going to Europe without my laptop has me more than a little freaked. I was browsing the Sony website looking at their 1.8 lb laptop models and even considered the Macbook Air, but I’ll just try to settle for cell phones and Internet cafes. We’ll see how the blogging goes with the minimal electronics plan.

Back to hubbies packing list. It features REI Adventures pants which actually look like pants, not hiking pants and they don’t go “swish” every time he walks which is awesome. They are also kind of soft and feature great little security pockets for wallet, passport, etc. so he’ll be happy. My man judges the quality of any garment by the distribution and quantity of pockets.

Also included are more than a fair share of Horny Toad shirts. After I wore my modal shirts from them for several days solid, including biking back and forth to work, with no sweat stains, stink, or discomfort he was sold that the brand was more than just cute and soft. When I found coupon codes for 30% off on top of their sale which is already 30% off he took the plunge. 60% off some awesome travel t’s and button downs…awesome. Code is: 38630 for 30% off any order over $125 placed on www.hornytoad.com or simple for 20% off any purchase, both work as of last night.

To explain the jacket situation, I am always cold and will probably wear my jacket in Paris and London 75% or more of the time (probably just the pashmina in Italy). He, on the other hand, won’t bring his jacket at all unless it is currently raining. So on bad weather days he’ll bring his real jacket and on other days he’ll stuff his Marmot Ion jacket which weighs 3 oz in my purse or his pants pocket to pull out only if absolutely needed.

The rest is pretty self explanatory. I am making him bring the long sleeve shirt for the one formal dinner I know we’ll have at my conference and the sweater for layering purposes (he probably won’t use it). He is bringing along 550 cord, which will serve who knows how many uses, the primary one being as our clothes line. He showed me an old Army trick for using it as a clothes line which convinced me not to buy one of those surgical rubber models. He stole one of my large Tom Bihn packing cubes and fit everything but his pants in it. Maybe I’ll have to steal his Absolute Strap and we’ll call it even. If it weren’t for the shipping cost I’d order a few more cubes and the strap, those things are awesome. And yes, it all fit in his Aeronaut, including his shoes which he’ll actually wear on the plane, with tons of room to spare. Yay, more room for souvenirs.

Feedback appreciated…

Hubby doesn’t see the need to pack this early in the game. He kind of laughed as he watched me take over the living room, laying things out, putting things back, arranging outfits on the floor and then weighing everything after checking it off my packing list. Then I asked him what he was planning on bringing and given that he won’t be wearing shorts and t-shirts the whole time (his normal summer casual uniform), but pants and polos, he reevaluated the need for early planning. All of his work pants and khakis work in Alaska and are 100% cotton. This makes them unfriendly for hot weather and hard to wash as we go. He also has suit pants, which are not travel or weather appropriate. His last option is his hiking pants of which he has two pairs. The first of which have zip off shorts which act like rubber bands on his thighs. Even though the rest of the pant fits, they look awful. The second pair are so loose they look like MC Hammer pants. Men’s travel pants are really hard to find.

I first turned to google. A surprising amount of men wear the zip-off pants as travel pants, blech. Being an extensive traveler myself, I never see those pants on the locals, unless I’m actually out hiking. I looked on the OBOW (one bag one world) page, but they didn’t seem to have any good finds on their “Solution to the pants problem” post. I went to stand by stores Eddie Bauer, REI, and Dockers which left me with a couple options.

• The REI Adventures Pant, which were reviewed as having problems with pilling.
• Dockers Championship Pant Pleated are nice because they are non-cotton, they are reinforced for men bending over while lining up their golf shots, and designed for hot weather. I didn’t like the pleated part of them, which adds bulk around the middle to even the thinnest of guys.

By this time I realized why we buy all of his clothes at Eddie Bauer. Their excellent return policy means that as he wears out his pants I can steadily replace them for free and their website is a one-stop place to get items for a 6′-2″ guy who wears a size Medium-Tall. Most men’s clothes brands don’t sell Medium-Tall and in general shopping for men’s clothes is boring. I wouldn’t do it at all, except for the fact that he would literally wear his current wardrobe until it fell off of him threadbare if I didn’t encourage him in the fashion department. I basically do the research, line up a couple options for him and then he picks what he wants. Eddie Bauer was a god-send, I get the catalog in the mail, and he just leafs through and sticky notes what he likes. I can almost always find a coupon code, and if anything ever doesn’t work out, we just send it back.

Next option was actually me getting bored while shopping on “men’s websites” and wandering over to more familiar hunting grounds, stores hubby wouldn’t be caught dead walking into because they rely on actually trying things on. This usually isn’t even an option. In Fairbanks, Alaska there isn’t too much of a chance for shopping. I wouldn’t torture him by shopping on vacation so we’re usually web shoppers. I found out that Old Navy, Banana Republic and GAP all allow combined shipping. Banana Republic has one pair of Relaxed Linen Pants which are lightweight, breathable, and have a flat front, but they somehow don’t look like something I can talk him into. I’m considering ordering them anyway just to try them. I’m planning on justifying it by getting a couple shirts which are amazingly offered in Medium-Tall and breathable linen. I’ll wait until I can dig up a coupon code.

It’s looking like his packing/shopping is going to take awhile. That or at the last second he’ll stuff some items in a bag and say that he is going with the Tim Ferriss Buy It There style of travel. When all is said and done his bag will probably weigh less than mine even after I foist off the guidebooks and electronics into his bag. Oh well. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Hubby is used to one bagging and one outfitting it with the Army. One bag of green and camo clothes and one carefully chosen outfit that will get him through almost any situation, dinner out, sightseeing, shopping, or chilling with the guys. I’m not too worried about his packing, just his laundry, if he ends up bringing 100% cotton khakis, either he’ll wear one pair the whole time or we might be dealing with damp laundry on the train. Men are complicated, and their clothes are boring.