For this trip I needed a new camera bag to hold some of this gear. Since I currently own 23 camera bags I had to come up with a reason why I needed a twenty-fourth. The interior layout, carrying method, meets under seat airline regulations, has a small tripod carrier, room for a water bottle, slot for my iPad were all valid reasons I thought. Sue didn't buy any of these reasons so I bought the bag. Its nice to be in a marriage where we don't argue about such things. I do however get quizzical looks that suggest that she holds my sanity suspect.
Next up was a small point and shoot (P&S) camera for those times when I didn't want to haul around the big Canon DSLR (digital single lens reflex). I already owned a working P&S but it was six or seven years old. You have to have the latest technology. This new little Canon camera even has a GPS built in to tell you where you were when you took the picture. How many times have I asked myself, now where did I get this shot of a moose? Was it Miami or Maine? For this trip it will be more like, now where was this castle? It looks just like that other one. The GPS feature alone made the purchase worthwhile. It only had one downside. It made my DSLR jealous. Electronics have feelings too.
To make my DSLR feel better I bought it a new GPS tracker as well. When you start buying gifts for your electronics you have reached a plateau that psychologists haven't even begun to tackle. So now I have my big Canon and my little Canon (this already sounds Freudian). Both cameras will know where they are even if I don't.
I have a GPS for the car we plan to rent in Dublin. We will be driving around all of southern Ireland. I bought a micro SD chip for the GPS, about the size of your little finger nail. Another gift for a piece of electronic gear. Do you see a pattern here? This chip has loaded on it all of the streets, highways, shops, restaurants and pubs for all of western Europe and some parts of eastern Europe. If I make a wrong turn leaving Kilkenny and end up in Poland I should be able to find my way back home before global warming turns Miami into an underwater attraction.
I have my iPad loaded up with reference material. I have location maps, music, magazines, books, travel guides, camera manuals and travel apps. To make blog postings I bought a travel keyboard for the iPad. It now thinks it is a computer. If I were able to bring all of my maps and guides in their original dead tree format the plane wouldn't be able to get off the ground in Miami.
The final things in my electronic arsenal are the plug converters. You see, not only is America behind in our educational system, we only have 120 volts of electricity to run our stuff. Most of the rest of the world has 220, 230 even 240 volts. How did we fall so far behind? Even lowly Fiji has 220 volts. We rank right up there with Hati and Jamaica with only 110.
The Britts, probably in retaliation for that little squabble in 1776, not only make you drive on the left side of the road from the passenger seat, but have managed to force you to use funny little plugs to get at their electricity. They, along with China and Uganda, use a Type G plug. Ireland, as a former British possession, also uses the Type G and still has some old Type D plugs around just to mess with your head. And British Air wonders why my luggage weighs so much. My carry on bag and one hand bag will have all of the electronics mentioned, a toothbrush and one change of underwear. No room for anything else.
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