On the road again

[pecunium]

I'm in Tenn. The weather is all right. A tad more humid than I usually have to deal with, but not so much as to be oppressive. The dogwood is in bloom. I think it's either a poor year, or overrated. There are a couple of cardinals flitting about, and lots of robins. I forget, living in Calif., and spending most of my time in the west, just how redolent of green, growing, things the air can be. The verges here are also dense (left untended the eastern part of the US reverts to le foreste sauvage so that even in the spring there is the faint whiff of rot.

I despair of ever getting through a TSA checkpoint without something of mine being questioned. SFO has signs saying one need not remove one's shoes, but they insisted everyone do so. Having seen, more than one, the abuse of cheap authority by TSA, I didn't even try to point to the signs. They swabbed both my camera bag, and my shoes. Burbank ran my pocket watch through the x-ray three times.

On the other hand, the snake went unnoticed. It's not illegal to carry a snake aboard a plane, but even before idjots starting making movies about it, it was problematic, because not everyone in the chain of gatekeepers knows the rules... see above about petty power; so when taking one to someone the easiest way to do it used to be to put it in a small box, put that box in one's jacket and walk through the metal detecto. That, because one much put one's jacket through the x-ray is no longer feasible. So one has to limit such transport to smaller snakes, place them in a cloth sack, tie the nexk shut, put them inside a t-shirt, under a sweatshirt. Same trick, less convenient.

After clearing security one ducks into the head, pulls the bag out of one's shirt, puts said bag into the travel container and that into a carry on. Smuggling, it's not just a job, it's an adventure.

My sisters were glad to see the snake arrive. This was to replace the one we brought out the Christmas before I deployed. That one got way in somewise. It had adventures too. We drove cross-country with it. We had the fuel pump goes south in Nashville. The fuel pump is in the trunk. When they emptied the back seat to get at it (it's actually front of the gas tank) the mechanic saw the snake (all eight inches of him, big around as a pencil) and, we were told, had to be peeled off the ceiling. The grage owner laughed about it, as did the mechanic (all 6'3" and 250 lbs. of him) as did the guy who actually removed him, and took him into the office to watch.

Rhyannon (the youngest of my siblings) was doing something at church, so I tagged along. I have never been so appreciative of the silence of Quaker Meeting for Worship. The local UU put on a show. A more confused, poorly executed, handling of a decent subject I hope to never see.

The second hymn pretty much summed it up. Based on an mediaeval french carol, hamronised by Dupré and with words by someone names Hamson, it has promise. Tempo was 84. Performane was somehere around 60. That's funeral tempo. On Easter, the most joyous day of the year, they were singing a dirge.

The episoidic presentation of the story of Persephone followed the same vein. Joy killed by plodding. I had my doubts when I saw the architecture. The pillars rose past a false ceiling. Said ceiling was pitched. Paralelling the pitch was a set of buttresses, only they didn't. They ended in open point before they hit the top. Yes, a freestanding cantilever does provide support, but visually one needed a leap of faith to believe the roof wasn't going to come tumbling down. Perhaps this is why the singing is so subdued.

I did get to see my step-mother, and her parents (my fatehr and she are now divorced) so the morning wasn't a complete wash.

On the down side, my laptop decided yesterday that the screen is dying. I was going to get a desktop, for more dedicated image crunching, but now it looks as though I'll get a new laptop, and put this one on a docking station and convert it to a desktop.

It did, however, remind me to back it up.

Comments

[elf]

I'd never considered that men might want to smuggle snakes, and have trouble doing so. Most women wear clothing with a built-in snake carrying case, one that keeps the snake warm and happy, and is already in an area that's very resistant to pat-downs--and where even strange movements are more likely to result in averted gazes than questions.

At the end of next month, I have to take the kids to Texas to be with my Mom for a month. (The kids, not me; I'll be there for a weekend.) I'm very nervous. I haven't been on a plane since before 9/11, and the security rules (1) are so arcane and ill-defined I'm not sure what's allowed and what's not and (2) annoy me enough that I want to get truly Discordian at them, and I'm not sure if I want to deal with the effort or the potential fallout.

allowed and prohibited materials

[urox.livejournal.com]

http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?theme=177

Re: allowed and prohibited materials

[crisavec.livejournal.com]

The gotcha to that list is this statement from your link

To ensure everyone's security the screener may determine that an item not on this chart is prohibited.

Re: allowed and prohibited materials

[elf]

What crisavec said. I've seen the list, or something enough like it not to worry; I don't normally carry power saws or even box cutters in my purse. It's that "other items at the discretion of local security" that worries me. (I am baffled that small scissors are permitted but "knives" aren't. What do they think scissors *are*?)

I have to tell myself that I should probably *not* pack half-a-dozen very explicit vibrators, and comment that "dammit, it's a four hour flight with no smoking; what do you expect me to do?"

I do expect not to take off my shoes unless specifically required to do so. I am pondering whether to wear easy-to-remove shoes for the inevitable demand, or horribly complex shoes that will annoy them as my two kids grow restless waiting for me to take them off & put them on.

Re: allowed and prohibited materials

[crisavec.livejournal.com]

I've traveled a fair bit over the last few years(but not nearly as much as pecunium has) and I've never really had any issues at all, other than discovering that the new pouch for my cellphone has enough metal in it that it pings the detectors. I do take my boots off because they ALWAYS set off the detectors(hiking boots with metal eyelets and a metal shank up the middle of the insole) and its just easier to toss them in a bin and let them xray them than argue about it.

I think the most amusing thing I've heard on a plane was "And please note, Alaska Airlines does not allow the usage of CellPhones, GPS devises, or chainsaws in the main cabin." The plane went dead silent for a moment as everyone paused to think "Did she REALLY just say that?" and then the ENTIRE plane cracked up laughing.

shoes removal only advised

[urox.livejournal.com]

I have pointed it out to TSA going through check point at SFO, SJC, and Las Vegas. It seems, however, that my shoes set off the detector. Funny because they never *used* to before.

The "official" (meaning repeated over and over like a broken record) line in SJC is that you remove your shoes to avoid "additional" screening. So if you don't remove your shoes, you *will* undergo additional screening. This is wrong of them to do and I am not sure who needs to be called to get this stopped.

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

I'm in Tenn. The weather is all right. A tad more humid than I usually have to deal with, but not so much as to be oppressive. The dogwood is in bloom. I think it's either a poor year, or overrated.

You're actually here at the very best time of the year, when there's all the wonderful April breezes to keep the humidity at bay. Another few weeks and it will become sauna land.

As to the dogwoods, perhaps they are overrated. I didn't even know they were a subject of notoriety.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I know about the local weather. I used to live in the uppper mid-west, and have been to Tenn. more than a couple of times. The summer in Missouri, well that was Basic and it was hell on so many levels that the climate was minor (the weather was awful, sort of).

TK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention that many of the various things I read which praise the south wax rapsodic about the blooming of dogwoods.


They are pretty, and I saw some in better display, but it would take a great densitiy of them to be spectacular.

Unlike the tulipy trees I saw in Korea.

TK

[niqaeli]

...uh. Hi! I found my way to your journal via a comment you posted on the Nielson-Haydens' blog.

The reason I am commenting here is because I think you may have known my mother some twenty years ago--she being Teny Rule and I being Felicity Fisher. *waves* If you're not Alice's eldest son, then, well, uh. Sorry to've bothered you! *laughs* Otherwise, huh, small internet.

TN before the summer hits hard is usually really nice--you get a breeze and the temperatures aren't high enough that humidity is hellish.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am that person (or some semblence of him).

I'll point out (having made the same mistake) The Nielsen Haydens don't hyphenate their name.

I suppose I ought to have mentioned my more than passsing familiarity with the weather in the middle of the country. I've lived in the mid-west, and upper south, I know that the best weather is the late spring (post sudden cold snaps, and slush) and mid-autumn.

But one forgets, and the differences from home are worth noting.

Feel free to hang out, the door is always open.

TK

[niqaeli]

I lived in Tennessee for most of my childhood (you can occasionally hear it in my accent if I am not concentrating--if I am very tired or very angry, more so), and the differences are definitely worth noting--I now live in Tempe. I think I am beginning to forget what home is like. My second winter here, I wore a sweater most of the time, where my first I marvelled at how utterly lovely the weather was and skipped around in t-shirt and shorts.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The winter after I moved to Calif. my teacher complained to my mother that I was going to freeze.

These days I bundle up.

The interesting thing is, I don't bundle up as much when I am in Tenn., or Colo., or any other state with real winters. I don't know why this is, but it is.

TK