HLO Day 1: Starting With A BlackBerry Panic

Hand Luggage Only has officially kicked off as I head towards Adelaide, but I hadn’t even managed to leave my home suburb before the first potential disaster kicked in: my BlackBerry Curve 8900 stopped working.

I’d synced it perfectly well just before leaving the house for the station, with my single bag in tow, but when I went to start using it on the platform, it was completely dead. I spent the entire trip to the airport rebooting it in various ways, but to no avail: either it didn’t work at all or none of the keys would operate.

The BlackBerry is probably the second most essential item I’m carrying (after the notebook PC), and one of the hardest to replace. I was having apocalyptic visions of having to call and beg a new model from RIM, when, for no obvious reason at all, the device started working again just as I was approaching the airport. So disaster seems to have been momentarily averted, but I’m going to be looking at it suspiciously for the next few days.

Throughout May 2009, Lifehacker Australia editor Angus Kidman will be travelling throughout Australia with just one carry-on bag for the Hand Luggage Only project.