Well, after putting it off for a week, I'm glad I did. Cooler heads prevailed, and while it would be nice to have a Tom Bihn, I was at my local REI this afternoon and saw the REI Transit Daypack.

The bag was on sale AND I hadn't used my REI dividend from last year yet so I picked one up for about a quarter of what I was going to spend on a Tom Bihn. It's going to work well for me, I think. I got the red-ish color since that's our school colors. I liked the blue as well. The inside is pretty wide open which is fine since I already have the Incase neoprene sleeve for my MacBook Pro. Since I don't carry my computer every day, I think this will be a nice compromise. In a lot of ways it appears similar in size and design to the Zephyr.

So in the end, I saved some money. This way when I'm tired of the bag in a year (or, you know, 6 months...) I've spent less than $50 instead of almost $200 by the time you get a shoulder strap and a brain case. Not to take anything away from the Tom Bihn bags - they look incredible. If I had a little more disposable income, I probably would have purchased one.

Thanks for the intervention!

;)