Hitting the Road/Air/Whatever

It is the Day of Getting Stuff Done, when I take a good, hard look at my to-do list and figure out what absolutely must get done and what would just be nice to do. Fortunately, I have most of the "absolutely must be done in order to leave" stuff taken care of and am down to the "life would be easier if I took care of it ahead of time" stuff and the "it would really be nice if I did this" stuff. All I have left in the "absolutely must be done" category is actually putting stuff in my bags (things have been selected and staged) and some confirming and verifying some travel items (online check-in, checking gate, checking bus/train schedule, etc.). I would also like to have a lot of the red ribbon and gear Rebel Mechanics insignia pins made for the swag table, though I can also bring materials and make them upon arrival, and I would like to have the writers workshop critiques finalized, though my session isn't until Saturday, so that's something I can do in transit or upon arrival. And then I like to clean my house before I travel so it isn't too terrible to come home to, but only the kitchen is a real necessity (for pest reasons).

I'm planning to catch the 5:25 bus in the morning just to make sure I have plenty of time to get to the airport, get through security, etc., for an 8 a.m. flight. That means getting to bed early and calming down ahead of that so I can actually sleep instead of having squirrel brain.

I did finally get a new cell phone. I've joined the zombie hordes and have an iPhone, and I have to say that although there's been a bit of a learning curve, I already love it. I had an obscure model of Android phone, and I never bothered doing much with it. I'm not a tinkerer, so I couldn't be bothered with finding the apps and working with them. I've already really started using the new phone more as a music player. It's nice to hit sync and have my playlists, and it's lovely to be able to plug it in to my stereo to use it as a jukebox instead of having to haul my computer around the house. I tested it in my car yesterday, and that works, too. But I'll probably save that for road trips because it would be more hassle than it's worth for running errands and stopping and starting. Where I'll really love it is when I create playlists for a book, and I can tinker with the playlist and update it instead of making lots of CDs. One thing that was more challenging was customizing ringtones because you can't just use a song as a ringtone, but I found an online tutorial and found how you can do that in iTunes, so I'm back to having my usual Star Wars opening title ring tone.

I have a few other things I need to set up on my phone, but that falls into the "nice if I have time, otherwise I can do it later" category.

I'll be reporting from the road, and if I get around to setting up Twitter on the phone, I may be tweeting phases of my journey. Follow me @ShannaSwendson.