How many electronic gadgets do we need?

It’s Saturday before we leave on Wednesday. I haven’t actually started packing, but am still in the gathering, evaluating, and buying more stuff stage. Today, electronics… and with devices, you need rechargers or batteries. My question… they make universal remotes for your TVs/DVD players/cable or satellite receivers. Why don’t they make a universal recharger cord? This picture is of the devices that I’m sure we cannot live without. Except that we have two of the three phones that are the same model and can hence share a charger cord, each item has its own cord. Yes, we are taking three phones… just in case. I forgot to include the power strip in the picture, as 6 charger cords are shown, plus the charger device for my Cannon camera. We have to have a power strip because I don’t think even US hotels have enough wall plugs!

 

About those 3 phones… we bought two of them before I lost my non-Smartphone and replaced it with a Blackberry Storm. Now I can take my Blackberry because I can change out the Sim card for an Ecuador one. So, we have a spare phone that Phillip wants to take. My music, X-Files episodes, and Star Trek movies are on the iPod touch, and I don’t know how or if they can be transferred to the Blackberry. For the plane, I need my iPod. I can see an iPhone in my future, when my Blackberry contract is over. Phillip’s travel cell won’t have service till we get to Ecuador, so I couldn’t download songs on it here, even though it is a Blackberry – or maybe I could, but don’t know how. So, the red item in the picture is Phillip’s MP3 player, which I loaded Thursday with songs and Rodney Carrington comedy routines. Will Phillip sing out loud with Rodney Carrington on the airplane? I’ll bet he tries! until I elbow him or threaten to spend the flight in the restroom.

 

The netbook is what I will do the blog posts on, what we use for Skype conversations, and what I will use as a pass thru to store pictures onto the external hard drive (also pictured, also with a cord).  I could use the netbook without a mouse, but it drives me crazy to do so. Hence, the mouse will be making the trip. At least I’m not taking my laptop, which is twice as big and four times as heavy as the netbook.

 

We read that batteries may be hard to come by in Ecuador. Since I have been known to forget to turn the power off on the mouse and run the battery down, batteries will travel with us. Again, none of our battery-eating devices use the same size. Flashlights, the mouse, the MP3 player, different battery sizes. Oh well, they only take up the space of three pairs of rolled up socks. If it gets tight during packing time, Phillip can have wet feet for three days… but his MP3 player will work!

 

Phillip laughed at me this morning. He said we would start packing early, on Monday evening, but I said that I planned to “practice pack” tomorrow. He thought that was funny… but just wait, when I have everything fitted in perfectly, accessible when we need it, easy to find, stored in Zip-loc bags with the air sucked out…… TSA will do a bag check and say, “Wow, what a great packer!” Either that, or they’ll never be able to get it back in and we’ll retrieve our luggage and overflow in a box at the Quito airport.

 

Four days! I sure hope the weather allows us to get to the airport (thank you, Ralph) and leave on time (please, American Airlines ground crews).