Durrette Consulting

After a long and restful vacation with my girlfriend, Briana, and her family in Redington Shores, Florida, I am in Fredericksburg--and glad to be here. And I'm eating a poptart. Originally, we were supposed to have landed at Washington Dulles around 11:00am. One mechanical problem, four bookings on three separate airlines, and eleven phone calls later, I finally arrived in Fredericksburg at 11:30pm. Gotta love United Airlines.

My mom drove up from Urbanna to do some pre-trip shopping with me. It was good to spend time with her, considering I won't see my family until sometime in late August or early September. My dad joined us for a late dinner at Outback Steakhouse. We then preceded to repair the power-cord to my laptop since it decided to crap out before I could finish printing out all of my travel vouchers/airline tickets. Fun times :)

I'm now setting up base-camp at the house and subsequently turning it into a warzone. My mission: somehow fit all of my clothes and supplies into my pack while still having it be comfortable enough to lug around for more than 3 months. I accept.

Many say that packing and unpacking are the worst part of a trip. I'll agree with them only on the latter, though, because I frankly love packing for trips abroad. The enormous amount of clothes, food, electronics, etc. used by an average American everyday can't ALL go into a travel backpack. With that in mind, the fact that I will have a lot less to rely on this summer is surprisingly refreshing. Perhaps I can dampen my unabashed consumerism.

I discovered today that they make travel-size toilet paper rolls, complete with packaging that serves as a dispenser. While I'm laughing now, it's possible at some point in the back country of Laos that I'll experience a newfound respect for the engineers at the Charmin factory. Adding that to the backpack.

Additionally, I have to start taking my Malaria pills on Thursday. The medicine is named Malarone, which to me sounds like a type of Italian pasta. I'm still in awe of what their original price was considering I was billed $119, or 10% of the bill. That's some expensive pasta. In fact, if you take the pre-insurance price, I think that means I'm swallowing the equivalent of one ten-dollar bill per day ($10). Doesn't that seem a bit odd? My room at a guest house in Manila is only $9 per night, so I'm swallowing that too, it looks like. My point? Maybe Michael Moore isn't entirely an idiot after all.

I'll try to write some more prior to my departure.


--RWD