Macbook Air / VMWare Parallels Questions / Slimdown

FT Travel.

I get my Macbook Air (MBA) late tonight and have limited time before my Transpac trip starting TH. I really want to just bring the MBA.

I need to 1) cut fat from the MBA and 2) install XP and apps - suggestions please

1) Cut fat - What programs are there on the MAC to remove bloat. Removing excess languages and stripping universal binaries?

2) install XP and apps
I do not have the MBA superdrive. I do have a IBM Thinkpad. Can I

a) install VMWare Parallels on the Thinkpad.
Create the Windows XP image.
Install my tax software (Quicken, TurboTax)
Compress the image <-- How?
Install VMWare Parallels on MBA
Copy compressed XP image to MBA.
done?

Thanks much.