At this point I feel like I'm falling behind. I intend to take alot of photos and shoot some video. I've received my Sony Cybershot DSC-HX5 to replace the one that heinously gave up the ghost on the Deal's Gap trip. It truly is an excellent, albeit somewhat fragile camera. I also have the GoPro Hero Cam which I can mount on the helmet or the bike. As a backup, I have my old indestructible Olympus Stylus 770W which is water proof, temperature proof, dust proof and drop proof, all of which I have tested, but it takes simply awful photos.

The files that these cameras create are proving too large for my old Thinkpad, so I ordered a very small Lenovo ThinkPad X100E with a dual core chip, 4 gigs of ram and a 320gig drive. The form factor is perfect. The keyboard is great. I could easily see doing real work on this laptop. It's fast enough to play HD video at the full frame rate. Unfortunately, the one that I got has some kind of hardware fault that is causing the box to lock up. Bummer. I did some diagnosis and on recommendation from the IBM/Lenovo support tech I reseated the ram and succeeded in scratching the case. I'll explore returning it on Monday. There's no way to get a replacement in time before next Saturday so I'm now looking around for an inexpensive used replacement that'll at least work.

While traveling I need to have the option of working. Things always come up and I expect there to be bugs that will need fixing, systems that will need some attention, not to mention the ecommerce development project that I'm making some progress on.

I still have to do a final pack for the trip, see if I can get the Laminar Lip wind gadget attached to the bike to reduce some of the buffeting, wash the bike and change the oil and filter.

I'm still contemplating routes. Lately I've been thinking, I might want to head north to Duluth, MN to visit the Aerostich warehouse. I read a review of their Transit suit in Motorcyclist magazine and it has me very intrigued. Waterproof breathable leathers is an interesting concept. If I do that I'm thinking about heading to the Eastern Grand Canyon in Pennsylvania. I hear it's beautiful.