You want to watch out with that chalk-circle thing. Bomb squads have been increasingly impatient with unattended luggage, and they tend to make their opinion explosively clear (as in, they explode the luggage first and ask questions later).

A better strategy is the one that mothers share with their children: ask someone if they can watch it for a while, and asking a mom with kids is probably your safest bet.

The ethical implications of this are troubling, of course.

At the coffee shop I normally go to, there are a couple guys who come in time to time to watch animé on their laptops. They periodically go across the street to get something to eat and ask a random person to watch their stuff. One of them explained it to me as: “I figure if somebody asks or offers to watch your stuff, it’s not too safe. But if you’re the one who asks them, they feel responsible”.

I offer no financial guarantee that this will work, but it has worked out for them so far.

Oh, and buying spices in bulk is okay - but get them unground and grind them in a (used only for spices) coffee grinder. If you get a bulk container of ground spices, by the time you are done, they are flavorless… or possibly flavourless, depending on if you watch the sun rise or set on the Atlantic.

I’m not sure I understand the effectiveness of drawing a chalk line around your luggage. Can anyone explain how this would prevent anyone from stealing it or inserting anything into it?

Thanks for the link, I had quite a laugh :)

The ask “someone to watch it” has been quite effective for me too, but I would never leave my laptop unattended.

Heh. Yeah, I know what you all mean about the suitcase in a circle. I liked it more as a piece of cultural theater—the ways you can emulate “specialness” and authority in public spaces. (see also)

I would advise against asking a mother with children to watch your stuff. (Especially in a place like an airport.) Although they may be more trustworthy, they probably have enough to keep an eye on with their kids and all, but would probably say yes anyway just to be nice.

Can you tell I am a mother with children or what? :)

Save old drink/water bottles, clean them all out and fill them full of water. Then use them to fill the empty space in your fridge/freezer. This does two things. One makes your fridge run much more efficiently, cooling air is very inefficient as it doesn’t hold the temperature. Two gives you a large supply of fresh water in a disaster.

The “circle around it” phenomena is a thing a british magician did in a trick where he sets a wallet down with money in it and its still there a day later.

It looks offical, so people don’t take it.

And get a SEPARATE coffee grinder for the spices. The spices ruin coffee and vice versa.

Michae - yep. That’s why I said “used only for spices”. Although running some things through the coffee one lends a edge to your next batch of ground coffee.

Chalk circle? In addition to everything else I carry, I have to carry CHALK now? Where? In my pants pocket? In my laptop bag? Tryin’ to turn me into Powdery Jim the Math Professor.

That tip is retarded.