Where did last week go? I guess being in 4 cities makes time fly by, and it makes it difficult to make a blog post. Sorry. Of course the week presented plenty of lessons on leadership and common sense, or lack there of.

The winner though is flying back from Canada (and I think all international flights to the US) where you are essentially limited to ZERO carry ons. OK, the limit is 10x12x5 which isn’t bad if you actually have something that size but I saw a number of ladies have their purses rejected as was my briefcase (I am going shopping tomorrow for a new carry on). And, to make sure we are all safe, there was secondary screening for all passengers. I don’t mind giving up certain freedoms for safety etc but I do mind stupid rules.

How about nothing in your hands or lap for the last twenty minutes of flight? Not even a blanket. So, this would, in theory, prevent an attack over US soil. What about the first part of the flight, before that 20 minutes? Seems inconsistent to me AND if security screening was good, we wouldn’t need this prohibition in the first place, would we?

Back to my secondary screening….I have already submitted a retinal scan and been investigated for easy access across the border. In other words, I have been deemed OK. It seems to me it might save a minute if I didn’t get the secondary screening. But what do I know?

Let me be clear here. The people who protect our borders are hard working and have our best interests at heart. I sincerely believe that. I simply don’t understand the reactionary window dressing we are calling security. Remember, I was in the Marines. I know government rules and generally accept them with no comment.

Now I get to point. My routine was totally thrown off. I had to put my laptop, wallet and passport in a plastic (small) shopping bag to act as my carry on. Juggling that, the bottle of water and my jacket was almost too much. When I travel I have a routine and it works. Habits do that for us. This disruption was a hassle and it had me out of synch with my normal routine. Of course, I made it home with everything but I was reminded how comforting routines can be.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 2:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.