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Jess and I just got back from Baltimore late Wednesday night. A short three day trip for some personal business, sans kids. After all the media attention, we were already concerned about the “enhanced” security at the airports, but Baltimore is 24 car hours away, so we have to fly.

Well, at Dallas Love Field (KDAL) there was just the old method of metal detectors. Empty most of the stuff from your pockets and move along. Well, at Baltimore Washington International (KBWI) the scanners are in place and being used.

When we walked up to the security line, Jess asked, “Are those the new scanners?” Yep. She didn’t like the look of them one bit, and even hesitated a little bit. I did point out that not everyone was even being asked to go through, just about every third person.

We emptied our pockets of everything metal or electronic, and stepped up. Jess was waved through the normal “old school” metal detector, but I was instructed to go through the scanner. He, the TSA officer, did not inform me of my right to refuse and get a pat down instead, just told me to go through. I refused, politely. He THEN informed me that would mean I would get pat down, to which I replied “Let’s do this.” I knew the consequences of my choice, but there was no way in hell I was going to get a almost naked image of me taken and God knows what done with it, since the TSA is being very vague about what they actually do with those images.

Another officer stepped up and asked if I had anything in my pockets. I replied I did, my wallet, and he asked me to put it on the belt, to which I refused. I have NEVER been asked to remove my wallet or chapstick, since they are not metal, and most people don’t even notice them. This was new to me, and now I am very unhappy because I have already asked for a pat down, so why do you give a crap what I have in my pockets?

He said that I had to totally empty my pockets. I again refused and asked, again politely, to speak to a supervisor. He said that a supervisor “will just tell you the same thing, so I don’t know why I need to bother him.”. I then, more firmly but still politely, asked to speak to a supervisor. He argued a little bit more, I interrupted his excuses, and said “I have expressed my desire to see a supervisor. I have been polite, can you please just do as I ask.” Well, I suppose he didn’t know what to do with a polite but firm passenger, so he said “OK, fine.”

About a minute, perhaps not even that long, passed and supervisor came up and asked what was going on. I told him I had refused the body scanner, and refused to put my wallet on the belt, where I can not see it, they wont take responsibility for it, and I would be separated for perhaps several minutes while I pat down. I suppose that argument, again politely expressed, just made a lot of sense. He moved me through the normal metal detector, with my wallet in hand, and asked me to have a seat in the pat down area.

Another officer, Officer Bell, came up to me and asked for my wallet. I handed it over, and he said he would now go through with it me watching. “No problem,” I replied. My wallet is very small and very tightly packed. He really did seem uncomfortable with it, since he didn’t see how to get things out without potentially causing a huge mess. I asked him how he wanted to proceed and the supervisor, who was standing near by, said that he would personally run it through the scanners (the old normal ones) and ensure that it never left his sight, except while in the scanner, and he would take personal responsibility for it.

“Fine. Thank you.” That seemed like a very fair arrangement and let us both achieve our goals. His of getting me checked out and on my way and me of not losing my wallet at BWI.

He did that and came back and handed it back to me. Thanked me for my cooperation, and left the area.

Officer Bell then asked me to step on the spots on the floor mat, and put my arms up, palms up. He had latex gloves on, was well groomed, and professional. At all times he told me what he was going to do. He started with my shoulders and chest, worked down to my stomach, and then went to my back. He was not rough, forced, or any of the other crap I would have expected based on the media’s repeated telling of the situation.

He then said he would use the back of his hands to go over my buttocks. I replied “alright”. Done. Now, again telling me before hand so I am very informed, he said he would use the back of his hand to go down the zipper of my jeans. “Sure”. Again, done. Not forceful, not threatening, in no way invasive. He then moved down my legs and about 90 seconds after it started, my “enhanced” pat down was finished.

I collected my things and moved along.

Now, the real question is, was my experience normal? Or was the entire staff, with one possible exception, just amazingly polite and professional? I hope not. I hope exactly what I went through is what can be expected no matter what airport you are in. I think the entire TSA situation sucks, and we, as a country, could do better for our security. But, my experience, and the entire time I stayed polite, honest, and professional, and I am glad to see it was not too much to expect them to treat me the same way.

What about the rest of y’all? Anyone pass on the new scanners and ask for a pat down? How did it go?

Related articles

• Man Threatened with $10,000 Fine After Refusing TSA Grope [Video] (gawker.com)
• Why the TSA Practices Could Result In Public Rebellion or a Terrorist Attack [Privacy] (gizmodo.com)
• Jesse Ventura Sues The TSA Over Body Scanners, “Unwanted Touching” (mediaite.com)
• My Very Own TSA Nightmare (pajamasmedia.com)
• TSA Loses in Court. Must Allow Filming. Cannot Demand ID. (dvorak.org)
• Airport body scanners: Questions and answers (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• : TSA encounter at SAN (wilderside.wordpress.com)

We went on a getaway earlier this week.  It can be exhausting waiting for the phone to ring or an email to come in about a job opportunity.  It’s important to keep your spirits up, so we’ve been trying to frequent parks and take in as much fresh air as we can.  That’s a difficult thing to do living in the city, so we decided to go camping.

We were headed up to OK, but found out there was a burn ban, and what’s the fun in camping without a fire?  We ended up at Martin Creek State Park, in one of their little cabins.  We like to do tent camping, but Illianna is still a little too young.  Illianna loved running around the cabin and exploring the woods.  She was collecting things and giggling at every corner.  I’ve never seen her so filthy, and let me say she is a regular mess pot, but this took the cake.  I turned a blind eye to the dirt until she grabbed some cereal which had obviously fallen in the dirt/ash and came up to me with dirty hands and a black mouth trying to spit it out.  Poor little thing.  She’s so well trained to pick her food up and eat it after it’s fallen on the floor.

It was nice to see trees older than a couple of years, and we almost had the park to ourselves, but there was a huge power plant humming in the distance and a stupid train announcing its presence every hour or so.  We were able to see some wildlife, roast marshmellows, hike around, and see a few more stars than we can see from our backyard, but we won’t be returning to that park.  We managed to take a pretty decent photo of ourselves.

Well, we took our first family vacation to New Mexico. Illianna did great on the airplane. Here she is checking out the view from the overhead.

We did a lot of hiking.

See that hole on the right. I climbed through there with Missy Moo along for the ride. That was darn difficult. I couldn’t just get down on my hands and knees because just the day before we were hiking around in the snow and I fell and bruised my knees.. bad.

We didn’t do any intense hikes this time because it was the first time I’ve worn a pack since I was a teenager at summer camp . I’m glad we stuck to the easy stuff because that’s all Illianna could do anyway. She is at the age now where she’s too interested in everything to fall asleep anywhere other than her bed. Towards the end of the trip she was doing better to sleep in the car, but that was out of total exhaustion and desperation. I’m not sure how long it will take her to catch up on missed sleep. Nor am I sure how long it will take us to catch up. She woke us up everyday at 5AM, which is 6AM her regular time. Usually when she wakes up early at home, I let her hang out in her crib until time to wake up, 7AM, but you can’t really do that when you’re in a hotel room.

Maybe if I have a little more time or energy I’ll blog a bit further about the whole thing, but right now I’m not that into it. more pics

Anyone that travels these days knows the TSA is a huge joke. The rules constantly change, even from screener to screener. Sometimes I take my DVD player out, other times I dont. Sometimes my cane gets passed through several times, other times it is ok to go with me through the metal detector. The sooner we replace the TSA with either trained chimps or Skynet , the better. To illustrate my point, here is a thread from FlyerTalk :

So it just took me 35 minutes ‘to case clear security to get to my vegas flight. And I was the only one in line!

DFW A terminal

Tsa: id please
Me: that is my id ‘pointing to my PASSPORT
Tsa: sir where are going?
Me: las vegas
Tsa: last time I checked a map, las vegas is in the US!
Me: and?
Tsa: well then you don’t need a passport to go there
Me: and?
Tsa: so your passport is not valid id for this trip
Me: excuse me?
Tsa: yes I need a government issued id
Me: my passport is government issued, its issued by the government of the netherlands, would you like me to show you where that is on a map?
Tsa: that government is not recognized by the tsa. And I know that the netherlands is in norway. So I need to see a drivers license.
Me: the government of the netherlands is not recognized by the tsa? That’s dissappointing, im sure my queen will be absolutely distraught to hear that an id checker at the dfw airport is not recognizing her as a legitimate government. Its a good thing though that the tsa doesn’t set foreign policy, and that that’s left to the state department. Have you informed condileeza rice that the tsa is now deciding what governments will be recognized by the us government? Are you guys the jokers that decided to regonize kosovo as an independent state?
Tsa: condeleeza who?
Me: So my passport really isn’t going to work? And you need to see a drivers license?
Tsa: yes
Me: well here’s the problem ‘ I hand him my dutch drivers license ‘ see this is also issued by that government that you don’t recognize.
Tsa: hmmm…. Don’t you have anything that’s issued by the government in the us?
Me: I have my greencard but the problem is, like you said las vegas is in the us, according to the map you just checked, the same one that told you the netherlands is in norway. So since I don’t need a greencard to travel to las vegas, my greencard won’t work either even though it was issued by the dept of homeland security, the same part of the us government that the tsa is a part of.
Tsa: yes that’s true. Ok so you don’t have any valid id for travel in the US?
Me: apparently not, since my passport and drivers license is not recognized by the tsa and my greencard is not valid for travel within ths us.
Tsa: ok well you can travel without id, you’ll just need to go through additional screening.
Me: great
Tsa: I need a male assist.

Ten minutes later

tsa2: hi sir
Me: hi
tsa2: im going to go through your bags and then wand you, is that ok?
Me: sure
tsa2: sir what’s this? ‘pointing to my passport’
Me: that’s my passport
tsa2: but you told the id screener that you don’t have id
Me: that’s right
tsa2: so you lied to him
Me: no
tsa2: no?
Me: according to his requirements I did not have id that met his requirements for travel.
tsa2: huh?
Me: since im going to vegas, apparently my passport is not valid for traveling there, because accoridng to his map las vegas is in the us and since its in the us and I don’t need a passport to travel there, my passport is not valid for travel.
tsa2: huh?
Me: exactly
tsa2: ok?

There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…… Toto I don’t think we’re in Holland anymore.

One less moron on our countdown to everyone in the US…..

[Original Thread]

In Southlake, Texas, there is a really nice town square shopping center. In the phase II area they opened a Hilton. Granted it is a Hilton, but I figured “It is Southlake, and I am sure they are trying to be boutique.” Well, they were. It was very tastefully decorated, very much like theHotel in Vegas.

The room, a corner suite with whirlpool was $319 a night and probably worth it but for a few things I will get to in a second. The room was huge, a comfortable desk, two flat screen TV’s, a monster bathroom with both a large whirlpool and shower. The bed was comfortable, although we didn’t sleep in it. Overall, no complaints for the room, but it was perhaps a little overpriced. $260 would be a bit more inline with other hotels in this area as well as other major cities.

We checked in early, about 1p, there was no valet on duty at this time. We self parked, lugged our bags to the desk, and checked in. The staff was friendly and efficent. At this time we declined bell service. They had our reservation and check in was fast. But here is where the problems began. For those of you that do not know, I use a cane due to my hip injury several years ago. The front desk clerk saw my cane and without asking put us in an accessible suite. The only difference was the shower, it was one of those with the stool and hand shower head.

I can’t stand it when people make assumptions about me. I didn’t reserve an accessible room, nor was I asked if I required one. In fact, I do not require or want one. I do not like the showers, they are cold, and often there are a lot of handles everywhere that get in my way.

At this time, I chose not to complain, but to just deal with it. Jessica and I went about our evening and returned to the hotel after a decent meal at Truluck’s. We decided to try the whirlpool, only to find it did not work. Engineering came up and tried to fix it for about 30-45 minutes then we were called by the front desk and moved to another room. Ten minutes later we tried the new room’s whirlpool, only to find that it did not work either. Again another 30 minutes of engineering tinkering with it and it still didn’t work. I went to the front desk to complain and Dan told me that they didn’t have any more rooms to move us to. That was fine, and this point I was so annoyed that a “4 star” hotel couldn’t have a whirlpool working for $319 a night!

We decided to checkout and just go home, which really sucked. I really was looking forward to the whirlpool due to my hip and really wanted to spend the time with Jessica while my mother watched Illianna. Jessica had mentioned several times that night about how much she was looking forward to the bath that never got to happen.

Checkout was fast, thank God, but I was pissed off and quite terse with the front desk staff. I rarely stay in Hilton hotels and am again reminded why that is. I really prefer the Hyatt chain if I can not find an Omni or iPrefer hotel instead. I doubt my Hilton Honors card will get much use in the future. Oh well, back to planning and getting ready for either another great New Mexico trip staying at a B&B or the Hyatt, and then of course there is Hawaii we are planning which will be Four Seasons, where I am sure the whirlpool will work.

I don’t know if I can even count the number of times we’ve been to New Mexico in the past two years, but I think we’re averaging once every 4 months or so. There is a spirit to the land. It is beyond relaxing. It feels like home.
We had a convertible this time and found some wonderful chocolate in Santa Fe. Those of you who know me.. understand when I say “chocolate” is “good” then it’s good. Golf lessons were fun, but my belly got in the way, and I had to sit down. Here’s a photo from our last trip kid free, 7-15-07.

We just got back from another trip to New Mexico. I would say where we stayed, but it’s such an oasis for us, I don’t want others to find out. I will say it was as beautiful as ever, and I can’t wait to return.

We ran into so many odd people on this trip. The whole town of Roswell is really into the whole UFO thing. I personally am open to the idea, but what we saw of the town was all hokey. We experienced the one and only spacewalk! A guy spent 6 years of his life creating a maze with black lights that included a little story of Roswell and the aliens. It was a well spent two bucks for the experience. He was actually very talented. I think if I were a retired actor, Roswell would be a fun place to live. You can just be a character and fit right in. While that is to be expected in Roswell, NM, I didn’t expect it in another little town we visited.

While visiting another town we saw a sign that said, “Rare Books”. Of course with Ryan’s hobby of collecting books, we had to stop. The “store” was run out of a motel, a strip motel. I don’t know if the guy owned the motel or what, but he’d knocked out the walls between three rooms to create one larger area. I was going to say the odd thing was he still lived there despite the musky paper/dust aroma lingering in the air, but I’m not sure I can confidently make that statement. There were so many odd things. Like when we walked in and I saw him lifting the mattress to reach under it. Then there was the fact that he was wearing penny loafers, cargo pants, a tweed jacket with the arm patches and all, or how he was rambling about how he just got back from Africa, or how he excused himself because he needed another libation. Not to mention the creepy mannequins dressed in various military outfits. It was a very interesting experience. He was a very nice man, just a little off. I think that’s what happens when a woman isn’t around. For Ryan’s sake I hope I live longer, but if I don’t I want to be able to come back and see how eccentric he’s become in my absence. Anyhoooo.. Ryan found a first edition he’d needed to complete a collection of his, so it was a worthwhile excursion.

It’s no surprise that our response to the situation is to take away toothpaste and shampoo. Business travelers now have to check their bag verses carrying it on. This will create more work for baggage handlers and there will be delays. People have to allow more time for travel. Anything that slows us down and takes away our mobility is not going to be good for the economy.

Here’s my proposal for lifting all “security” restrictions and allowing shampoo on the plane again:
You load police up with bulletproof vests, machine guns, knives, mace, side arms, and whatever else they might need to take someone down at the airport. Then the “evil doers” would see that we’re finished messing around and we’re just going to eliminate them instead of eliminating our own freedoms.

Blow ‘em up! Ask questions later.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAWWWWWWWW!

*shoots her pistols in the air*

[Ryan] Then of course we would be like Germany or the UK. Oh no!

Dear President Bush:

I’m about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family,
and I would like to ask you to assist me. I’m going to walk across
the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few
arrangements. I know you can help with this.

I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports,
immigration quotas and laws. I’m sure they handle those things the
same way you do here.

So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Vicente Fox, that
I’m on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting
the following:
1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might
need, whether I use them or not.

3. All government forms need to be printed in English.

4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.

5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the
flag pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.

7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and
lunch.

8. I will need a local Mexican driver’s license so I can get easy
access to government services.

9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won’t make any
effort to learn local traffic laws.

10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the
memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all
police officers speak English.

11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals
on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not
want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.

12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes,
and don’t enforce any labor laws or tax laws.

13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice
and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might
place on the economy.

14. Eventually I want to be able to vote and have all election materials

and notices sent to me in English with Spanish as a second language..

I know this is an easy request because you already do all these
things for all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico.

I am sure that Pres. Fox won’t mind returning the favor if you ask him
nicely. However, if he gives you any trouble, just invite him to go quail
hunting with your V.P.

Reposted by popular demand, the review of Sandals Antigua from the first week of our honeymoon. BTW, the hotel in New York for the second week was quite good and a huge improvement over the “5 star resort”.

We stayed in a Grande Luxe Beachfront Concierge Room, room 123.

Sandals claims to be a five star resort, as you can see from one of the attached pages.. I will merely list the reasons why they are not.

1. Our room was supposed to include a sitting area, mahogany bed, and a daily newspaper. There were none of these. Our room was so small there is no way to get a sitting room in there. The bed took up the entire room, along with a desk, small chair for the desk, mini-fridge, and TV. The bed was not mahogany or raised up high as promised. Both the mahogany bed and sitting area are shown in the brochure picture and promised in writing.
2. We had to make reservations for some of the restaurants, which close at odd hours, and some days are just flat closed. Our reservations were lost more than once, as were other guests.
3. The construction of the resort was horrible; I constantly hit my head on unmarked low ceilings and archways.
4. The meals were a complete joke. The portions were tiny. The one night I was able to get a good meal; I ate four entrées and two desserts.
5. The food, what little there was, was horrible. It was some of the worst food I had ever had.
6. Hours of the restaurants left several hours each day that there was not any food to be found; despite being assured 24hr food service was readily available by the brochure.
7. Service of the wait staff was terrible. I could never ask for more food, since they never came back to our table. Never asked how the meal was, never refilled water, never took our plates. The entire time I felt as if we were a huge inconvenience to the wait staff.
8. The brochure promised air conditioning in every room. In our room, the A/C had to run at full 24/7 to keep the room cool, because the gap under the door was large enough to slide a plate under, and there was not any glass in the windows, just shutters that didn’t keep the hot air out, or the cool air in. Aside from the room, and a single restaurant, there was not any A/C to be found anywhere at the resort.
9. Electricity was anything but stable, constant black and brown outs.
10. Room service was terrible. The mini fridge never got restocked, when we would call for things to be brought to the room, it took hours most of the time, if it showed up at all.
11. The TV kept dying. At this point we had enough and just wanted to sit there and watch TV.
12. In our room, there were huge cracks in the walls, that when brought up to management, they knew about it and didn’t seem to care. But in the same breath would assure us that they kept the 5 star standard of service..
13. Screen door was broken and cut my hand.
14. Housekeeping couldn’t just clean the room, they had to mess with the fan, A/C and then sit on the bed and watch TV.
15. The bellboys treated our luggage worse than the airlines, by just rolling it down 2 flights of stairs.
16. Turndown service kept bothering us at 10pm, if at all.
17. Guest services never picked up the phone when we called. We had to walk to the front desk for answers.
18. The toaster in the kitchen only had a single burner working. So, it took 10 minutes to get some toast.
19. Management was totally unhelpful. They listened, but never event attempted to solve the issue.
20. Restaurants wouldn’t go by their own hours. We were turned away at 1:45p even though the sign said they were open until 2. We had to get a manager to get us a table, and then there was nothing to eat because they had already cleared the buffet.
21. Winston, the resident manager, promised to call us by April 23, but did not.

This resort was a total case of mis-representation, and caused us to really regret choosing there for our honeymoon.

We did speak with management 6 times while we were there, and they promised to help, yet did nothing. We spoke to Winston, Steve, the Concierge Manager, and another, yet nothing was ever solved, just a bottle of champagne sent to our room, even though we don’t really drink.