SFO to Boston

On the flight to Boston, I met a soldier on her way to a weekend with her five-year-old. She was about to be deployed for her second tour of duty in the Middle East.

She was first sent to Afghanistan and will now be stationed in Baghdad.

I thanked her for her service.

She said her greatest reward was watching a major Afghan party run a woman for president. She openly wondered when a major US party would have the courage to do the same.

"Backpack to the Future" or "My Pack: A Love Story"

As I previously suggested, my Mom and I elected to send our luggage to London ahead of us.

The prevailing system = total surrender to overworked baggage handlers,
outdated airport systems, understaffed customs areas and overspeculative security.

Hopefully the upcoming system will look more like this

Until then, at least my backpack has the 007-esque Tumi tracer