The last pretrip post

So to be quite honest I thought the last couple of days before I left would be a slow, agonising time of counting the seconds until I left. I was wrong. I had been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but I believe I got everything taken care of and all my stuff packed up. I am currently writing this in Chicago and still haven't found anything I am missing/have left, so that should count for something. Like Aaron, the severity of this trip still has not sunk in, nor do I think I will realize how long a year of traveling is until a few weeks into the trip (I'll let you all know.) So rather than going into what I'm thinking and feeling right now, I will make a vow to keep this website as up to date as possible. If possible I will also try to make small little 5 minutes movies for people to watch, I don't know the storage space on this website, so that may or may not actually happen. However, I will miss everyone so make sure to keep checking the website and I will make sure to post pictures and say what's up. Well, Liz and I are off to China town (here in Chicago) so I best be off. Talk to you all soon... from over seas (play dramatic music).

D-Day

Well boys and girls this is it. I am sitting in my Mother's house after having unloaded the last of my stuff to store. I leave Kansas in about 5 hours and you know what? It hasn't hit me yet.

I am going to be away from family, friends, and familiarity for over a year and as of now I feel as if I am just going on a short vacation. My backpack is packed, my cell phone unlocked, bills have been paid, and goodbyes have almost all been said. This is it. This is the beginning. This is where the adventure starts. I'll be seeing ya.

Quick Backpack update

Quick update on the backpack real fast... today my package from moosejaw.com came. It was the wrong color bag. Because of this they offered to send me a new one for wholesale value. Just in case if you weren't aware wholesale is what the manufacturer (osprey) charges the retailer (moosejaw, altec, etc)... Anyway, it'll end up i get my backpack for 140ish... Hell fucking ya!!!!

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Getting Antsy

Hooray, for some reason i have taken it upon myself to go on a crazy spending spree and I have finally purchased a bunch of equipment for the trip. As Nithin has stated, the most important and exciting purchase for this trip is the backpack and I finally decided to go ahead and snatch one up... However due to unforeseen circumstances it actually got 2.

This morning I figure I'd make the purchase at Altrec.com for a 230ish (about $30 0ff suggested retail price) . Then 4 hours later I started looking at prices of other items that I will need for the trip. By luck I made my way over to a site I've been to a few times before called moosehead.com. Once I got there I found that they are having a 20% off 1 item sale (until monday 4/10) and I decided to check it out. It turns out that through mooshead.com I got the backpack at 207 and I even got it in the color that I wanted. So here it is the Osprey M80:

Anyway, it seems that Altrec.com was super on the ball and already sent out the first pack. Thus now I have to refuse their UPS shipment so that they will refund my money. I would have just gotten a price match with them but I figure the blue version is much better than the black version and it would have only save me an extra 4 bucks if i did the price match

Well I'm getting bored of typing this stuff... so here is the rest of the shit that I have purchased so far for the trip.

Backpack - Osprey Way point M80
Unlocked Cell Phone - Motorola (L6) - i wanted a nice small reliable phone.
Swiss Army Knife - Deluxe Tinker -
Digital Camera - Canon SD400 w/ extra battery and 1 gig memory card.
Zen Touch Mp3 Player - 40 gb hd & 24hour battery life.
mini maglite
mini binoculars
space saver bags
a few other small boring things

Things seem to be so close at this point... almost 2 weeks for Mr Ryan and Aaron and less than 2 months for me and Brandle... I'm getting pretty excited here.

~ Mike out