I hope you all able to spend your holidays with loved ones, and that your travels are trouble free and safe. This YouTube video captures Christmas celebrations from around the world in 1950; I hope you enjoy it…
One worry you don’t need while traveling is whether newspapers piling up on your front porch or an overstuffed mailbox is signaling to all the neighborhood burglars that you’re out of town. A couple of things to keep in mind as your next trip approaches:
- You can now suspend delivery of your mail via the internet, thanks to the USPS: Suspend Mail Delivery
- Perhaps it’s just an issue with our local newspaper, but the last couple of times I’ve called them to hold mail while we’re away, they’ve taken the information, confirmed the dates, and continued delivering the paper while we were gone. This is not helpful. My routine now includes holding mail starting a couple of days prior to our departure, just to make sure they got it right – early enough so we can call them if they screw it up again. This is probably a good approach to use with the USPS as well, just to play it safe.
I hope everyone has a terrific Holiday season, whether home or on the road!
A revealing post from a baggage handler, Confessions of an Airline Baggage “Thrower,” appeared on Huffington Post yesterday (12/16/11); an excerpt:
I’m not going to lie, your checked luggage takes a beating. They call it “throwing bags” for a reason. There isn’t an easy way around this. Airplanes only make money while in the air, and no airline wants an airplane on the ground too long. Due to the nature of some aircraft, it would be impossible to turn around a 737 or 757 in an hour or less without throwing bags because it’s just faster. On these planes, there are only two long and narrow cargo holds where your luggage goes.
Of particular note to travelers is his recommendation for the type of bag that’s least frequently damaged:
Cheap bags that you buy at the discount store break very easily. If your handle is sewn on or is very flimsy, it’s probably going to break. If you travel a lot or pack heavy, make sure you buy a quality, durable bag. Hard-sided suitcases will get less damage, but also look for well-designed handles that are attached with rivets and some sort of protection around the wheels. Speaking of wheels, the best bags to get are the “spinners” with four wheels on the bottom. We like these because we don’t have to throw them when loading. We just roll them down the belly of the plane so your bag and its contents will suffer much less damage.
I’m not sure I’m ready for a spinner, but this could definitely make me give it consideration.
If you’d like to read the entire article, see it here: Confessions of an Airline Baggage “Thrower”: Why You Should Buy a Four Wheeler Suitcase
Savvy travelers have looked beyond hotels to apartment and home rentals for years; rentals typically offer much more space, kitchens, and in some cases, laundry facilities. Rental aggregator Rentmix offers a quick and painless way to find rentals from around the world:
Rentmix aggregates rental listings from AirBnB, HomeAway, FlipKey, and other short-term rental services, plotting the results of your search on a Google map. All you need to input is your destination, dates of your trip, price range (represented by number of $ signs), and the number of bedrooms you require.
As with any Google map, you can zoom in and drag the map, finding rentals in the specific neighborhood you’re interested in. Mousing over any of the map points reveals the number of bedrooms for any particular rental, as well as the general price range; click on it, and it’s highlighted on the right hand side of the page (see image above). Clicking on “Full Details and Contact Owner” does just that – you’ll see a full description, photos, user reviews, availability dates, pricing, and a link to contact the owner:
If you’ve ever considered exploring a vacation rental as an alternative to hotels, definitely check out Rentmix.
Winter has returned to The Middle of Nowhere with a vengeance, and I find myself leaving home virtually every day wearing a fleece top, sweater, or sweatshirt.
A couple of Orvis Pima Cotton Sweatshirts are seeing heavy rotation in my wardrobe as a result.
Good looking, comfortable, and surprisingly warm, these shirts are warm and perfect for business casual and look great with a pair of jeans. A bit of neutral color inside the collar and cuffs is a nice touch, and unlike some sweaters and sweatshirts from Orvis, they run true to size.
Available in Small to XXL, in five colors. Very positive feedback from customers.
$89. See it here: Orvis Men’s Pima Cotton Sweatshirt
The Highs: Thoughtful design; impeccable quality; TSA checkpoint friendly; a 320 pound bodyguard couldn’t provide your laptop more protection
The Lows: Quality ain’t cheap, son
The Verdict: A dual purpose laptop bag for the new millennium
In the ancient history of the 1980′s, the contents of my daily bag looked a lot different than they do today. Back then, I’d have a slew of folders and papers, and on occasion, a three ring binder. Today, it’s basically my MacBook Air, a digital camera, perhaps a few random papers, plus a lot of small essentials – ear buds, a couple of Field Notes books, a few pens, an iPod touch, and so forth. If I need to bring “documents” home, they’re on a jump drive. My daily bag has gone digital.
As such, my needs in terms of the bag itself have changed. Twenty years ago, I used a conventional briefcase; today, a small Timbuk2 messenger bag.
I have two basic requirements for a daily bag: I need something that works for both my daily commute and as a seatside bag or “personal item” on flights. The T2 messenger bag does this well; the only downside is that I’m occasionally asked to remove my MacBook Air when everything goes through the magnetometer.
Entering the fray is a new contender from Tom Bihn, the Cadet. What makes this bag unique is the fact that it’s checkpoint friendly by virtue of a clever slide-out laptop (or iPad) padded sleeve (or “Cadet Cache” in Bihnspeak); more on this later.
For now, the basics: the Cadet is a “minimalist briefcase” that’s available in two sizes: 15/13 for MacBook Pros and MacBooks, and 11/Air for the 11″ MacBook Air or an iPad. As is the norm with Bihn, both are available in a wide array of colors, and if you’re not going to use it with a laptop or iPad, there’s a “Cache delete” option which results in a $30 lower price.
Tom Bihn Cadet Features & Specs
- Meets TSA guidelines for “checkpoint friendly” bags
- Exterior made of U.S. 1050 denier Ballistic nylon: this Ballistic has twice the abrasion resistance of 1680 denier fabric
- Lined with ultra-light yet super-tough Dyeema/nylon ripstop. Made in Japan
- .25″ / 8mm closed cell foam on the front, back and bottom
- YKK Uretech® splash-proof zippers on main compartment (#10) and exterior pockets (#8)
- Overall dimensions:
15/13 Cadet: 16.25 x 12.5 x 4.5″ / 410 x 320 x 115mm
11/iPad Cadet: 13.5 x 10.5 x 4.5″ / 345 x 270 x 115mm - Features a dual-function “roll-aboard” sleeve/magazine pocket on the back
- Weight: 1.4 to 2 pounds
- Made in the US
A photo tour
The Tom Bihn Cadet is clearly the product of a crazed subset of the species that is hellbent on producing bags that are cleverly designed and ridiculously well made. The thing is gorgeous.
It features 3 compartments. Up front, there’s an Ultraseude® lined valuables pocket, perfect for your wristwatch or smartphone:
In the middle, a Dyneema lined pocket with a few pen slots and a couple of compartments for a power supply, your passport, a travel mouse, and perhaps your digital camera. A couple of O Rings are available for the (included) key retainer and if you wish, other Bihn pouches. By the way, the model pictured here is the 11/Air version.
Finally, the laptop sleeve or “Cadet Cache” resides in the main compartment. In this image, we’re looking from the rear of the bag, and as you can see, there’s a divider panel toward the front of the compartment (for a few papers, or perhaps a manila folder).
The sleeve (or ‘Cache’) is made of 1/4″ thick foam padding laminated with an exterior of black 4-ply Taslan and interior of brushed tricot. Whatever the materials, it clearly is going to protect your laptop well, particularly in concert with the closed cell foam padding built in to the front, back, and bottom surfaces of the bag itself.
The Cache is mounted to the bag via two of Bihn’s (removable) “Gatekeeper” clips which mount to, and slide on, two vertical pieces of webbing sewn into the back panel of the Cadet. So what? This is how the bag/cache combo is TSA checkpoint friendliness: when you get to the magic magnetometer moment, unzip the main compartment, and the sleeve/cache slides out so it can lay flat on the belt:
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I found it helpful to grasp the bottom of the bag while sliding out the Cache. Once you’ve done it a couple of times, it’s quite easy.
A few close-up shots
As I alluded to earlier, the build quality of the bag is stupendous. It’s virtually impossible to find a loose thread, sewing error, or any sort of flaw in these bags. The padded handles, incidentally, are quite comfortable:
YKK splashproof zippers are used throughout; the polymer hardware appears to be durable, and extensive use of my Bihn Tri-Star has proven it so. Bihn has a few options with regard to shoulder straps, including the marvelous “Absolute” strap.
Below, a close-up of one of the Gatekeepers that allows the sleeve/Cache to slide in and out at TSA checkpoints:
Finally, another nice touch: there’s a magazine sleeve on the back of the bag. Near its bottom, a zipper which when unzipped, enables you to slide the bag over the handle of a wheelie:
Finally, a side by side comparison of the 15/13 (L) and the 11/Air (photo courtesy of Tom Bihn):
The 11/Air is to my eye more of a man purse (similar in size to the Bihn Co-Pilot), than the 15/13, which is more obviously a laptop bag. The two are priced identically, which begs the question of whether iPad or MacBook Air users might want to opt for the larger bag in order to take advantage of its greater capacity. Whether that makes sense in actual practice, I can’t say, as I haven’t used the larger Cadet. It’s worth consideration, though, and perhaps a call to Bihn’s Customer Service folks.
Wrapping up
What’s clear is that the Cadet definitely works as a modern, digital briefcase, and certainly meets the requirements of a seatside bag, given its capacity and checkpoint friendly design. If you’re constantly lugging about a lot of papers and hard copy documents, this isn’t the bag for you. But if you need to carry a laptop and a few other essentials to work and on the road, definitely check it out.
You can see it here: Tom Bihn Cadet. $170. $140 w/o the Cadet Cache/sleeve.
Made in Seattle, Washington, USA. Lifetime Guarantee, 60 Day Return Policy.
If you find yourself taking too much time trying to figure out what On Demand or Netflix flick to watch, check out Moviegram. This beta site instantly provides IMDb, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes ratings, as well as the film’s trailer:
What’s more, if you click on the individual ratings (IMDb, etc.), you’re taken to the detailed ratings from the site you’ve selected, so you can learn a bit more:
Although I’ve cropped it from the first image above, Moviegram also provides the trailer. The site is a great way to quickly narrow the list of films you want to see.
Check it out here: Moviegr.am
