Back from the Abyss & More Airport Thoughts

Four days later, I am no longer stranded!!! The first two days weren't too shabby, spending more time with my family. These second two, though? Not so great. 20 hours straight in LAX trying to find a standby seat on the weekend before Christmas isn't all it's cracked up to be. Plus, I haven't actually flown since 2000, so I didn't even have any conception of what all the security lines were about. Still, sitting around in airports gives somebody a lot to look at.

--LAX is the worst airport I've ever seen. Worse even than the SLC airport. I saw four different airports over this trip and, in the current security situation with airports, having to change airlines should not force you to go through security multiple time. I had to go through checkpoints three times before I ever actually got on a plane there...ridiculous. Plus, since I had been Selected for Secondary Screening, this took even longer. Still, I got patted down a bunch, so I guess that's a plus.

--Speaking of this "SSS" classification that I was chosen for, I have to say that it doesn't seem like the TSA officers are taking their jobs very seriously. In these scans, they were joking that I'd won the prize and chuckling while unpacking my bag. All this joviality when I was just told over the loudspeaker that the threat level has been raised to orange! For shame.

--On a different note, two odd things I noticed. First, a kid of about ten reading some book written by Richard Belzer. I'm not sure if there's a children's book author named Richard Belzer, and I don't think this person had the Webster syndrome, so I'm not sure what this would have to offer a ten year old. Second, and I'm just going to lay it out there: a woman of what seemed like 65-70 nursing a newborn baby.

I never thought I'd say this, but I sure am glad I'm back in Texas. Now, I get to watch Erik as he clambors for time to get copies of my music, just so he can claim his music is better than everyone else's.