WhimsyLand

I'm off to Silicon Valley tomorrow with a 70-pound suitcase that will cost me extra to throw on the plane.  It turns out that you can have two 50-pound suitcases, but the airlines dreamed up this new rule two weeks after I bought this monster so I wouldn't have to lug two pieces of luggage onto the plane (natch).  What's in this suitcase that weighs 70 pounds?

• The Possibility of An Island (which Claudia said I had to read), plus the new Le Carré, both in heavy hardback
• Another half-dozen other paperbacks and technical documents
• BAP 2006 that I'm still taking notes in (and, SA,  I haven't forgotten, the extra BAPs are in a box ready to ship)
• Binders full of source code of this polynomial model that requires tricky scaling
• Underwear and socks for 8 days (all great-looking name brands from Ross Dress for Less)
• Business-class blue jeans, which pass for Dockers in San Jose
• Nice shoes, just in case I get invited to speak to a venture capitalist
• Long-sleeve and short-sleeve jerseys and shirts, since I have no idea what the weather will be like
• One nice leather coat my parents bought me in Silverton when we went skiing
• My killer Sony camera and all its stuff in its own bag
• USB keyboard and mouse for my portable (I hate typing on laptop keyboards)
• Toiletries and related stuff
• Magazines and poetry books I haven't read
• One "travel corkscrew" that you can't carry on anymore
• Other stuff at the bottom I have already forgotten

I will be staying at Linny and Roy's (my sister and BIL) for the weekend, trying to avoid getting stepped on by a horse.  That's the current Palomino with my sweet Junie, who sadly will not be with me this trip.  After a couple of days in the wine country outside of Arroyo Grande, I'll be back with my nose to the grindstone in the San Jose area.  Except the part where I probably drink too much wine, if there is such a thing, at Casa Paulsen one of those nights.  I'm sure something exciting will happen and you, Dear Reader, will be the first to know.  I'll be alarmed up at 4.30 tomorrow, so maybe I'll give a few of my friends a call on the way to airport.  You just can't get up too early, you know.