All my suitcases are terrible. Well, that is not true. I have one suitcase that is very good for spending several weeks in Europe. Unfortunately, I am now in a phase of my life where I do not have the opportunity to summer in the Rheinland anymore.

Later this week I am going to Atlanta for a conference. Packing issues, summarized:

  1. I do not own a roller suitcase that is official carry-on sized. My smallest roller suitcase is just big enough that it needs to be checked. None of my carry-on bags have wheels.

  2. I AM FLYING TO HARTSFLIED-JACKSON ATLANTA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, AND THERE ARE GOING TO BE AIRPLANES THERE. Do I bring the good camera to get photographs of the good airplanes that will certainly be at the airport? Can one get from the “at the airport” parts of the airport to the “watch the planes” parts of the airport without too much trouble? I do not know.

  3. Also, there might be things in Atlanta that are not airplanes that I might want to take pictures of. Bring the good camera? Or the small camera? Which lens(es)? I’m terrible at anticipating which lens(es) to bring with me to places. Probably the safe bet is the small camera with the 50mm? I could fill an entire carry-on bag with cameras and lenses. Yes, I am entire capable of being That Guy.

  4. You never know when you need to use your infrared camera. Well, that is not true. I have grown fond of using it for cutting through the smog for landscape shots (when using a filter that blocks all visible and UV light) and for strangely faux-colored night scenes with #nofilter.

  5. Does Atlanta have weather? I am so bad at going places because I have forgotten that there is such a thing as weather and that sometimes one needs to plan one’s clothing around the weather.

  6. Also from the That Guy department: I’m going to bring a bunch of books to give away to people who might be interested in spreading the good news about our new and amazing books. So I probably should go with the checked bag because carrying a bunch of books in a bag without wheels sounds like a bad idea. Also, I think I heard that the TSA has some sort of crazy rule about how many books you can carry on to a plane? Is that even real or was that fake news? What can you bring on an airplane these days? It’s possible that I haven not been on an airplane since I came back from Denmark. (Aside: If you can read both English and German, you can read most signs in Danish. The Danish word for airport is lufthavn. If you can speak English, you can talk to over 90% of the people in Denmark.)

  7. I should go to Target and buy a small bottle of contact lens solution, independent of which bag(s) I end up bringing. Likewise, the hair detangler situation has not yet fixed itself despite my disappointing but ultimately successful trip to Walgreens today. (They did not auto-refill my prescription, so I almost ran out. So I called the automated phone system, which promised that it would be ready by 10am. I went at around 10am, and they were actually open, and they did not have my prescription nor any record that I had called today. They also scolded me for not picking it up when it auto-refilled – when they did not call or text about it being refilled. But they were able to fill it while I waited, and it only cost me $10.41 because our system of paying for health care in this country makes absolutely no sense at all.)

  8. Jim is visiting his mother on the east coast this week, which means that I need to prevent him from taking my small roller suitcase in case I do end up using it. This apartment is too small for me to successfully hide a suitcase. I may have to feign packing and set it on the sewing machine cabinet and half-fill it with clothes. Downside: Cats love nothing more than sleeping on clothes in suitcases.