I’m off to Europe for two weeks and will be visiting Munich, Prague, Vienna and Budapest but with one small catch a small bag. Ok well maybe its not so small for your backpackers but for me im used to a decent sized luggage. However I was pretty surprised as to what I could fit into my Swiss Army Victorinox Travel Bag.

Here is a run down for anyone interested in these type of bags or want something smaller than normal luggage to carry around.

• 4 Blue Jeans
• 1 pair Dress Slacks
• 6 tee shirts
• 2 dress shirts
• Extra Dress Shoes
• 2 Shorts
• 1 pair of swim trunks
• Bunch of Socks and Boxers
• Restroom Gear
• Electronic Gear and Chargers

Of course this doesn’t seem like a lot for a two week trip and I’ll need to do laundry at the mid way point but the convenience of having a small bag that has wheels or can be carried as a backpack is going to work out well for the number of countries we are visiting.

Lets hope the airlines don’t give me hell with all the bathroom gear, as I read on the TSA website you can have 3 oz items that fit into a small zip lock bag but their was no word as to how many 3 oz items you can have.

Anyhow Off to Europe, I will be taking plenty of pictures and making sure to geo tag them look for updates while im on my trip.

I have been a fan of Trey Ratcliff (more info) work for some time now and it looks like he now recently had set up his own blog to post some of his latest work. His web site Stuck in Customs gives you a unique photos from his travels around the world. He also uses some really great photography tricks such as creating High Dynamic Range (HDR) photographs.

Below are some photos that he allows to be posted as long as credit is given and below that I highly recommend checking out his personal blog, flickr account and maybe even buying a print.

• Trey Ratcliff’s Personal blog - Stuck in Customs
• Trey’s Flick Account
• Prints for Sale

I saw a few pics the other day of some guy in Russia who creates soldiers, people and other stuff out of wire’s. Below are some images from his site. If you want to see more visit his site here. He also has has a tutorial on how to do this your self, how ever all of this is in Russian so your on your own.

Here is a before and after photo of the new Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero CD. Apparently after playing the cd the black goes away and reveals some thing below, a hidden message? We don’t know but thought It was a pretty neat gimmick.

Here is some more information I found on the Year Zero Wiki about this CD.

“Year Zero features a thermo-chrome heat-sensitive CD face. Appearing mostly black (except for the title), when heated the disc turns mostly white, hiding the title and revealing lines, blocks, the copyright notice and a series of zeros and ones. The binary sequence translates into “exterminal.net“, leading to a website sharing the same URL.”

If you visit the Exterminal site, click the menu item and then Inmate - exhibit A, which then will play the track “Capital G” off of the new Year Zero cd (.wav file), or you can click here for a direct link to the song.

I took this was a little cool 3.9 mile hike a week ago which is close to Phoenix Lake in Ross, California (Marin). Most of the hike was shaded and only walked about a mile on a fire road before really getting into the Hidden Meadow area. This is a pretty simple hike and takes you around a cool little meadow area, the climb inst to bad either about a 600 foot elevation change.

One thing about this hike is it gave me great views of Mount Tamalpais. If your looking for an easy hike I would recommend this, but be aware the first mile on the fire road can be littered with mountain bikers but you shouldn’t find any on the trail once you get going.

Below are some is a screen cap of the hike, and of course the links below will lead you to the Google Maps and Google Earth viewable options.

These Links below will show my hike path along with photos taken during my hike.

• Hidden Meadow Hike in Google Maps with Photos
• Hidden Meadow Hike In Google Earth
• Free Google Earth Application

Todays search tip is all about using the well known and popular search engine Google to search any site for data. Why may you want to do this?

Well sometimes you may find your self visiting a site that has no search button, or their search system really isn’t turning up the results you are looking for. Other times its a lot faster to use Google directly to search for your result, instead of going to the site, entering your search, finding the link from the search results and clicking on the result. This is when using Google special search command can help you find what your looking for.

I recently used this to find information about Prague recommended hotels. When you enter “Best Prague hotels” into Google a lot of results show up. I don’t see a lot of results that stand out immediately and outside of having to visit each link and read each review I could use my new search skills to search a well known travel/review site (Frommers) instead.
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Google Maps is a great tool for anyone looking for locations, driving directions and more. Today Gogole has released the ability for you to create your own map, where you can annotate, outline, add photos or videos to your map. Once you have your map created you can share it with your friends.

I tested this out today and created a map of one of my favorite places for a good IPA beer (Marin Brewing Company). You can check out the screen cap I took here or select this link which will then show you my map in your browser.

To create your own map you need a Google Account which is free, check out the how to here.