Major Trips:Cardinal Rule Number One!

Just spent the majority of tonight bashing the Number One Cardinal Rule of Major Trips, which is #1 DO NOT MAKE ANY MAJOR CHANGES TO YOUR EQUIPMENT JUST BEFORE EMBARKING ON A MAJOR TRIP!!!! The idea is not to get any rude awakenings from new gear while on the trip itself but rather to always use the same gear on the trip that you've used repeatedly in training and KNOW to be infallible!!! That way those new socks aren't found to induce multiple blistered toes or the new biking shorts aren't found to be woefully inadequate in the padded crotch department! However in my case I spent the nightat RadioShack purchasing a new laptop with a cellular AT&T mobile broadband card installed to take along, put a new seat pack on Donnie's bike,installed new lighting systems front and back with a NiteRider dual beam halogen headlight in case get caught by impending darkness and installed a cadence sensor for the Garmin GPS Edge 705 I'll be using to track the trip and post on the web. Though I well know the potential consequences of new gear failure, it is one of the many ways I continue to procrastinate and put off the truly important detail of "Getting Packed"! We did quite a bit of surgery today at the office and I deal with stress differently than my wife, Sammie, does. When she gets stressed she actually buckles down and gets organized and productive. When
I'm stressed I eat, I surf the Internet, I post to a blog(!), I go to the Pistol Club and practice, I take my motorcycles and kayak to the storage unit under the pretense of getting them out of Sammie's way but actually continuing to procrastinate,I drink coffee and multiple cans of AMP energy drink, yet still accomplish very little real preparation. The real preparation will take place at the last minute for me as it ALWAYS does! More tomorrow. I actually need to have my gear packed and my trailer loaded to go and ready by the time our little group meets at Olive Garden at 7pm for some truly good,old fashioned carbo loading(?).
On a final note, a reporter from the local newspaper did a brief telephone interview with me this morning after my weekly massage with Roberta(more procrastination!) She was actually doing a story on the benefits of personal training and she had interviewed my personaltrainer Don Messing from No Limits Personal Training in East Stroudsburg(ok, a shameless but honest plug for a great guy!) Donnie had her interview a couple of his clients, me included. She said she definitely got good material for the story and wanted to get together next week with a staff photographer to get photos of us, but I had to defer and let her know I would not be available for photos because I'LL BE ON A BICYCLE TRIP TO MAINE!!! for the next 10 days or so!!!!1
More to follow!