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We are officially four days behind our schedule for getting our gear into bags and ourselves ready to carry it all to Nepal. If we were just going trekking, or just going to Kathmandu to make a documentary, we’d be better off. But the double-whammy of doing both of these things interrelatedly is really kind of a big deal.

Add to that the fact that we had a couple other projects to finish up, that we thought we’d be getting done with like Sunday. Actually, that’s the main thing that’s kept us from allowing ourselves a bit more breathing room. 

There has been a frenzy of acquisition: outdoor gear, photo/video equipment. To the point where we’re a little overwhelmed by it/fatigued by it.

Yesterday afternoon we spent a good couple hours talking with (and buying a small truckload of stuff on the advice of) an extraordinarily helpful fellow at Marmot Mountain Works in Bellevue. This was a follow up visit to Amy’s trip there a couple days ago. Everything she said about the place and the service were true. Thanks Gary! Thanks Marmot. Just realized 

We had a couple of other nice, gear related things to report. I’d ordered a bunch of XLR microphone cables from Markertek, the big online retailer of video/production stuff, like a solid week ago. Today, I called to see if something was up with the order, since I hadn’t received shipping confirmation. 

It turns out that even though I’d said there was a deadline, the fellow who took the order didn’t pass the ‘expedite’ message to the cable building department, and the order was just finished and packed today. ALERT! I explained the situation, and the customer service guy was very nice, and they’re overnighting the cables to me at their expense. A) WHEW! and B) That’s the kind of customer service that’s going to earn my loyalty. Treat me right, and don’t make me go broke, and I’ll bring my business to you again and again. Thanks Markertek!

Finally, Dulce Systems, freshly back from the big national trade show, came through with a really cool two-terabyte Duo drive, that we’ll configure to run as Raid 1, meaning that each of the two 1TB drives inside this sleek stainless case will do exactly the same thing. They’ll look to our computer like one drive, but if one of the hard disks goes south, the other is there, safe and sound. Cool. 

I am going to try to set this up as a boot drive too, so that our computer’s system, and key software and files can live safe and sound on there in case something goes wonky with the Macbook Pro. So many things to think about.