A much needed gadget when flying or cruising

In late October, I went on a 2 week vacation in Greece. It is a long way from home, so we needed to pack quite a bit of stuff. We also had to purchase some additional suitcases and borrowed one as well. Once all packed, we realized that the suitcases seemed a bit large. And as anyone traveling on long journeys knows, flying today with suitcases is a math game. So we checked the luggage weight limit for our airline and tried our best to determine the weight for the larger ones. However, we had to do it using some workaround methods as we did not have a luggage scale handy. You might be thinking here is this person that blogs about all the cool travel gadgets and such and he does not have a luggage scale. That is correct. That is until this weekend. On our first shopping trip back, I purchased our own portable luggage scale. We are not foreseeing another oversees trip for at least a year, however after going through the hassle and nervousness of not knowing exactly how much some of the luggage weighted up to the point of check in, I want to be sure I have one of these gizmos handy and ready to go.

P.s. the way we measured the luggage at the time is with the regular bathroom scale. First I measured myself and then measured myself holding one of the bags. Ingenious :)

How do you weight your bags? Any tips on which scales you have used and did well?
Do you have any interesting stories about luggage and airlines?