Well, we had our first planning meeting for the Mongol Rally 2008, or at least those of in the US at not in work-related training did. Courtney Zenz (henceforth to be known as Teammate Dori) was gracious enough to host us at her home (henceforth to be known as Palais Zenz, jr. Being the older system I live in Palais Zenz, sr., even though her house is both larger and nicer), which provided us the unexpected opportunity to practice for the trip as ten minutes after everyone arrived a strong wind storm knocked out her neighborhood’s power. Fortunately Teammate Dori is hyper organized and has a lot of storage space, which meant that every candle anyone ever gave her was stored in a dedicated trunk, so we were able to proceed by candlelight (pictures can bee seen in the gallery).

Items Discussion focused mainly on vehicle type and potential routes. Being a large team, we will be going for the novelty exemption, with the dominant idea currently based on a jingle bus. Each teammate would get their own panel to decorate as they like (I want to use mine to paint a map of our route, with LED lights to shine the way, while Mark, aka Teammate Captain Awesome said he will do his bit for US-Eurasian relations in his section to be titled the Freedom Express, complete with screaming eagles and related ultrapatriotic imagery. Sean, aka Teammate Infamousmd41, was unsure as to his panel section but will be working on a mega-playlist and mini disco for the vehicle).

The route is not yet set in...[Read More]