Security...?
Apr. 18th, 2005 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumSecurity is something I take fairly seriously.
Some of it is almost intrinsic to my being. I was moved around a lot as a young child, and had new schools every couple of years. Since this wasn' the result of my being a military brat the new times were always a tad nervous making.
And I was slight, started wearing glasses at an early age, read books, knew too much, was a bit solitary (part and parcel of moving so much, I suppose) prone to speak my mind and in general, "not like other kids". When we moved to a largely hispanic area, with a moderately high level of small-time gangs; and a quiet background of understood violence, well I learned to check my six, and other such trivial aspects of not get pounded to a pulp (it doesn't matter how quick you are on your feet, nor how skilled with your hands or a weapon, the odds can be made too much to overcome... I spent six months slinking through alleys to avoid a friend's older brother. He felt he owed me because when we were playing one of the odd games we played [a sort of dodge-ball with scraps of tar-paper, and everyone armed at the same time. A piece flew over the fence and hit him. He took offense and decided I was the guilty party]. That will teach one situational awareness, to one's very bones).
Some of it is the result of the work I've done. Security guard, some of it at hospitals, which leads to odd confrontations, some of it in parking lots, all of it boring; until something exciting happens.
And my jobs in the Army, which deal with information flow, and who gets what, and when and how the pieces fit together, and what this, when combined with that means, or might mean.
And, because the Army worries about this, a lot of Worst Case planning. From the trivial (what happens if someone gets hurt on the rifle range; from skinned knees, to heat injuries, to shot. The last time we did a range, we had two minor burns from spent cases. The plans were in place and all went well) to the serious; what to do if an artillery shell lands in the middle of the sleeping tent?
So this TSA to limit passengers to two books in carry on luggage croggles me.
Not only is it silly, right now (when, it seems, there is a four book maximum) but it's getting sillier.
Me, I'd not heard of it, and I carry a lot of books with me. I'm gonna be gone for a couple of weeks (the usual time for one of my trips) I'll pack at least three books in the carry on. My moods change, and I'm usually reading three or four books at a time anyway (lessee... Collapse, The Art of Mediaeval Hunting: The Hound and the Hawk, The Seventeenth Century Background, The Gathering Storm, and Shakespeare's Language, those are the reading material right now. The books I might want to take with me when I travel).
Looking at it I can't see any benefit. Are they afarid I'm going to peg someone with my copy of Stephen Jay Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory>? I'd wager my camera (any one of the two, or three, in my other carry on bag) would make a farmore effective weapon. It has a strap, that I can retain it, as well as impart more energy, and it has greater density.
I just don't get it.
Some of it is almost intrinsic to my being. I was moved around a lot as a young child, and had new schools every couple of years. Since this wasn' the result of my being a military brat the new times were always a tad nervous making.
And I was slight, started wearing glasses at an early age, read books, knew too much, was a bit solitary (part and parcel of moving so much, I suppose) prone to speak my mind and in general, "not like other kids". When we moved to a largely hispanic area, with a moderately high level of small-time gangs; and a quiet background of understood violence, well I learned to check my six, and other such trivial aspects of not get pounded to a pulp (it doesn't matter how quick you are on your feet, nor how skilled with your hands or a weapon, the odds can be made too much to overcome... I spent six months slinking through alleys to avoid a friend's older brother. He felt he owed me because when we were playing one of the odd games we played [a sort of dodge-ball with scraps of tar-paper, and everyone armed at the same time. A piece flew over the fence and hit him. He took offense and decided I was the guilty party]. That will teach one situational awareness, to one's very bones).
Some of it is the result of the work I've done. Security guard, some of it at hospitals, which leads to odd confrontations, some of it in parking lots, all of it boring; until something exciting happens.
And my jobs in the Army, which deal with information flow, and who gets what, and when and how the pieces fit together, and what this, when combined with that means, or might mean.
And, because the Army worries about this, a lot of Worst Case planning. From the trivial (what happens if someone gets hurt on the rifle range; from skinned knees, to heat injuries, to shot. The last time we did a range, we had two minor burns from spent cases. The plans were in place and all went well) to the serious; what to do if an artillery shell lands in the middle of the sleeping tent?
So this TSA to limit passengers to two books in carry on luggage croggles me.
Not only is it silly, right now (when, it seems, there is a four book maximum) but it's getting sillier.
Me, I'd not heard of it, and I carry a lot of books with me. I'm gonna be gone for a couple of weeks (the usual time for one of my trips) I'll pack at least three books in the carry on. My moods change, and I'm usually reading three or four books at a time anyway (lessee... Collapse, The Art of Mediaeval Hunting: The Hound and the Hawk, The Seventeenth Century Background, The Gathering Storm, and Shakespeare's Language, those are the reading material right now. The books I might want to take with me when I travel).
Looking at it I can't see any benefit. Are they afarid I'm going to peg someone with my copy of Stephen Jay Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory>? I'd wager my camera (any one of the two, or three, in my other carry on bag) would make a farmore effective weapon. It has a strap, that I can retain it, as well as impart more energy, and it has greater density.
I just don't get it.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-18 11:58 pm (UTC)Sheesh.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 12:35 am (UTC)You have to stop reading their recommendations; it's so much easier.
B
no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 12:47 am (UTC)Actually, I took my soft luggage (basically a duffel with some outside pockets), and built a layer of books in the bottom and around the sides, packed in my clothes, etc., and then a layer of books on top. I constructed hard-sided luggage out of books.
My luggage has not been a problem, but I have had some more detailed screenings when my six earrings set off the metal detectors. OTOH, the trick for going through the metal detector when wearing overall? Unfasten one strap and throw it over a shoulder. The TSA screeners grin when they see me doing this.
I don't travel anywhere nearly as widely as you, but the screeners at BWI, my local airport, seem both competent and efficient. Even when the line has been hundreds of yards long, I've gotten through security in 15 minutes or less.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 01:10 am (UTC)B