Mom vs. Dad

Sometimes life gets overwhelming and bloging falls of the daily routine. I know I have lots of catching up to do (there are a couple of posts that are missing parts) but this one takes priority.
Mom had to leave on a business trip today. As always, packing was done two weeks in advance. Mom is a waterfall model proponent. Me? I’m agile of course. I pack on (JIT) my way to the door. Luckily the bathroom is right next to the front door so I rarely forget my toothbrush.
Anyways, mom took a week planning the trip, mentally packing the suitcase, integrating various articles of clothes and testing for stylistic mismatch. With no automated regression testing (this is the specification phase of the project!) the only recourse is to mentally construct the model of a finished outfit and check for faux pas. This was followed by a week of separating, washing and rewashing of selected garments and actual packing. My agile approach would consist of grabbing any clean (not necessarily recently washed!) clothes spread out from the bedroom to the bathroom.
Special items such as gloves, umbrellas, second and third pair of shoes and other just-in-case objects would be purchased on a need-to-have basis at the airport at my place of destination. I probably need to buy them anyway so I might as well save myself an unnecessary trip to the shoe store. Not to mention the fact that thinking of things you'll bring along, talking them over with your spouse, then writing them down and finally putting them in your suitcase clearly violates the DRY principle!
With packing phase concluded it was time to find a lock for the suitcase. Security is the most overlooked part of any project. This is what mom’s idea of a suitcase padlock looks like:

A puny, tiny padlock hardly worthy of it’s name and clearly no match for the security device I selected:

Behold the Targus Defcon 1 – Ultra. All in one solution complete with 4 digit security code, status indicator and motion detection alarm. The first image shows the two in comparison. I know – as if there was any...