I had a relatively quiet day today, though very little sleep last night — jet lag? or the ginormous nachos? Sue and I were up very early (5-ish) and we had breakfast and chatted until I left San Diego just after 9AM. She showed me some of the cool stuff she was doing to create Windows Mobile Help, too.
I headed north to Carlsbad and the outlet malls there. On my shopping list was the purchase of two new suitcases. Our old ones are starting to come apart, and I knew the Samonsite outlet would likely have something suitable. And they did! I found two nice dove/silver grey ones (I did NOT want black — every man and his dog seems to have a black suitcase, based on my baggage carousel experiences this past week). I got some of the other things on my (short) list, then headed out at 11:30AM hoping to be back north of the Orange County Airport to meet a fellow technical writer for lunch. But it was not to be. After making really good time (65mph maximum = 80mph in reality on the I-5), I got caught in a traffic snarl near San Juan Capistrano. There was no way I was going to make our 12:30 lunch appointment, so we took a raincheck for next year!
Instead, I filled up the rental car with fuel (one less job to do on the way to the airport tomorrow), and headed back to my uncle’s place, where I spent much of the afternoon removing packaging and tags off things, and nesting the new suitcases one inside the other then packing the inner, medium-sized one with my shoes and clothes.
My uncle and I had an early dinner of grilled salmon and stir-fried veges at the California Pizza Kitchen in Fashion Island at Newport Beach.
I leave fairly eary tomorrow morning for Seattle and the conference — and to swim with my own fishies again! 😉
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
I have deliberately chosen red/orange for our suitcases, and even bought M an el cheapo pale pink Hibiscus print one in Honolulu last year (had to replace a bag that we’d taken with us that got wet in the flood & grew mouldy while we were there). Even red/orange doesn’t always stand out, as a fair number of people have gone that way, but black/grey are still by far the commonest (non)colours. And the good ol’ tie a red ribbon on the handle trick …
I personally don’t care if I have a bag and it gets visible marks on it from the trip – as long as my stuff stays inside, and gets to where I’m going, I don’t care how my bag looks. And I hope it’s as easy as possible to spot after that 14hr flight to LAX/24 hrs to LHR.
Sounds like you need some of my unique, bright, ‘stand out in a crowd’ luggage tags from my Etsy store, Kirsty! 😉 That’s EXACTLY why I make them!