Fresh off the plane at New York LaGuardia airport, I made two notes to self: you can tell a little something about a person from their choice of luggage and no grace is given at the airport baggage counter if your bag is missing in New York late at night.

Long story short, a few weeks ago on a Sunday night at 11:45 pm at LaGuardia, I found myself to be the last person in the baggage area with my hands and eyes coaching the black abyss in front of me to please, please roll out just one more bag. I then realized I was staring in horror at an empty revolving belt. No luggage for me.

I had watched every person from my flight grab their bags and rendered a psychological observance of each based on their luggage. (Interesting story on that, next issue.) Anyhow, flying in around midnight, the night before a huge convention that begins in 7 short hours with no change of clothes, I vowed to never fly coast to coast again without a fully optimized carry-on.

I enjoy having a good looking piece of luggage that shows I care about my stuff and want to get it there in style, so when I told my story to Ogio, they sent me the Layover ‘Fire’ model, a sleek silver, black and red model which also comes in 7 other colors. All are carry-on size with super smooth wheels and handles, heavy-duty washable poly fabric and an expansion zipper, making it easy to take up to 50 pounds of stuff and walk out of the airport in style.