Best tenner I ever spent?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2012-03-04 10:01:40 - Graham Ellis
I walked into the army surplus store that we had for a short time in Melksham, looking for a large pack in which I could take all my personal stuff, plus things I needed for a small onsite course. I was looking for robust rather than pretty, flexible rather than many-compartmented. "Sorry - don't have anything" ;-( but then (in answer to my request for urgent alternative advise for a trip the following day - "We do have this old pack. It's second hand, its been well used, but it's still OK". The backboard to keep it flat has long since got broken (and indeed I have discarded it), the bag still has an orange "this is mine" ribbon from the prior owner, presumably to recognise it on luggage carousels, and it looks pretty nondescript but it's just about the best tenner I have ever spent!I'm just back from Dublin. Now - let me see if I can get this right. It's been with me on: car, bus, 3 x train, bus, ferry, 2 x bus, walk, bus, walk. That was to get to site, with 21 sets of training notes, 3 laptops, books, chargers, clothes for a week, toiletries, etc; and back: taxi, walk, bus, aircraft, bus, 2 x car, train, walk, car without the 21 sets of notes but otherwise complete. It works a charm. The uncluttered space with no dividers means I can turn it into a bag of bags (I actually have a pack within a pack much of the time, removing the inner pack as hand baggage for checked in parts of the trip and daily trips between training venue and hotel). Strong straps and strap connections and zips so that I can compress-fill it and pick it up any which way without damaging it (I need to take care at times not to damage my back, though!)
This pack - and our new generation of notepad rather than laptop computers, wirelessly connected to one another, has allowed me a significant lifestyle change for onsite courses. No longer am I obliged to drive all the way from home to the training venue, with the wear and tear on myself which that involves. It's quite tiring driving from Melksham to Immenstaad to give a Perl course, to Horten for a Python course, to Ardvarsar for PHP, to Liverpool for Lua or to Cambridge for Tcl, and it's also wasted time while I drive. Furthermore, a long drive in potentially 'interesting' road conditions (snow near Stuttgart, traffic on the M25, fog at Falkirk) needs a time safety margin added and rest periods during and after the drive to ensure that I'm on top form for the course.
So - OK - public transport may be slower but on the train, on the ferry, in the airport terminal (geeze - how long you seem to wait sometimes!) and to a lesser extent on the plane, I can read, I can write, I can think and plan - and no longer is that time wasted. My nesting templates in Django article was written at Dublin airport, for example. People may think I'm being green, environmentally friendly and all those other things. To some extent I am, but that's just good fortune. I'm making best use of my time. I'm thinking of my customer getting a course that's presented efficiently and well by a fresh tutor, without me having to reduce the number of courses and put up prices to cover. I admit it - I'm being a bit selfish too.Truely a tenner that's allowed me to change my lifestyle. Little did I realise when I spent it!