This post is only technical in the sense that a lot of programmers project managers travel and so have a need for excellent, durable luggage that will survive the madnesses of flying around and dealing with complex projects, clients, everything else.

I started travelling a couple weeks a year in 2003. Being a relative youngster my luggage was crap and I needed something new. I wanted 1) Something that fits as a carry on 2) something that will keep a dress shirt and pants relatively wrinkle free 3) lots of pockets and stuff 4) strong and durable. This ended up being a bit difficult as I found the regular opinion sites (http://www.epinions.com) didn't help me out too much. I ended up getting suckered into an overpriced Tumi 22 inch "suiter" ballistic nylon packing case that will hold about 2 weeks worth of clothes if you roll. This has suited me well on 1-2 week trips to San Francisco, Florida, Bahamas, Frane, Italy, England, Denver, New York, Raleigh and a couple other trips. The thing is light, rolls well, sturdy. I really like it. The only downside was that it was $500. I guess it's not so bad to have that bag thing down. The salesperson assured me that it's the only bag I'll ever buy.

But now I'm going on an extended trip of a month (to India) and I need something bigger. I was just going to get the bigger, must-be-checked Tumi 28 inch packing case, but I ended up seeing a really cool case. I saw the Halliburton Zero line (no, not the Cheny Halliburton). They make a 29 inch aluminum cased roller bag that is really cool. I almost bought it but it was a little bit more ($1000) than the Tumi and it folded in half so you couldn't actually fit as much stuff into it. Oh well, I went for the big Tumi and I'm pretty happy. It has a good lost bag policy and a lifetime warranty. Plus it's study enough to sit on in an airport and I think I can fit my daughter inside of it.

I had this dream of buying a huge steamer trunk like in Joe Versus the Volcano, but couldn't find any place in Atlanta that stocks them.

Oh well, I bought the giant Tumi for $900 and I'll be packing it full of books (software and fiction) and hauling it across the world. I'll be checking out the new features in Eclipse 3.1 and comparing it to my new install of IDEA IntelliJ 4.5 on the flight and trying to refactor all the EJBs out of my company's architecture. I'm really trying to love Eclipse because of the whole open source thing, but IntelliJ is so freaking awesome.