Pack it in

Arthur Schopenhauer once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that the reason we buy so many books is because we believe we're actually buying the time to read them.

I believe the same holds true for luggage. We buy it because it holds the promise of travel.

I'm a big fan of luggage, which I briefly mentioned here.

The wife and I have been in need of some new luggage for awhile now. We have a whole passel of carry on bags, all of which are black except the pink/plaid one my daughter insisted I buy her at Target.

The Swiss Army carry on is the family favorite, and when we all travel somewhere together, or we're traveling to different destinations at the same time, it's the one everyone wants to use. So we augmented the collection with a few more - all black, none of them Swiss Army.

We completed the set with a medium-sized Boyt suitcase, and another massive, stupid large Boyt we could pack the house in. We found the large Boyt at a luggage store in Rockefeller Center about twenty-five years ago, and had it shipped back to Santa Monica where we lived at the time.

Apparently we hadn't figured out there were luggage stores in Los Angeles.

All these years later, the large suitcase finally gave out. The interior lining, and the glue that held it together, came undone when my son packed it up and I brought it back from Austin for him. All this to say we needed some new luggage.

If you know anything about me - and really, are there any secrets left? - you know I'm all about easy. And dragging a suitcase with two wheels around the airport was just too much effort. So we went looking for what the luggage industry calls spinners: suitcases with four wheels that spin 360° with just a feather touch.

There's a luggage store in Irvine I used to work across from, and they have an extensive collection of every brand, size and price you could want. So that's where we went. We did our due diligence, opening the suitcases up on the little demonstration tables they had, comparing suitcase to suitcase. Victorinox has this feature, but Briggs & Riley has this one. TravelPro looks a little clunky, but it's the one pilots use the most, and they know a thing or two about packing and travel.

After a long talk with Paul the sales person, who was from Texas and told us about the 6600 sq.ft. house he had custom built on five acres that he paid $151,000 for eighteen years ago, we made our decision right there. We need to take a second look at Texas real estate.

As far as suitcases, we wound up buying two Victorinox (Swiss Army) 27" suitcases. God help me, I love that new suitcase smell.

So now we're working on where the first trips will be where we can put them through their paces. I'll be at Comic Con with the son this week for a few days (post to come), so that'll be the first trip for one of 'em. And I have an idea where the next trip will be, but I'm not saying just yet.

For now I'm just enjoying traveling from the front of the house to the back, effortlessly rolling the whisper-quiet spinners around on the hardwood floor.

It's my way of checking them out before I check them in.

Packing for the Con

Tomorrow is the day it all starts. Well, the night actually.

Even though Comic Con doesn't officially begin until Thursday, tomorrow night is Preview Night. The costumed crowds get admitted to the Convention Center in the early evening to get a jump on the weekend crowds walking the floor and picking up some merchandise.

Of course I'll be there.

So that means tonight I have to pack. It's something I've never quite learned to do right. You'd think being in advertising and with all the boondoggles...er...business trips I've taken I'd be better at it. I'm not unskilled in the sense I don't know how to organize a suitcase. It's my approach to the job.

I pack on the Just In Case theory. You know, just in case there's a hurricane or blizzard in San Diego. Just in case we're hit by a tornado. Just in case we're invaded by aliens, which at Comic Con is a definite possibility.

Here's what's happened every year I've gone: I drag my overstuffed suitcase to the hotel, and proceed to wear the same pair of shorts for four days. All I really need is four t-shirts (yes Rich, black ones), four pairs of underwear, four pairs of socks, a sweatshirt and sneakers. Maybe a clean pair of jeans, a nice pair of shoes and a collared shirt if I want to go eat somewhere nice.

But when you're in restaurants during Comic Con, and finally seated after a two and a half hour wait, it's not unusual at all to find yourself sitting next to Spartans, Batman, those guys from Game Of Thrones and Loki. Dressing nice becomes a relative term.

So I'll give it another shot this year, with the hope I can be a little more economical in how much I take with me.

Frankly, I think the bigger challenge will be closing the suitcase with this in it.

Portlandia

I haven't been to Portland in a long time. Somewhere around nine years. And I miss it.

The last time I was there, I lived for three weeks at the Hotel Lucia downtown while I was shooting a commercial for an agency called Perceive that no longer exists (it barely existed when it did). Because we were also editing up there, I had plenty of time to explore the city. If you've ever been there, you already know it's a good walking town.

Alan Otto, my friend (currently) and creative director (at the time) would meet in the lobby every morning. Then we'd pick a direction and start walking for as long as we could before we had to be at the shoot or the edit. One morning we walked to the 97-year old Portland Luggage Company where I picked up a mid-size Boyt suitcase to complete my set and had it shipped home.

I love luggage stores. Whole other post.

Another great thing is that all of Oregon is a Powerball state. And for someone like me who's inclined to play the lottery since I won $5,000 in it once (yes I did), it was fun to play in a multi-state draw where we're talking real retirement money.

By the way, the hotel you see here isn't the Lucia. It's the Benson, just a block and a half up the street. It's one of the grand old hotels you run into, a 100-years old - the one where presidents, foreign dignitaries and celebrities stay when they come to town. In fact when we were shooting up there, at three in the morning Nic Cage was playing piano and singing to Lisa Marie Presley in the lobby.

Anyway, I imagine it'll be somewhat of a let down for them, but the Benson is where I'll be staying when I return to Portland in May. I'm looking forward to it because it's Portland, but also because the reason I'm going is for a gathering to celebrate my dear friend Paul Decker's life.

The good news is I already know what suitcase I'm taking with me.

What took so long?

Right at the beginning, let me apologize for the Andy Rooney-ness of this post.

Every once in awhile, it strikes me as amazing the things people will put up with. And how long they'll put up with them.

Even more so when the answer/solution that takes its sweet time arriving is so obvious. So logical. So in your face, you can't believe it took so long to get here.

Like self-adhesive postage stamps. Hello? What was the hold up here?

I remember my parents having me lick stamps on envelopes for our holiday cards. Sadly I also remember to. this. day. the awful taste of the government-issue glue the postal service used.

I would've written a letter to complain, but it would've been just one more stamp to lick.

On a related note, same goes for return address labels. Even though I'm sure the labels were self-adhesive before stamps, I also remember having my hand cramp up writing our address over and over on so many envelopes.

So what if my parents cards got lost in the mail. It was the mail.

Another "what took so long?" Wheels on suitcases.

I can remember trying to lift one of the big, solid suitcases my parents packed when we went on trips. I couldn't lift it because obviously they'd packed it with bricks. Which didn't really matter, because even if they'd packed it with feathers suitcases back then were made of lead. Or at least it felt like it when you tried lugging one through the airport. Or the resort. Or the parking lot.

To this day, I'm convinced it was a conspiracy between Samsonite and the American Chiropractic Association.

I can literally remember the first suitcase I saw with wheels. I also remember the choir voices I heard when I saw it.

The first models had the old, roller-skate type wheels - big and hard to swivel (just like my high school girlfriend). Those wheels were magical in the way they could make every surface they rolled on sound like gravel.

But I didn't have to lift suitcases anymore. Who cared how they sounded.

Finally another minor miracle of our times. The upside down ketchup bottle.

In a society where time is money, who could afford the hours it sometimes took waiting for the ketchup to come out of the bottle? Okay, not really hours. It just felt like it when the fries were getting cold.

But now that ketchup bottles have gravity working on their side, that time can be spent much more productively. Eating.

I'm sure you have a few "what took so long?" examples of your own. I'd love to hear about them.

That's the end of this post for now.

And yes, I know what you're asking yourself.