Nothing Says "Happy Holidays" Like an Old Fashioned Airport Camping Trip
This morning I hauled myself out of bed at 4:30, hiked to the Downtown Berkeley BART station, rode to the Coliseum, stood in the rain for twenty minutes, fumbled for three dollars on AirBart, arrived at Oakland International, jogged to the ticket counter . . . and learned that my flight was delayed for "the foreseeable future."
(Did I check the little "call me with updates on my flight" box when I bought my ticket? Yes. Did they call me with updates? No. But did they call to offer me a "bargain" on rental cars? Oh, hell yes -- about five minutes ago. WTF?)
I understand that delays happen. I'm headed to northern Idaho via Spokane, which was socked this week with two feet of snow, and where temperatures have been hovering around zero degrees. I'd be moving slowly, too. I get it. But I don't have to like it, and the whole airport experience seems to add insult to my injury. I sometimes wonder if the "airport" is really some evil deity's pet invention, specially engineered just to piss me off. It wouldn't be the first time that happened.
If your life is like mine, some days you wake up in the morning and are immediately hit with a big pile of crap. And some days you realize: the only thing you can do with a big pile of crap is spread it around. This post is about today, which is one of those days. Apologies, all, but here comes a little pity-party-rant for myself and for any other sentient creatures at gate C-6:
(Did I check the little "call me with updates on my flight" box when I bought my ticket? Yes. Did they call me with updates? No. But did they call to offer me a "bargain" on rental cars? Oh, hell yes -- about five minutes ago. WTF?)
I understand that delays happen. I'm headed to northern Idaho via Spokane, which was socked this week with two feet of snow, and where temperatures have been hovering around zero degrees. I'd be moving slowly, too. I get it. But I don't have to like it, and the whole airport experience seems to add insult to my injury. I sometimes wonder if the "airport" is really some evil deity's pet invention, specially engineered just to piss me off. It wouldn't be the first time that happened.
If your life is like mine, some days you wake up in the morning and are immediately hit with a big pile of crap. And some days you realize: the only thing you can do with a big pile of crap is spread it around. This post is about today, which is one of those days. Apologies, all, but here comes a little pity-party-rant for myself and for any other sentient creatures at gate C-6:
- The waiting areas. Each seat has an immovable armrest. Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous? Immovable armrests are anti-homelessness devices. Is there some sort of homelessness problem in Concourse C?
- Airport coffee. It sucks. Period. (There is a blanket exception for PDX, in Portland, Oregon. Why can't I be stranded there? Why can't everyone else be more like them?)
- The horn-tooting, bull-hollering airport personnel who cart the morbidly obese on those electric powered flatbeded sloth-mobiles -- all while yelling at ME to get out of the way! "Wonk, wonk, coming trough, people. Move to the right, people, move right." Look, if anybody should be allowed to yell at anybody for not moving enough . . . ? The way I see it, we're either going to be polite, or we're not. That means that if if the sloth haulers can yell their personal thoughts at me, I should be able to holler my own observations in return. Right? What's so wrong about that?
- Security. Oh, god, don't get me started on airport security. Can you carry a bottle of water through a security checkpoint? No. Can you carry 24 ounces of saline solution through the same checkpoint? Yes. "Why?" you may ask. Well, apparently there is an exception for "medical supplies." I would like to know, however: exactly how does that works out in real life? Is it that medical supplies are excepted, or that stuff labeled medical supplies is excepted? I would really, really like to know -- I NEED to know -- because a 24 ounce "bottle of saline" can hold a lot of shampoo. Or vodka. Or C-4.
- Christmas music. I'm not a Grinch, but I swear to God if I hear Silent Night one more time before 8:00 a.m., something in my brain might rupture. Further, I find the fact that the holiday music here has been cleansed of any culturally sensitive references to God is somehow even more insulting than just singing preachy Christmas songs. It's like they had the political correctness to note the possibility of Islamic or atheistic travelers, but without the intelligence or grace to realize that some people might prefer not to have the tune piped down their throats, either.
- Special security announcements: "This is a special security announcement: please maintain control of your personal belongings at all time. Unattended baggage is subject to search, inspection, damage, and removal. Do not accept items or packages from unknown individuals. Unattended vehicles will be ticketed and towed." Okay, first of all, this message has been playing in airports every 80 seconds for at least the last seven years. So, there is nothing "special" about it. Second, what's with "ticketed and towed"??? Is that really the TSA's car bomb strategy? Seriously? I'd hate to be the tow-truck driver. If writing tickets is all it takes to deter terrorists, then why not skip the announcements, the cameras, the 7 billion dollar budget, and just start ticketing terrorism?
Labels: Technology Rants
posted by Patrick Bageant at 7:29 AM
19 Comments:
Could be worse. Could be that Maria Carey xmas song over and over and over again.
My inlaws flew in yesterday. When entering the system they were both searched within an inch of their life. My MIL is a diabetic and they had to do double special security checks on her tiny little insulin vials and my FIL has several prescription medications (1 heart attack and 1 bypass so far and not even 65). They not only pulled all that out of the bags, but then they xrayed every single prescription bottle separately to make sure.. what? that bomb materials were not broken down into tiny little pea sized components that could be reassembled during flight?
I want to be safe on airplanes, but how in the world is delaying 2 almost 65 year old midwesterners for 30 minutes on account of their medicine making me or you safer? Are terrorists going to start recruiting from elderly midwesterners if they find out they aren't being adequately searched?
A year after 911 I went in to have my social security card updated and there was a police officer there. Yes, the federal government was paying for a full time police guard in the SS office in a small town (under 15K) in the rural midwest. Yes, because terrorists were going to....?
I hate this crap that doesn't actually HELP anything.
I bunch up my coat, put it on my backpack/laptop bag and take a nap on the floor. Because by the time you're stuck in an airport for hours on end you just can't care about dirtiness or what people will think anymore.
What I hate is the uselessness of the actual airplane announcements. Do you know in the entire history of aviation, there has not been a single successful water landing? Yet they still tell you how to inflate the vest by pulling the cord, or by manually blowing in the tube.
Also, the denizens of the Southwest flight staff have made it their personal goal to turn the routine into standup comedy. However, there are only 4 jokes that are possible, so you hear the same jokes every time. What some of them have done to make up for this shortcoming is to sing songs. WTF?
And don't get me started on not being able to have electronic devices turned on during takeoff. Have you ever had your computer malfunction before your phone was sitting next to it? Well, your laptop is about 20 times more sophisticated (and thus more likely for something to go wrong) than the navigation electronics in an airplane's cockpit. And you're a good 15 feet away from those.
It's freakin tradition, I know, but it still sucks.
Toney, but your laptop does have a wireless card which has the potential to interfere with comms. Granted, the frequencies are pretty far off, but still. I really wouldn't want the pilot to miss that "Hey uh turn left NOW" instruction because some insurance salesman wanted to update a powerpoint. And what, on average, it's about 2 to 3 minutes after takeoff until a commercial aircraft climbs to a flight level of 100. Can't say it's a huge inconvenience.
The water landing thing pisses me off too. They might as well just say, "In the event of your instant death, please wear your life preserver vest located under your seat. Do not inflate your vest until all parts of your corpse have been washed out of the airplane out to sea."
Pat, the curb announcement, or at least a version of it, goes back at least to 1980. Unfortunately, I can't find a video clip with that opening scene from Airplane. The two announcers sound like the BART announcers: male voice for track 1, female voice for track 2.
Quick question - is it treason to sit and think about the holes in the current TSA airport security plan?
Jack Donaghy will say yes, but I say no. This is a good start (note page 2 about getting around the no fly list using Adobe).
Oakland is actually one of the more laid back, nicer airports. Be thankful you're not at SFO or LAX.
When I saw Armen linked an article, I thought it might be that Atlantic piece.
Doesn't that just piss you off?
I'm now in Seattle, and I think it can officially be added to the Portland coffee exception, and it has turned my day completely around. There is a two year old in a santa hat wishing everybody a "Hawwiee Krissss-maaas" and people are giddy over the recent snow. I guess it's not so bad after all. Though it would be better if not for Blagojevich's face gaping at me from every TV screen . . .
Oh, yeah. Cell phones. Personally, cell phone bans is fine with me; I can imagine nothing worse than sitting in a middle seat, between two chatty sixteen year olds. My pilot friend tells me the ban has little to do with aircraft navigation equipment. He says it has to do with cell phones at 20,000 feet confusing towers on the ground. Take for he hearsay it is worth -- just remember you heard it said here first!
A friend's boyfriend recently gave her a taser (some ridiculously misguided attempt to provide her with protection in downtown Philadelphia). She threw it in her purse and forgot about it. Fast forward a few weeks. She's going through security at PHL when x-ray monitors notice something in her bag. She's pulled out of line for a bag search and thinks "oh god, the taser." They search her bag and confiscated ... a bottle of hand lotion. Then they let her and her taser onto the flight.
It's all security theater.
A good friend of mine had something similar happen, except with ninja throwing stars (or 'shurikens' for those in the know). Anyway, he was arrested on the spot and had to fight the thing out in court for several months. He had a fro, has dark skin and was generally unkempt at the time, so I'm sure prejudices factored in here. Still, the TSA is a joke.
It's amazing to me that some airports still charge for wifi. Call me a damned socialist agitator if you will, but Sacramento, Portland, Seattle... all those places have it right. Charging $5.99 for 15 minutes of internet is criminal. Thank you iPhone.
San Jose Airport has free wireless. Bless SIlicon Valley.
Oakland also has free wifi!
I've heard the liquid rules are going to be "relaxed" "soon." Neither term is defined, but it does give hope. I love flying in foreign countries where you can carry a bottle of water without being treated like a criminal.
I'd also like to know what the "threat level orange" announcements mean. What does "orange" have to do with a threat? You never hear about threat levels or that color chart anywhere but at the airport. I think they should be named after how frightening the threat is. Like one could be "stagecoach bandit" and another could be "ninja" and another could be "purse snatcher." Because people understand the level of fear they should exhibit when facing, say, a purse snatcher as opposed to a ninja. I like it, at least.
I've gotten through with a pocket knife by accident, for similar reasons as 2:56 described.
I don't think anyone is the victim of prejudice for getting stopped for trying to get on a flight carrying ninja freaking throwing stars.
I agree that the water/shoe restriction is a little silly. Well, I guess the water restriction, these days. But throwing stars? I'm more than happy for those to be in checked baggage.
(Also: the big difference between throwing stars and tasers is that the former are usually metal, and the latter are usually plastic.)
Carbolic - I was just telling a story that I thought was funny. Who has ninja stars on them unknowingly? I wasn't using that story to illustrate the TSA's uselessness. That's why I modified the "the TSA is a joke" with "Still".
Merry Christmas.
Toney - was this in California? Possessing a shuriken in California is a felony on its own. CCP 12020(a).
It took me 30 hours to get from London to Virginia. Delta is the worst airline, ever and JFK the worst airport, ever.
Interestingly enough, I forgot to take all liquids out of my bag, and they let me through security anyway. Great.
Merry Christmas!
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