I had to finish packing for Autreat today, with the help of someone else.

(This is also why I might not be able to get all the comments through moderation for awhile, so don’t panic if your comment doesn’t get through.)

After dealing with a few minor catastrophes (including a power outage during a thunderstorm, and discovering that someone tried to recharge non-rechargeable batteries in my charger, and the batteries leaked all over everything) we got down to trying to pack.

It’s really hard for me to pack, but I stuck it out for a few hours before I had to go and lie down.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t through telling the person I was with, which items I wanted in my messenger bag that I’d be carrying with me rather than sticking in the back of the car, and which items I just wanted packed the normal way.

My short-term memory can be utter crap sometimes. So by the time I got situated in bed, I’d forgotten most of the items and elements of them were jumbled up in my head. Everything was taking place in the other room and the other person, who was pretty strained herself, would’ve at that point probably found it impossible to either write a list of the items, carry them all into my room, or run back and forth talking to me about them.

Then I remembered I have a digital camera.

So I set it to maximum resolution, and handed it to her.

I basically said “Here, please go and take a photograph of the mess. Then bring it back, go on packing, and I’ll work out which things to put where and call you once I’ve made a list.”

She did that.

I got the photo, zoomed in, it reminded me of the locations of the items I wanted to put in my bag, and I made a list on that basis.

Both of us were very happy with this solution to the problem, it made things way less complicated than trying to either bring the stuff to me or bring me to the stuff at that point in time.

And I thought that technique might be useful to anyone who ever ends up in that situation themselves. Plus I want to remember it later myself. So I’m posting it.