Where does my stuff go? That one statement has expressed the bane and misery of this occasional road warrior’s travels from the first time I loaded a laptop bag and headed out of the home office and hit the road.
Sure, laptop bags have a place for the namesake product. But what about the rest of the stuff that invariably comes along? Even the power cable and transformer have to find a make-shift home, tucked in some side pocket or stuffed in a Zip-Lock baggie to avoid entanglement.
Then there’s the portable mouse, the USB adapters, and all the other accessories. Where do these orphans go — neatly — so that they’re accessible and don’t end us as a tangled mess on the bottom of the bag?
As a journalist, I’ve interviewed product designers and reviewed more than a dozen laptop cases, attaches, satchels, messenger bags and the like — always in search of the Killer Application.
I’ve discovered one thing: It Doesn’t Exist. So I improvise. I use a Qantas Airlines toiletry kit to stash the portable mouse, USB light, Ativa flash drive card reader and USB thumb driver. I subdivide my various accessories. In the RV, Robbie granted me two large overhead cabinets for my books, technology, supplies, and we have a variety of weather-proof storage bins for everything from papers and tech, to supplies and goodies to be given out on the road.
My Mobile Workmate has been a real champ. I keep my HP Compaq 2710 Ultra Thin Tablet Notebook in there, along with my HP OfficeJet 470 portable printer (very cool device, given its power and small size), along with my flash drives, files (and we do have papers on the road), and other detritus of the mobile life.
The key is, no ONE killer solution exists for storing your stuff. Scouring the aisles of Office Depot, I’ve yet to come across anything that holds my flash drives and power bricks and other accessories — and THEN stashes neatly itself in my laptop case. My father used to store his photography equipment in an Igloo cooler with foam cut out to fit his stuff. That may just be what I have to do in the end.