Equipped and ready to roll

Making sure that you are well equipped with all the things you need and ready to hit the road with out dragging along dead weight can be challenging for someone just starting out. When you have a home you are prepared for most situations that may arise. But how much of that do you bring with you? Sure there are the basics, clothing, toiletries, linens, medicine / first aid. What do you do with all those extra possessions? Do you give them away, do have a garage sale, or pay for storing them with the expectation of returning to the lifestyle that you left behind? Being that we are not the typical full timing couple (24-31 years of age instead of retirees), we don't have our future set in stone. The fact that life throws many challenges your way through-out your existence, saying that you are going to do this and not anticipate having to change at a moments notice is unrealistic. So what do you bring along, what do you get rid of, and what are you anticipating?

As you know by now we have pared down our belongings and selected what we will bring along with us. Having decided to go fulltime RV-ing and not being the typical full timer, we wanted to chronicle our adventures and present them for everyone who may take a interest in what we are doing. To do this we are going to have to get some additional equipment or upgrade our current equipment in order to make decent quality video, audio, and pictures to share with you. We also wanted to make sure that it took up less space and weight.

The first thing that we decided to up grade is our computers. We used to have laptops, and then when they broke we bought a desktop (big regret). Now we switched back to laptops for convenience. They are smaller, lighter, and use less power - not to mention the most important thing, "portable". We chose the HP G60, it has all the parameters that we will need to make our computing faster and easier. However it does lack certain software, like Microsoft office student, and adobe premier element package, which we did have to purchase for photo/video editing and print shop 22 to create graphics and forms.

Upgrading our computer was the most important thing, but we also needed to upgrade other important components such as a digital camera and video recorder. We actually lucked out with the digital camera. This past Christmas my parents gave us a Nikon D40 digital camera that came in a package that included a camera bag, a two gigabyte memory card, and instructional DVD. I took a photograph class in college and after toying around with the camera, I realized that it was easy to use and simple to operate. On the other hand, the video recorder we did not have so I had to buy a new one. Today there are so many options available that it makes it much harder to choose a product and not wonder if you made the right choice. We didn't want something that was to big and bulky. So we opted for a small hand held SANYO digital recorder. It's not the most commercial/professional camera but it works.

There may be a few more things that we need to purchase down the road (no pun intended) to make better quality videos, but for now we have enough to get us started, and crank out our first program. Which we will start working on very soon. So stay tuned and keep an eye out for our first video episode.