Home again, and a glimpse of the future

[Jon 'maddog' Hall, Executive Director, Linux International]

Hi,

Most of you know I travel a LOT, and I thought you might like to see what
happened to me last Saturday evening when I flew to South America.

I was on one of the first airplanes out of Logan last week, headed to South
America.  Knowing that things might be rough, I went down four hours early.

First of all, they "randomly" chose me to have ALL of my bags searched.  Not
just x-rayed, but opened and pawed through.  I am glad I did not have any
XXX DVDs or magazines in there.  Not that they are illegal, but......

And of course the careful packing job I did was not duplicated on return of
the suitcase.

I normally carry everything I need for my computer office in my roll-on
(notebook, printer, scanner, PCMCIA cards, PDAs, cables, etc.)  This went
through the Delta security screening with no problems.  However, getting onto
Continental was another matter.

The security person called over one of the airline people, who looked down into
my bag and saw:

        o a bunch of cables
        o three AA batteries, still in their wrapper

and said "Power source and wires", and made me check my bag.  I was able to
pull out some breakable items and put them into another bag, but those cables
and that "power source" had to be checked.

Of course I did not tell her how I could use the wires from the airline
telephone and the power source still in my laptop to do anything that I could
have done with my cables and AA batteries.....and more.

Or that a CDROM broken in half makes a fantastic knife....very sharp!!

Finally, in Newark airport I went to have some lunch, and found that I had
no knife of any type, metal or plastic, at the lunch counter.   Luckily I had
gotten an omlet as the main course, but ever try to spread cream cheese from
a single-serving container on a begal with a large spoon?

On the way back things were a little saner, but not much.  Allow PLENTY of
time at the airport, and particularly between connections.  Pre-WTC-bombing
bookings may not work, as you may not be able to have your bags transferred
between airlines.  You may have to claim them, and re-check them (going through
security again) with the next airline, and the stopover that your travel agent
planned may not give you the time you need to get to the next flight.

Continental would not accept bags from Verig (a domestic Brazilian airline), so
I had to claim the bags, carry them to Continental airlines, and re-book.  Even
though I got to the counter forty minutes before the flight took off, they
had closed the counter, and told me I had to come back the next day!!  Only
by pleading did I get an "exception" to get on the plane.

md
-- 
=============================================================================
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director           Linux(R) International
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]         80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557       Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.


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