Putting the Money Down

So - last week, I nearly had a heart attack, as I purchase a new mac, and my plane ticket.

I purchased a brand new MacBook Pro - and just in time for this assignment, Mac came out with a 13" laptop which is super small and light....like the headline says -- I'm in love. I mean, she's absolutely gorgeous, great quality sound, uplit keys, and zero gravity feature so if I drop it - it sense that it's in zero gravity and shuts down the hard drive so when it hits the ground the disk won't be spinning....now that's great invention! It better be - it was more than $2k...so I hope I've finally met a machine that I can keep for awhile...as they say - once you go Mac, you never go back....I hope I wont' have to.

I am blessed to have a wonderful travel agent in my life, and she found a flight through Delhi that will save about $800 dollars off flight costs...It means an overnight in a hotel there, but that still keeps the cost lower than going through Dubai or Ankara as some of my freelance friends have done.

So - I leave July 18, and the return flight is currently booked for September 7...we'll see if that bears out or not.

These two investments were definitely heavy duty - so much so that my credit card company put a temporary freeze on my account, fearing that someone had stolen my card...

GOIN RADIO

Then this weekend, I started putting my radio kit together. I'm going with a Marantz pmd 620

for the recorder and a EV 635-B for my interview mic. I still need to buy a shotgun and maybe a few other attachments. A contact at NPR told me this is what they're using...but it's only got a 1/8" input, so I have to get special cables...and cable can go bad, so gotta have extras of those. My house mate is still on the hunt for a good digital camera for me, and I've also gotta price video cameras, but all of this is coming along. I feel like I have good advice from the professionals. The next hurdle is to price satellite Internet - if the military's internet goes down or is too slow - this might be necessary. Trouble is it's VERY expensive, and it's heavy. Two very bad things - so I've gotta hope I can rent it from someone or pick it up heavily discounted on ebay or something. Please keep that in your prayers. I don't want to go completely broke before I even leave - ya know?

AT CENTURION NOW

http://www.centurionsafety.net/Courses/Hostile_Environments_and_Emergency_First_Aid_Training_(HEFAT(r))_(5_days).html

So - this is the safety training course I'm at now - in the Shenandoah valley.

I'll keep you posted how it goes.

Thanks for being on board with me for this adventure.

J