Constructive Panic

I'm well within panic range. Only four weeks before we leave on our trip. Flattery may get you everywhere, but panic gets you nowhere, quickly. Dan Zadra has a great quote: "Worry is a misuse of the imagination." How true that is.

Speaking of flattery, the order for my Sherpani Iris backpack, not mentioned by name in the last post, was cancelled by the purse web site - they didn't have the Pebble color I ordered. Bummer! At least they gave me $10 off my next order. I decided I'd look around in real-life a little more before placing an order for a different color. For $55.00, the cuteness can wait. Besides, in the meantime I had ordered a new camera backpack...not quite the Caddillac of camera backpacks, but close...the Lowepro Fastpak 250!

Why is it so great? Well first and foremost, you can carry it like a backpack, but sling it off one shoulder and hold the pack sideways to open the camera compartment in a jiffy. My current backpack is really too small to hold my Cannon while it's wearing the wide-angle pants, and I have to take the pack off all the way in order to get the camera out, or to change the lens - a royal pain in the toucas. As a result, most of the time I end up having 4+ lb. camera tugging around my neck even when not in picture mode, just to have it at the ready. (That, and it looks goofy! Bermuda shorts and visor, anyone?!)

The other most important feature for me is that it holds a laptop, which I will need to process my pictures while on the road, and of course, to blog! The Fastpak is the only camera backpack that I could find that had both of these important features. I was sure I made the right choice by choosing the "smaller" of the Fastpack models.

So excitedly I waited for my new camera backpack to arrive, and the one thing I knew for sure as soon as I saw it - Mike is going to be carrying this baby because...it...is...HUGE! Jeepers, it's a good thing I ordered the smaller one! I was sure I had made the right choice after reading all the reviews, and even watching a video on YouTube (ok, so it was in a foreign language!!). Emma asks me the obvious; didn't I look at the measurements? Well, yeah, but it didn't seem like it would be that much bigger than the one I already have.

Now I'm second guessing my choice, since even though the laptop compartment fits a widescreen laptop, we're only bringing a mini notebook. That's alright though, cuz we'll need room for the lappy power pak, along with all of the other gear for the Cannon - extra batteries and charger, card reader, filters and lenses, the video camera and cords, phone, ipod, kitchen sink...even though we won't want to carry all that stuff around all the time, it all still needs to get there in the first place.

I tell myself it'll be fine. Mike will carry the backpack. I most likely will still have the camera tugging at my neck, but at least the new pack will hold all of that other junk, so that we can lose it all at once.

As I've so aptly illustrated, second guessing creates panic. Panic is worry on steroids, and "Worry is a misuse of the imagination." No sense in worrying about it. You can do your best, but you can't plan for absolutely every situation, such is Life. Carpe Diem anyway.

Perhaps the Sherpani in the Canyon color...

Luck 'o the Irish

As if it weren't hard enough to find an affordable hotel room in Dublin at the height of the tourist season, U2 had to go and have a concert, (no make that two concerts!) in Dublin this summer. Hailing from Dublin originally, this is a REALLY big deal to Dubliners; the Holy Grail of concerts.

I love U2. They are the anthem band of my youth. Under a Blood Red Sky is one of my favorite albums. Any songs from War and The Joshua Tree instantly take me back to those first tastes of freedom in high school and college. In the words of William Wallace, "Frr-r-r-eedom!" (Ok, so he's Scottish... and do NOT confuse the Irish with the Scottish, or English or Welsh, for that matter; EVER.)

Now I've never seen U2 in concert. On their 2005 Vertigo tour, I contemplated going, until I calculated that it would cost approximately one month's mortgage payment to go see them in Toronto or Boston, then I realized that's why they named it the Vertigo tour. Ok, I don't live in a McMansion, but jeez! I don't even like The WHO that much. Well, ok, maybe I do.

As our luck would have it, they will be playing in Dublin July 24 AND 25 - the same time we're going to be there. Wow! Cool! Great! What better place to see U2 for the first time than in their hometown of Dublin!

Sure, us and 80,000 other fans; make that 164,000 fans. This is not just any venue either - but the Croke Park Stadium, which holds as many as a concert at Rich Stadium including field seats, and then some, and is the fourth largest stadium in Europe! Yikes, kiss any hotel room goodbye for that matter. Both concerts SOLD OUT in an hour...such swift sales that they will likely will be adding a third night...oh dear.

So, just in case they didn't make enough $ on their most recent "You're Not THAT Old Yet, Tour", U2 kicks off their second "Baby-Boomers and Gen X'ers Relive Your Semi-Punk Adolescence In Case You Missed It Last Time, Tour", this time officially dubbed the 360° Tour. Full Circle, I guess. To be fair about the grinding sound of the money making machine here:

"In keeping with U2 manager Paul McGuinness pledge to allocate at least 10,000 tickets at each venue at a cost of €30 each, the cheapest tickets will be priced at €33.50 which includes the booking fee.


Tickets for both concerts will range from €33.50 to €131.50 and are limited to six person/transactions."

How very thoughtful.

We were enlightened to this amazing clash in the time-space continuum when every and all hotel rooms, from every and all hotel search engines, were sucked into a vacuous black hole in a matter of minutes of plopping in our travel dates.

Our epiphany went something like this:
"Hmm...there must be something big going on in town that weekend, (understatement of the century) ....hmmm, hopefully the Pope's not in town, ha ha!... Ok, Google....Dublin...July 24. Uh, it's much worse than the Pope being in town. It's ...please tell me it's not...a....U2..... CONCERT?!? Aghh!"

I think it would be easier to find a hotel room in Dublin on St. Paddy's day - with the Pope in town.

Happy Traveling Rule #1 (aside from having a DVD player with earphones for the kids) -

Don't Panic!

We were able to find a really nice and CHEAP hotel (Bewley's, as recommended by Samantha Brown of The Travel Channel!) for the 27th, so that is booked and we can rest assured that we have at least one night in Dublin with a bed, pillow, and private bathroom (THAT is a whole 'nother story).

Happy Traveling Rule #2 - Be Flexible!

Our only travel restriction is to be back to to Dublin by the 28th for our flight out to Glasgow. Instead of visiting Dublin as soon as we come over and then heading out two days later, we'll pick up our rental car and bee-line it to a location halfway between Dublin and Cork before the masses infiltrate on the 23rd. When we come back and drop off the car, then we'll do the touristy thing in Dublin, when all the other "tourists" have gone...hopefully.

Oh yeah, and...

Happy Traveling Rule #3 - Always Google for events in the town you're visiting, just in case you need to avoid them!