Monday, May 19, 2008
Zomby Goes to Calcutta (Or Kolkata, Depending)
I’ve made my travel arrangements and half of my hotel arrangements, and now I’m looking for advice.
I’ll be in Calcutta from November 4th to November 11th, with free time from the 8th to the 10th. Just three days, which seems far too short--but since I’ll be on vacation the week before, at the show the entire following week, and not getting home until November 12th, it bugs me a bit to extend the trip any longer than that. Two and a half weeks out of the office is more than enough to let incredible piles of email, phone messages, mail, and partially completed projects pile up, don’t you think?
Which leads us to my questions:
Question 1: Any suggestions on things to do and see in such a short time around Calcutta. Taj Mahal is on the other side of the country (sort of), so it doesn’t count.
Question 2: Any suggestions on a decent, but budget priced, digital camera to take with me? I will be covering the event for one of the magazines that we publish, so it has to take pictures good enough to use with the story. Clarity, color, sharpness, lack of noise, and speed are what I’m looking for. Megapixels doesn’t matter as much as quality.
Question 3: Along the same lines, I’m considering getting a cheap--really cheap--laptop for the trip. It needs to be good enough and reliable enough to store the photos as I go, my notes from the show, and the article that I write on my way back. It would be best if it had wireless and wired network connections--although I won’t bother with a dial-up service. I don’t care about operating system and would, at least to some small extent, prefer to get one with a newer Linux distribution instead of Windows. Not because of any opposition to Windows, but because it would be as fun to play with after the trip is over.
Simply, I don’t want to take my own laptop. It’s too expensive to replace.
Any ideas?
Comments & Trackbacks
Ooooh. Nice trip. Don’t know anything about sights to see there—gotta be some cool Hindu temples around though, you’d think. OTOH, Kathmandu is only about 350 miles away. Might be difficult miles though, and I don’t know how stable Nepal is these days. Were I headed for that part of the world, and could manage it, I’d head for Tibet.
Are Nehru jackets still in style over there?
The Sunderban National Park looks interesting, as long as you don’t get eaten by a tiger.
Anyways, I saw a stage production of “Oh Calcutta!” at the Paramaount many years ago, but I don’t think it’s relevant to India.
Grab yourself one of those One Laptop Per Child machines for $188. Hell, buy two and give one to a needy kid while you’re there.
#2 and #3? Craigslist. Fo sho.
Mr. Liver, I’ve thought about that. I might end up going that route--although, for the camera I was expecting to spend up to fifty-thousand American Express rewards points to get something new and making up the difference with whatever cash is required. That should get me something decent.
Andy, I actually thought about that, but I don’t think it will work. I don’t think it has any facility for me to plug in a digital camera and store all the photos and it doesn’t have much in the way of storage. I’ll look again to make sure that I understand the thing, though.
Jed, when are Nehru jackets not in style?
I doubt that I’ll be bouncing over any borders. I just don’t have enough time to myself. Most of my time will be spent babysitting an exhibit, chatting with a couple US government representatives, making sure that the other American exhibitors are okay, and meeting people who might do business with us.
You didn’t ask, but try something with Bhut Jolokia peppers on it and let me know how that goes....
No suggestions about the camera, but if you’re in Madras and you run into a computer science guy named Rangarathnam Gopu, give him my best and tell him I really enjoyed working with him back in Seattle.
As far as the laptop goes, I was on the verge of saying “you can just borrow our little HP cheapie”, until I got to the part about you being worried about replacing it. Lose someone else’s laptop!
You could “rent” a laptop from Best Buy, you know. (Buy it. Use it on your trip. Return it within 30 days, and pay the 10% “restocking fee”.) That’s how we got our HP cheapie, we just decided to keep it because it was a nice little machine.
I’d pay to watch the Zombified one eat one of those.
Especially wearing a Nehru jacket.
1) Temple of Vishnu
2) Cannon EOS
3) ACER
I just did a search and saw a picture of the Temple of Vishnu. Definitely going there.
Cannon EOS--I have an old-school, non-digital Canon that my ex-wife bought me. Excellent camera, actually, I just want a digital one. That’s probably good advice, too. I’ll probably take Mr. Lady’s advice and see if I can find a reasonably priced one on Craigslist or Ebay.
I think what I’m drifting toward is one of the ASUS 4G Surf. Not sure, though.
You could give the ASUS EEE a shot. That’s about as cheap as it’ll get and still be functional. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. It has wired + wireless and Linux on it. (That Best Buy trick won’t work if you lose the computer.)
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