On 9/23/2011 7:36 AM, Bob Terwilliger wrote:
> Nancy wrote:

>> If I was carrying around expensive breakable toys of some
>> sort, like ... telescopes ... maybe I'd get a hard sided
>> bag for that. My clothing, shoes, shampoo don't suffer in
>> soft sided luggage and the stuff is pretty darned tough.
>>
>> To each his own, obviously.
>
> When we visit Lin's relatives, we often bring along bottles of wine for
> them, because it costs a lot less and tastes a lot better than the wines
> which are readily available where they live. It's a minor gesture, but a
> greatly appreciated one.

Yeah, I wouldn't want wine bottles breaking in my luggage.

> When I deploy to war zones for months at a time, I am allowed to charge
> excess baggage fees to my company -- which is only fair, because I'm also
> required to carry about ninety pounds of chemical warfare protective gear.

Ha, yeah, if someone else is paying the freight and they make you
bring a lot of stuff, I wouldn't worry about the heft of my bags,
either.

> For personal travel on commercial airlines, I'm pretty good at hitting
> *just* the right weight when packing, and I try to deliberately underpack so
> that I'll have room in the suitcase for items I bring back from my trips.

Obviously I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, whatever works. I
like soft sided luggage for a bunch of reasons and one of them is
that they're forgiving on how much you can get into there. I don't
mind packing light but I'd rather it wasn't because of weight issues.

nancy