Another Week down.

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

So another week has blazed by.

Just 12 days till I get on a plane and leave my current life behind.

I get an odd reaction when I sit down long enough to think about that, part fear and part excitement. It’s a
bit like when I was a kid, I’d always get this same odd feeling the last two weeks of August before heading
back to school.

Luckily I haven’t had much time for doing that kind of thinking.

Mark from Tremar Computer Solutions, who along with his team will be looking after my day job for the
next couple of months, started job shadowing me this week. I figured that would be better than hoping my
documentation was good enough that he didn’t get blindsided by anything I forgot. Turns out that was a good call.

There is an amazing number of subtle and odd details in my day to day work. Things that I do
automatically and don’t even think to write down, even when I’m trying to document a process in detail.
Working with Mark this week showed me lots of places where such details were mysteriously absent from
my documentation. Blah.

Yesterday (Saturday) was spent setting up a new mainfloor “utility room” to house our new portable
washer. I also moved a lot of junk around and tried to rationalize the layout of our living room to make
things a bit easier for Jayne while I’m away.

I also started (again) reviewing my lists of stuff. Packing will start in earnest this week. Jayne suggested I
should post a picture of everything laid out before it gets mashed into my duffel bag, just for the record.

Everybody tells me not to take too much stuff and that I can get anything I’m missing through the magic
of plastic money but my mind fixes on “6 months!” and wants me to cover every eventuality. I would end
up looking like an overloaded packhorse if I did that.

One of my clients mentioned he had a friend who went to Australia for a year and took a huge pile of stuff
but came back with a single backpack’s worth. Whenever I have traveled in the past I always took way
more stuff than I ever used or even touched so I’ll just have to be aware of that tendency. I suspect the
contrast between the pile of things to pack and the volume of space in which to pack it will help.

There is one aspect of this trip I hadn’t thought much about before now and that is preparing food for 40
people when my turn on “Galley Duty” coincides with the cook’s day off which is Sunday. So I’m
interested in any recipes for easy things to cook for 40ish people, preferably with simple ingredients or
easily substitutable ones. If you have any suggestions/recipes/ideas feel free to include them in a
comment.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

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