Last night I made some modifications to the book bag and made some discoveries I'd like to share.

First, I cut a ton of weight by leaving my work notebook and it's power brick at work locked in a drawer. I don't work from home anyhow! This made the pack a very reasonable weight when I put it on the shoulder scale (I generally don't weigh my bags...just do it by feel.)

Of course this allowed me to reconfigure the layout. I put my first aid kit on the bottom (I know that's bad but the Pelican case won't fit well any other way) with 2 O.R. #2 dry bags on top side by side. The second bag now has my toiletries (in a hanging Eagle Creek bag), an MSR micro towel, and an 800mW folding solar panel. Both bags have room to spare. I took out a few things like the hand warmers and the fuel bottle (do I really need these at work? Do I need security to ask me what's in that red bottle?) and the weight went up again but not very much. I finished it off with my TomTom 910 GPS. It's no EDC GPS but it has a 4 hour run time off the battery and I'd like to get into the habit of taking it with me all the time so it's in the car should I need it.

It still needs a few things (maps, etc) so it's going to get another repack on the weekend.