Thinking and Planning

How Many Pairs of Underwear Does One Take Around the World? Three (well, four)

/ Eric Brown / 8 Comments

We’ve been gone for all of two weeks and I’m already sick of my clothes. And I don’t give a rat’s patooty about clothes.

I’ve been getting this question a lot – how the heck does someone pack for a nine month trip?

You can’t.

For starters, we decided to just do carry-on, so I had to find a way to fit nine months of clothes into a carry-on bag. The around the world packing experts (and they’re out there), say you should just pack for a two week trip and do laundry from time to time. It sounds reasonable, although you have to also factor in traveling across climates and seasons. The truth is that we don’t have a clue what we’re doing and after two weeks, the problems are beginning to reveal themselves.

Here’s the bag, packed to the gills:

IMG_1792

It’s actually a pretty cool bag. It’s a 22″ REI Stratocruiser and it has wheels and backpack straps, which I think will be really useful in certain settings. There are a million little pockets – I’m still finding them. It’s like buying a house with an attic. Such discovery!

Here’s what I stuffed it with:

Everthing into the bag!

These little packing cubes keep me grounded. I’m a pretty messy guy, but the cubes provide order among the chaos. Believe it or not, on our first flight of the journey, from LA to NY, my electric toothbrush (the little green plastic thing in the picture above) sent the TSA into high alert. ((A toothsome digression – I have a dental hygienist who is most certainly a dominatrix on her off days. She adds to her charm by dishing out guilt over poorly brushed teeth in ways that would make the most aggressive Jewish grandmother genuflect – yes! genuflect! – with respect. Early in our relationship, she alternated stabbing my gums with her spiky little implements with stabbing my soul with spiky little comments about my failure to reach certain parts of my mouth with a toothbrush (hmm, Maureen Dowd would have liked that sentence, for good or ill). Since I bought a Sonicare toothbrush and committed to regular flossing, my hygienist has dialed down both the pain and the guilt. In any event, rather than risk Madame Helga’s wrath, I am shlepping this heavy electric gizmo that airline security personnel think is an incendiary device all the way around the world. It takes up precious space in my bag and adds weight, but there’s no way in hell I’m leaving it behind. Now you know what motivates me.))

Where was I? Oh, yes, the TSA guy. He pulled my bag out and opened it up, looking for the toothbrush. He took one look at my bag with all its fussy little packing cubes, and he exclaimed, “Now YOU know how to pack!” That was affirming.

Here are the contents, for your viewing pleasure:

All the clothes that are fit to pack.

That’s it kids. My friends for the next nine months.

For all of you planning your world tour, or watching in pity, here’s a list of what I brought, although as you will see, I’m about to begin jettisoning ballast:

2 hats – a running hat and a baseball hat. This is stupid. One hat will have to do. I’ll mail the other one home.

Lounging shorts. At home or abroad, lounging shorts add value.

Two pairs of actual shorts. The serious, non-lounging kind. Not too short, not too long.

Blue blazer. This is essential – we’re so schlubby so much of the time that we’re going to have to play dress up once in a while. A blue blazer is a vote for sanity.

Running shorts that can be used as a bathing suit. And they’re so compact!

3 pairs of black dress socks. This is probably one too many.

Two pairs of white gym socks. (What was I thinking? I probably don’t need these at all and if feels like they take up half the bag. I hereby vote them off the island.)

4 ½ pairs of ankle socks (I’m already missing one sock and it’s one I really like, which is causing me distress.)

1 white undershirt (I really thought I brought two, so oops.)

Six t shirts (I think I could probably get by with four. I love t shirts, but like pithy but extraneous sentences I may have to kill a few darlings)

1 pair dress pants. To go with the blazer.

1 pair khakis. I’m wondering about this, but I’ll withhold judgment for the time being. Khakis are dull and they stain, but they’re better than jeans but not as fussy as dress pants. Oh, the inner conflict!! I feel like I’m packing for a trip on the space shuttle, if we still had one.

1 pair of jeans. Prediction: these will look like something out of Woodstock by the end of the trip.

1 pair of long warm running pants. I may not use these either, but I have a feeling that I’ll miss them.

2 polo shirts. These will be badly stained by the end of the trip. Actually, I think they’re already stained. I’m hard on shirts.

1 white dress shirt.

1 blue oxford shirt. I could probably do without one or other other, but I’ll let it roll for awhile. One will certainly not survive the trip.

2 other long sleeve shirts (one includes a very goofy Patagonia shirt with weird zippers for which I have a strange affection. It will certainly embarrass my daughter if she sees me wearing it in a photo. On the other hand, I see myself wearing it on a safari! The other is a very good all-purpose LL Bean shirt. That stays on the island.

3 short sleeve button-down collared shirts. These will go in the tight rotation. They’re light and airy and good.

1 long sleeve technical shirt. You know, the kind that serves as a thermal undershirt.

1 pullover sweatshirt.

1 cardigan sweatshirt. I think this may be superfluous and it’s really heavy. I’m thinking it’s gotta go.

1 windbreaker.

1 pair of black Nike sneakers that don’t make me look like a dorky American tourist.

1 pair of brown Clarks lace up shoes. They’re very comfortable, but they won’t embarrass me at a reasonably nice restaurant.

1 reversable belt.

1 pair of flip flops.

1 electric razor. Yep, it’s heavy and bulky. Bad idea. But on the other hand, without it, all my pictures will show me with silly stubble, and we can’t have that.

A portable JBL speaker.

1 Revolution Jacket from Scottevest. Yessir, I broke down and got one of those goofy as hell jackets that has twenty six pockets and other crazy stuff. The sleeves zip off for heaven’s sake! It has a detachable hood. Heaven knows what other features it offers. I’m waiting for it to arrive in the mail and I’m itching with excitement. What have I become?? Around the world travel planning will do that to you. It’s sad, isn’t it?

Finally, and I know you’ve been waiting for it, I have a grand total of four pairs of undies.

(As they say on NPR, the following section contains content related to underwear, which may be troubling for some audiences. If you are uncomfortable with such topics, feel free to skip ahead.)

My undies are made by this company called Ex Officio, and I love them.

Although they’re fabulous drawers, I’m slightly troubled by a few things. For one thing, they’re called “Give-N-Go” underwear. This just sounds wrong to me. I don’t want “going” in any way associated with my underwear. Can you imagine the brand development meeting for this product? Heads should roll.

For another, according to the internet (um, wikipedia), the ex-officio is a member of whatever they’re a member of by virtue of their office. One interpretation is that they have no substantive claim on their authority. For example, the board chair is an ex-officio member of every standing committee. You may ask, how does this apply to my underpants? Well, let’s explore. Do I really want them to be a member of everything? Don’t I just want them to do their job? Do I want my unmentionables to be a member of every committee? I think probably not. As I said, I’m troubled.

Nevertheless, nomenclature notwithstanding, I am quite happy with my pants. They just make me happy.

They are the cool space age kind that dry in a few hours. The drill is that you wear one and wash the other. I’ve made this process efficient by incorporating the daily ablution with the ex-officio cleansing process. This kind of ritual is good for the soul. It’s like yoga, but without the stretching.

The third pair is kind of lonely. I only use it on travel days when I can’t dry the previous day’s pair. The fourth pair has been safely tucked away for the sad day when I lose one of the other three. So it’s really like three pairs of undies for nine months. Sounds crazy, no? I’ll let you know how it goes.

So that’s my plan.

Too many clothes, and yet not enough. Two weeks or nine months.

What do you think?

I now turn to the online community for its good counsel. Is there some essential item that I’ve forgotten? How would you approach this very important set of decisions? If I made a tragic mistake, surely the internet will step in and prevent it. Won’t it?

 

It takes a whole lot of work to do nothing

/ Eric Brown / 1 Comment

Way back in March, I announced to friends and colleagues that I would be leaving my excellent job in the rarefied air of the Hewlett Foundation. Our daughter (and only child) would be heading off to college in the fall and the prospect of the empty nest was too much to bear so we conspired to find a way to burn the nest and feast on the ashes. My wife and I made a plan to sell our house and embark on a walkabout that would take us somewhere into spring or summer of 2015.

Hoo boy does it take a lot of work to do nothing.

Since that day in March, we have accomplished the following:

We sold our house. Selling a house is Palo Alto wasn’t too tough, but selling any house anywhere is a great big pain in the patookey. This time was no exception. It was a great house, but it was time to move on. I was dismayed, however, to learn that the buyers tore out the fabulous slate flooring we put in and replaced it with very run of the mill hardwood floors. Then they tore out the fabulous slate mantle and put in red brick. Red brick! I’m sure shag carpeting is next.

We bought an apartment in San Francisco. I did not originally think that I wanted to buy something just yet. I was kind of excited by the prospect of being that free, but we soon realized that nobody would lend us a red cent once we returned, given that I would not be employed as such, so getting back into the market was going to be tricky. Besides, Janine wanted a place to come home to, and I guess I don’t blame her. So we took the plunge and managed to navigate the hideous real estate market in San Francisco. If it’s easy to sell a house in Palo Alto these days, buying one in San Francisco is not for the faint of heart, or liver. On our fourth try, we managed to find something – a flat in a 1904 Edwardian building in the hipster-filled Mission District. I now have a stick-on soul patch which I apply before I leave the apartment each day to keep from being discriminated against when I go for a hand-poured coffee whose beans were washed thrice with nun’s tears and ground by hand with a mortar and pestle by a boy with ear gauges the size of hubcaps and tattoos on his eyelids. Best coffee ever.

We sold two of our three cars. Yes, I know, having three cars is bad, but we had three drivers in the house and we lived in the suburbs, so we had three cars. I have always had a certain fondness for our planet, but by dint of my suburban existence I have found myself doing bad things to it. I suppose all the air travel I’m about to do isn’t helping either. But I feel a least a little happy that we sold two of our three cars.

We leased our third car to Janine’s former employer. Can you believe it? Someone is going to drive our car while we’re gone and they’re going to give us money for it. Who knew?

We moved into our apartment in San Francisco. This produced a certain amount of existential confusion. We occupied our flat in hipster heaven on June 30 and lived there exactly forty six days before leaving again. During that time we nested as well as we could, hanging pictures and buying condiments (we both have a condiment problem) and finding clever ways to arrange our stuff before emptying the closets once again and moving it all down to the basement to prepare the place for our new tenants.

Yep, we found a nice, quiet, responsible couple to rent our place. Through sheer luck, a very eminent colleague and his wife will live in our place while we’re gone. Back in March I mentioned my plans to him, and as it turns out he’ll be working in San Francisco during just the time we’ll be traveling. What a coup! And our tenant, who I won’t embarrass by his association with me, is truly a pillar of rectitude in a world gone mad. We couldn’t do better if Mother Teresa was moving in.

We found someone to watch our cat, Tish. This is hard. Nobody wants to watch your cat. If you’re a cat person you already have a cat but you don’t want another one. If you’re not a cat person you really don’t want a cat, and especially not our cat, who doesn’t snuggle and doesn’t really purr. Basically, it’s like having a box turtle that sheds and scratches your furniture. I yearn for her affection and am always rejected. Like a pathetic lovelorn, I will miss her anyway. Oh, Tish, why don’t you love me??

We found someone to watch our two dogs. My sister in law and her husband bravely signed up for this task. We have a little twelve year old terrier named Trixy (yes, that’s the spelling) who looks like something Dr. Seuss would have drawn after knocking back his fifth scotch. She’s got the head of a Chihuahua, the body of a Dachshund, and the coloring of a Dalmatian. People point and laugh. First at her, then at me. Then there’s Chloe, our semi-standard poodle who is the exception to the rule that poodles are smart. She will run straight into oncoming traffic if you let her. She’s loveable though, and pretty cute, so there’s that.  My sister in law’s family is considering someday getting a dog. Let’s see what they think in May. In any event, I am eternally grateful to them for their sacrifice. I wish all the parties well.

We’ve done more than just this, but those are the highlights. We have just arrived in New York, which is the first leg in our journey. All the pre-departure planning, arranging, groveling, explaining, quitting, buying, and selling are done.

As you can see, it’s possible. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

Almost six months after making our big announcement, we are airborne.

Next: Q: How many pairs of underpants to do you pack for a nine month trip? A: Three

Taking the leap

/ Eric Brown / Leave a comment

skydiving2

In March, I shared a note with friends and colleagues that I would be stepping down from the Hewlett Foundation in June. June seemed a long way off back then, but somehow it’s here. My wife and I have left our jobs and sold our house. After ten years, nine months, and four days as the Communications Director of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, I have now descended from the heavens to walk among mortals once more. Turning in my wings was especially painful. (If you would like to know five things I learned in ten years, you can check out the blog post I wrote for the Hewlett website.)

I’ve taken massive leaps of faith before. Twenty five years ago, I left Hollywood and a vague semblance of an acting career and moved to Monterey, California with no money, no job, and a high school education. Somehow I managed to land on my feet. What I did have was the enduring support of my girlfriend, who for some crazy reason agreed to marry me. A quarter of a century later, we are still taking calculated risks together (and I did eventually manage to get a nice college education).

Speaking of risks, I’m launching a consulting venture today called Brownbridge Strategies. What’s that? Well, it’s just me, my sparkling personality, my little brain, and my tippy tap typing fingers. (I toyed with the idea of calling it Eric Brown and No Associates, but it sounded lonely.) I will take what I’ve learned over the years to try to help foundations and nonprofits create their plans to get from here to there. That might be a strategic plan, a communications strategy, a development plan, or whatever else people need to be more effective. Just like I have tried to emulate the best funders I had when I was on the other side of the grant check, I will try to be like the best consultants I’ve had over the years. It will be like having a car mechanic you’d want to have over for dinner. (My apologies to consultants and car mechanics alike.)

If leaving a great foundation job to try consulting wasn’t risky enough, in the fall, just when I’m getting this thing off the ground, I’m going to shut it down for a while to take time off to travel with my wife. It’s always been our dream to just hit the road and see where the wind takes us. Since our daughter will be off to college, it seems crazy not to give it a shot. For those vicarious thrill seekers, I plan to blog about our adventure at EatBickerLove.com. If you want a taste of what the travelogue will be like, you can check out my first post on Medium. I’ll be back in late spring to pick my career up where I left off, sort of.

That’s the plan, anyway. It has been an extraordinary ride in which I have had the privilege of working with so many great grantees around the world and such terrific colleagues at the Hewlett Foundation. I step away hopeful that the next phase will be just as wondrous as the last.