The international SOS pack

Over the course of the last two months, Jay Weiner (our correspondent), Tom Stinson (our Olympics editor) and I have held weekly conference calls about how we’re going to cover the Games. At the end of each one, I typically bounced a question or two off Jay about covering the Olympics. He helped answer everything from how to get a phone that works in China (buy a GSM phone and plan on popping a Sim card in when you get there) to what an RF is and why I needed to register for it (it’s so you can get wireless Internet in the Main Press Center).

The last question I asked Jay before he left for Beijing last week was how to pack for the Olympics.

“Yeah,” Stinson said, “I wouldn’t want you all to clash or wear the same thing.”

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“Well, what I did was I went out and bought some of that jungle underwear from REI that you can wash in the sink,” Jay said. “I’m going to just use that, and then about 10 days in I usually send my clothes out to be cleaned.”

It wasn’t quite a list, but it was a start. And I picked up a few other tips along the way (Simply Sleep is apparently preferable to Tylenol PM because it doesn’t have the Tylenol, so you’re less likely to get drowsy). As for everything else, I winged it. Here’s some highlights beyond the mundane shirts, socks and pants … (sorry, no jungle underwear for me):

My crammed work bag

• 21 copies of SportsBusiness Journal — We probably have a whole lot more subscribers than that on the ground already, but I’m going to do what I can to make a few deliveries for people who missed this week’s issue.

• Five reporter notebooks

• A book bag — I’m sure I’ll pick up a lot of souvenirs, so I want to have some extra space on the way back.

• Eight 1996 Atlanta Olympic pins — Nada Usina at JumpTV told me trading pins was her favorite part of the Olympics, so she mailed me a few leftovers she had from 1996. I’m supposed to bring her back a Beijing one.

• An international SOS pack — I have no idea why I have this but it comes with a phone number for a 24-hour alarm center and a list of key phrases in Mandarin: headache (tuo teng), boil (nong zhong) and constipation (bian mi).

• 16 AAA batteries for my digital voice recorder

I also scooped up a mix of books, movies and music to get me through the 13 1/2-hour flight:

Packing it all in

• “Chuck Klosterman IV” — While it’s no “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs,” it is a solid collection of Klosterman’s articles and columns from Rolling Stone, Esquire and elsewhere. Who else could write an entire column about a Led Zeppelin album?

• “My Cousin the Saint” — This book was written by a former professor of mine at Wake Forest. It’s about his Italian cousin’s route to sainthood and how his discovery of that helped him reconnect with his family in Italy.

• The movie “Into the Wild” — I somehow missed this one last year and have regretted it ever since. I’m not sure if I’ll get to it on the way there or on the way back, but I’m looking forward to seeing it.

• Sigur Ros’ new album “Med sud I eyreum vid spilum endlaust” — Nothing like a little hypnotic Icelandic music to calm you down on a long flight. I really dug Sigur Ros’ last album “Takk” and have been holding off on getting this one until now. After all, how can you not buy an album with a song called “Gobbledigook”?

And I did it all while I cooked dinner: halibut with a balsamic glaze, asparagus and rice pilaf. Not bad for a last meal.