Let's Go Through My Stuff! What I Packed for a 10 Day Carry On Only/Semi Working Trip

 

One night when I was in San Francisco, the thought for a packing post popped up into my head, and I took pictures of my all my stuff.  Afterwards, a voice in my head said "No one cares.  You're not the first human to do a carry on only trip.  There is better advice on the subject to be had elsewhere."

That's true, but a conversion with Julie changed my mind.  At one point we talked about why we read blogs, and the consensus is that we both like hearing the really mundane details of other people's lives.  I'm always looking for tips and tricks, which you may not get out of this post, but sometimes you have to write the kind of content that you want to see.

Let's go through my stuff!!!

Let's Go Places (And Meet People!): San Francisco part 3 of 3

 

Friends, the California trip has been such a great time, but we can't stay here for ever.  Pretty soon we're going to have to wrap it up and go home.  But not quite yet!

We still have two full days left on our trip, so there are a lot more adventures to be had.  We left off our story on Sunday night, and now it's Monday morning.  We're going to have a some epic werk drama, we're going to get all up in Golden Gate Park's business, and then we're going to spend another day hanging out with Julie.  Let's get back to our adventures!

Let's Go Places: San Francisco part 2 of 3

 

Let's pick it up from where we put it down last time.  It's the weekend, smack in the middle of my California trip, and we're going on a deep dive of San Francisco.  Our weekend journeys will take us to the wharf, prison (calm down, that just means we're doing a tour of Alcatraz), and then we'll find an unexpectedly apt way to tour the city.  We're also going to see if I can figure out how to take a bus.

Let's Go Places (And Meet People!): San Francisco, part 1 of 3

 

When we last talked, it was Thursday and I was on a train heading from Sacramento to San Francisco. 

This is the story of what happened next.  Lunch with a friend, a tour of the town, settling in to my new digs, some FLW, Muir Woods, technology drama, and a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.  And that was just my first two days in SF!

Let's Go Places (And Meet People!): Sacramento, California

 

Friends, it's time for me to tell you the story of my 10 day trip to California in May.  We've got a lot to talk about!

Let's start with Sacramento.  I went there to tour the Capitol and meet a friend, and came away with so much more.   Let me take you to the Land of the Yellow Bridge.

Weekly Round Up: Blogging Debt

 

A weekly round up: life happenings, workouts, watches, and reads, plus everything else.

Friends, I am in serious blogging debt.  There is a lot going on right now, and it's hard to find the time let alone the quiet headspace to start writing it down.  Let's take a shot at it!  Since we last talked...

Weekly Round Up: Trader Joe's & Books

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I stocked up at Trader Joe's and read a lot of books.

Content warning: this post contains a picture and a positive review of an oatmeal raisin cookie

Weekly Round Up: So Easy, So Good

 

A weekly round up: eats, watches, workouts, and reads.  This week I'm here to tell you about a cookbook called So Easy So Good plus this n'that.

State Flags I Have Known: A Rundown and Ranking

 

Do you know what your state flag looks like?

Until a few years ago I did not, and honestly it took me a bit longer than that to figure out that each state had an official flag.  The first time that I remember state flags being on my radar was this picture, which I snapped in Sandusky, Ohio back when I took The Goodtime I Island Hopping Cruise on Lake Erie.  This is a port of entry between the US and Canada, so the US and Canada flags made sense, but I wondered what the other two flags were.  The white flag is for the city of Sandusky, and the flag on the right is the Ohio state flag.  

I make a point of visiting State Capitols when I can, and a few of the other state flags have features that have made me ponder.  The idea for a post about state flags started brewing in my brain, and then this morning I clicked over to the Washington Post and was stunned to see this top story: Texas schools nix lesson over Virginia state flag’s exposed breast.

Say what?  To save you the trouble of clicking on the gift link, the first sentence reads: "School officials in one part of the Lone Star State are no fans of the lone nipple on the Virginia state flag".  Yes friends, Virginia's state flag depicts the goddess Virtus, and 100 hundred years ago someone thought that the lady looked like a dude so they lowered her neckline to clarify things.  Since I have not yet been to Virginia's Capitol, I don't think it is fair for me to show the picture yet, but you can see it here.  In any case, if state flags are making the news, it's time for me to start writing about them.

Weekly Round Up: I'm Mostly Here

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I'm mostly here to talk White Lotus and books.

Weekly Round Up: I'll Have What She's Having

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I became obsessed with someone else's food and made it my mission to have what she was having.

Weekly Round Up: I Can Explain

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I tried out a few things in the kitchen and saw an incredible TV show.

Weekly Round Up: Stuff I've Loved Recently

A weekly round up: it's normally eats, workouts, watches, and reads, but this week we're using a looser format so that I can tell you about a bunch of odds and ends.  We'll kick it off from a picture from one of my hikes this weekend, and then get into the goods.

Let's Go Places: Frankfort, Kentucky

Greeting Friends!  This weekend I put another check mark in my "spend at least one night in every state in the next 10 years" and "tour all of the State Capitols" goals.  I planned to do a lot of hiking but ended up touring breweries instead.  This is that story.

A Travel Hacking/Bank Bonus Update

In January I wrote a post called My Weird Hobby: A Credit Card/Bank Bonus Earnings Report where I dished the dirt on my baby steps into the world of travel hacking.

The big question that I had before I started looking into travel hacking was: can I do better than a cash back credit card, and if so, HOW?????  

I planned to write an update next year, but since I just scored a big coup, I thought I would drop the deets in real time.  The biggest thing to know about me is that I am someone who is learning about travel hacking by doing travel hacking.  I am learning as I go, so what I am doing may or may not be "the best way".  The second biggest thing to know about me is that I am someone who is susceptible to decision fatigue.  I don't mind taking a bit of time to look up flights and crunch numbers, but I do mind taking a lot of time to do it.  I would rather make a "good enough" decision now than an optimal decision later.  This is the story about how I achieved those goals for a pricey trip that I have coming up.

Weekly Round Up: March!!!

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Since we last talked:

• February is finally over!!!
• I've been in a food slump
• We had an epic family party
  
• I did the Fight for Air Climb
• I watched more Seinfeld
• I read a bunch of books

Let's catch up!

Weekly Round Up: Valentine's Report

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  My week started in balmy Florida and ended back home in the frozen Tundra.  Luckily there was good food, something new on the fitness front, and puppy snuggles to get through it.

BOBW: Interesting Money Questions

I listen to approximately one billion podcasts, and for the most part it is a case of "in one ear and out the other".

However,  I recently listened to an episode of The Best of Both Worlds podcast called Interesting Money Questions, which I am still thinking about.  Given that the episode went into an ear and did not go out the other, and that I met one of the show's hosts last week, I decided to play pretend and be a guest on the show.  Here are the questions that they asked and my answers.

Let's Go Places (And Meet People!): Florida

 

Since we last talked I've completed a slew of firsts for 2025: first trip, first blogger meetup, and first lighthouse visit.  This is the story of how it all came to be.

Weekly Round Up: Mostly Books

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  

The big news item of the week is that winter gave us a few more days of extreme cold and then settled back to normal.  There was a sweet spot where it was warm enough to walk the dog, and cold enough that the snow was very packable.  Hubs and Doggo had great fun with snowballs on our walks.

Weekly Round Up: Gotcha Day

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we had a deep freeze, we kicked off Doggo's Gotcha Day celebrations, and STOP THE PRESSES I FOUND THE MOST AMAZING DINNER THAT YOU NEED TO DROP EVERYTHING AND MAKE RIGHT NOW.

My Weird Hobby: A Credit Card/Bank Bonus Earnings Report

From what I understand, the credit card industry has a name for people like me: a deadbeat.  I use credit cards for convenience and pay my bill in full each month.  They don't make any money off me.

For most of my adult life, I had a very simple credit card setup of always more than one card and never more than three.  Prior to the fall of 2022, my lineup was: Amazon, Target, and Costco.  $0 fees, 5% back at Amazon and Target, and lesser percentages for all other spending.  The reason that the fall of 2022 is significant is because this is when I started traveling, and a lot of credit card rewards are specifically for travel.

I kept hearing about Credit Card Hacking, and claims like "I got a $40,000 trip for free" and "my family gets $15,000 in free credit card travel every year!"  Was I missing out?  How exactly would I go about getting my mitts on the goods? 

This is the story of what happened when I decided to find out.

Weekly Round Up: A New Kitchen Gadget

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week the big adventure was that we got a new toy for the kitchen.

Weekly Round Up: A Two Legged Carrot

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches and reads.  The big news of this week is that I encountered my first ever IRL two legged carrot.  And that's kind of all there is to say about that.

Steal a Post: 2024 in Chapters

Today's post is a blatant steal of Stephany's Best of 2024: A Month by Month Recap, with a nod to Elisabeth's Want to Write a Book with Me This Year?

Each month Elisabeth wrote a chapter title to summarize the month, and Stephany used the chapter titles that she left in the comments each month to write her annual recap.  Let's do this!

Weekly Round Up: Arctic Edition

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  As a wise poet once said: Baby, it's cold outside.  We've had cold, cold, and more cold and the forecast is: colder.

Weekly Round Up: Christmas and New Year's Recap

 

A weekly-ish round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Since we last talked: cookies were baked and holidays were celebrated, I had an "oops I did it again sorry not sorry" event on the fitness front, more Seinfeld was watched, and books have started to be read.