Category Archives: Issues

Run Around The Block

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A few days ago I went out to lunch with Scott at a local restaurant and while we were waiting for our food to be ready I found myself looking at the other diners surrounding me. Adjacent to us were these two morbidly obese women, they looked like mother and daughter. It wasn’t just “fat” but rolling down between their legs and the chairs weren’t even able to support the extra wibbly flab that drooped over the side.

Generally these people do not interest me, beyond a twinge of pity for their unpleasantly short lives and the ruin they made of themselves. I unfortunately also caught an eyeful of what they were eating. Eating is a pleasant verb, what they were doing wasn’t that, it was more like shoveling. Burger, double-order of Fries, and a giant big-gulp cup of frozen custard. They were chowing down, not even slowing down enough to catch their breath as they matter-loaded. Witnessing this display of gluttony was incredibly disgusting and offensive to me.

What really bothers me is that the restaurant we went to HAS MANY HEALTHY CHOICES. These two women just weren’t interested in making any of them.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way about people like that. When we go to the local market and I spot one they almost always appear to me in the same way. Massively morbidly obese, more than just fat, but fat-under-pressure. They are in the little electric cart scooters slowly moving through the store. The poor scooters, unaccustomed to being under such duress make this agonized wimpy sqwuck-squick sound as they struggle to move the human elephant about the store. Then I see what they’ve loaded in their cart – and almost always it’s the same. A dozen frozen pizzas, and the edge of the cart is lined with six-packs of soda, all arranged so the six-packs are riding the edge of the cart. Then sometimes there are tubs of sour cream and butter. Not a single vegetable in sight.

I can’t feel anything but disgusted pity for these people. They just waddle through their sad lives and in a lot of ways it upsets me. It doesn’t have to be that way. They don’t have to always sit down everywhere they go so the fat rolls can just droop over the edges of their chair.

But there is nothing that I am going to do. There is no point, plus it would just lead to me getting in trouble if I tried to wake them up by rifling through their carts asking them why they bought such awful “food”.

And then I start to think about the markets and restaurants. It’s not their responsibility to ensure that people eat well, but they certainly don’t give a damn when someone who clearly does not need a big-gulp frozen custard waddles up to the register and orders one. A similar tack could be made for the market, so much “food” there that really shouldn’t be there at all!

People amaze me. They shovel in all this bullshit, all these product-lies and it does taste good, it tastes like food, but IT IS NOT FOOD. Food is mostly vegetation, fruits, nuts, proteins, and only a scant touch of fats and oils! How many people can trace their unhappiness in life to the fact that they haven’t had a proper meal in decades!

I don’t want to hear about the woe from congestive heart failure, from all the cancers that are eating us alive, at least not from people who could have chosen to live better lives! Everyone knows that certain things are bad for you and that you should avoid them! I just can’t be sympathetic to people who are for the most part on a very slow track to suicide. Eating yourself to death, slowly.

What should people do? There is one clear and easy strategy that works for me and would work for anyone else really. It works for anyone near a supermarket or a megamarket. Only buy things that are on the rind. Every store is designed in pretty much the same way, with the foods you really should eat on the exterior walls, and everything that is bad for you or is bound to kill you in the middle aisles. Spend most of your time in produce, to start! Learn to cook! Cook REAL FOOD from REAL INGREDIENTS.

And for the love of God, stop using the handicapped motorcarts if you aren’t handicapped! Being obnoxiously fat is not a handicap. It’s a suicide attempt.

People bother me. So much. Gah.

Can you hear me now?

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When infrastructure fails, it takes an absurd amount of legwork to compensate. This is my story of this absurd compensation. I’m writing this now because I might as well, it’s not like I have anything I can actually do without this particular infrastructure.

My work computer used to be on the internet, now, not so much. No sites are really accessible so now I have to find another way onto the network, as my employer can’t manage. Although to their credit, they are trying to fix it, but this problem has plagued us for months if not years, so I’m not holding out much hope.

So, Ethernet is a complete loss. What else can we use? I have an unused 4G Verizon Pantech USB card here, so I plugged it in. Turns out I need VZAccess Manager to make it work properly. Still can’t access the network however! What is a geek to do? I set up my iPhone for Personal Hotspot and connect that way. It’s slower but I’m actually on the network now downloading VZAccess Manager from Verizon.

Then once that’s downloaded I’ll close my Personal Hotspot connection, install the software, then get the 4G modem up and running. A part of me laughs bitterly that I have to go to these lengths just for the basics of my job, but that’s the nature of this place. I’m not going to cast any aspersions on Western, I’m done with that. You only complain when there is some glimmer of hope that things may get better.

So that got me thinking, if we’re all having these problems and there are 42 of us, and these 4G cards cost 42 dollars a month, that’s $1,764.00 dollars a month for internet services that are more reliable than the local network at this University. So, do we pay a hefty monthly fee to Verizon to replace our network? Of course not! We’ll continue to struggle and make do with the network we have here, as useful or not as it is.

I just find it hilarious how far I have to go to access the network. I would laugh if I wasn’t crying so hard. Oh well.

Thoughts on Nook

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I have noticed that the Barnes & Noble Nook Cloud service seems rather half-baked. I’ve been comparing different cloud services to each other and I’ve noticed that there is a distinct functionality deficit between many services on one side and the B&N service on the other.

It comes to user-added content. Every cloud service maintains a file storage area online and then establishes a sync using client software to tie it all together. In certain cases this difference has never actually been present, such as with Dropbox. Anything you store there are your own files and the sync client can display them (or play them sometimes) on any device that is attached to the Internet. Some of the more interesting examples are actually more contemporary than Dropbox, as it’s rather well-tread and venerable.

Specific services such as Apple’s iCloud are definitely centered in my sights for comparison sakes. With Apple’s provisions you could opt-in for iTunes Match which will assay your iTunes library and match the files with standardized files on their service. In an effective way if not in a literal way, Apple allows user submitted content to be stored on their service and then spread across the network amongst your connected devices. In Apple’s case you have to buy in to iTunes Match as a service, but I don’t see this as being a barrier to adoption and it fits squarely in the “Fair Dealing” camp as I would expect such a service to be paid and I applaud Apple for their letting users do such a thing.

Google was next on the scene with Google Music. It is a direct competitor to iTunes Match and is actually a more compelling service than what Apple provides as you upload your own music to Google’s storage system and then you can stream that information across the network to any of your devices. This service is free and Google is, along with Dropbox, embracing the true sense of cloud storage as far as I’m concerned. This service that Google provides (and arguably along with Dropbox) is the most stinging rebuke against what Barnes & Noble provides.

Now to the core of it, the Nook cloud infrastructure is half-baked because it is split in half. The division is visible on the Nook devices and Nook Apps that sync with the service. The Nook is all about books, so instead of music types like MP3 or AAC we’re instead talking about PDF and EPUB types of files. The fully baked Nook experience comes when you buy an eBook from Barnes & Noble. B&N stores the ePub on their cloud infrastructure and all your attached devices and apps can see everything in this storage area and enjoy the secret sauce of being able to track reading position between devices. Each device (or app) that you work with watches how far you’ve progressed in an eBook and synchronizes that back to the B&N cloud infrastructure. This is the core of the magic as far as I’m concerned with B&N’s entire Nook experience. It doesn’t seem like a very compelling feature, but to be able to escape from the tyranny of the bookmark or the dog-eared page is very valuable to a reader like me who reads in short little fits and spurts. Now where this goes from fully baked to not baked at all comes when the user approaches the B&N cloud infrastructure with their own eBook collection. The visible division I wrote of earlier on the devices is actually a kind of lame fairness conceit by B&N. You can certainly add extra storage to all the B&N devices and then store your own files on that add-on component, and for most people this would be an acceptable compromise. It is not for people like me. It denies my user data the access to the secret sauce of bookmark synchronization. I wouldn’t be so prickly about it if B&N wasn’t so pricky about how they assemble their devices. Every Nook has an amazing amount of storage on the device, but in the fine print you discover that the storage space for user data is pitiful. This forces end users like me to buy extra parts, specifically microSD cards to beef up storage on our Nook devices to compensate for B&N being an arguable dick about how their devices are designed. It is not pro-consumer, it is pro-company. So here it is, B&N only will allow you to store ePUB and PDF data on their service if you buy it from them. They even put the lie to the argument: “They do this because you should pay for the storage” because you can “purchase” free eBooks and they end up on that side of the cloud divide just fine and can take advantage of the bookmark sync functionality. What then for end users like me who come to Nook with gigabytes of ePub content? What is it that I’m after? I want to upload my ePub content to B&N so I can sync it amongst all my B&N cloud connected devices. Specifically I want to be able to read-anywhere all my books, not just the ones I purchase or “purchase” through B&N! I have to start asking “Why does B&N do it this way?” when it’s obvious that other cloud companies go about it in a much more pro-consumer approach?

There are ways to address this from the B&N mothership. They could offer a “My Library” service for $20 a year which would then provide customers with 5GB of complimentary data storage on the B&N cloud infrastructure. This product would not be compatible with B&N’s LendMe service, and I’m fine with that, as it is fair, but it would allow end users like me to upload our ePub content onto our B&N cloud accounts and then read that content anywhere. I think that would really address the concern I have and maybe others do too of the Nook being a pro-company and anti-consumer device. This would help even out the field, and its fair dealing because the value of the data storage and the bookmark sync functionality I would peg at $20 per year. It’s a lot like iTunes Match in that regard.

While Barnes & Noble keeps their cloud infrastructure closed in this odd fashion I will be dissuaded from using it. By allowing user data on their devices, and then the conceit of adding microSD to make the device honestly equitable between company and consumer they create a kind of leper colony for books. I don’t want to use it because I can’t use it the way I want to use it. It used to be that companies dictated to consumers what they could and could not do with the products that the company sold, but in this age of service competition and device jailbreaking the consumer really is empowered to demand and expect that the devices we purchase will do what we want first, and whatever the company suggests to us can be acceptable or skipped altogether. I have six books in the leper colony in my Nook and a great deal more on my microSD card. On one side of the Berlin Wall in my Nook are all the free books in the west, and all the jailed books in the east.

So what of it? What if B&N ignores what people like me have to say about their cloud service? They’ll miss out on a new subscription model of service and a steady flow of $20 per user per year for what amounts to being a button-press. The real danger will come when someone creates a new Android firmware set for the Nook devices allowing customers like me to buy a Nook from Barnes & Noble and then eliminate all traces of Barnes & Noble from that device and go with a competitor who offers what I want. What if a company starts up, offers a truly equitable cloud infrastructure system and provides a download link for their own Android firmware that will work on any Android device? Just because Barnes & Noble put their marks on the Nook doesn’t mean that the device isn’t an Android device. So end users can just download the file, use the Android SDK tools to jailbreak the Nook devices and eventually get what they want.

What does it all come down to? Liberty, for our data. Being able to buy eBooks in ePub format wherever we like, such as Barnes & Noble and put them on our devices and sync them amongst all our devices… OR we can download books for free from Project Gutenberg and read those on our devices and sync them amongst all our devices.

Either B&N can benefit by liberating their service or consumers will do it for them.

Stop Fear, Stop Hate

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http://t.co/DRY1lzF9

This is what comes of blind obedience to religious dogma. Your children are GAY and your children are DYING!

We will never know who they might be. They might have cured cancer. Now nobody will know.

Your faith in the Bible is killing your children. They just want love and instead all they get is hate. Hate that kills.

Stop talking about Jesus Christ. He would have never accepted one child to die by THEIR OWN HANDS! If you love Jesus so very much then love your gay children and leave Leviticus to the JEWS!

It is time for an end. An end of hate, an end of suicide. You do not understand. GOD CREATED US GAY FOR HIS DESIGN! You are destroying children. There is no penance earnest enough to relieve the shame of a needless death.

So, if you hate gays then FIND ONE and hug him or her. See that we are not evil. We are your children, your friends, your loved ones. What do you think your GOD would say to you, upon meeting him or her? Would he or she congratulate you on your defending a book written by 2000 year old men with sexual maturity problems, or would your GOD weep at your bigotry, your hate, your baseless ignorance of the truth of your children’s lives. Well?

It is self-evident. Dead children are WRONG. WIll you all just wake up and get over your fears and grab your gay child and tell them that you love them permanently. Would you etch it in stone and carry that stone on your soul for the rest of your life? Your children are DYING and THEY DON’T HAVE TO!

Grow up and stop making God cry.

So Rude!

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Today at our local Meijer’s Market I witnessed something that set my teeth on edge and nearly had me speaking out. We were going down the cookie and cracker aisle and I witnessed a mother of two little girls pull up in a cart to where the wafer cookies were, the mother grabbed a cellophane-wrapped Meijer-brand version of the cookies, tore the wrapper off and handed the cookies to her puling children.

This isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed such behavior in Michigan. I’ve never in my life witnessed it in New York and I don’t know if it did happen there and I was just not cognizant enough to notice or if this is indeed a Michigan quirk. People have absolutely no qualms about grabbing a product off the shelf at the supermarket, opening it, and before they have checked out and paid for it, they begin to consume the product! I find this a very rude behavior and it drives me to distraction. You didn’t pay for it, at least not yet, so what gives you the right to just chaw into something? Can’t you wait until you leave the market before you feel the urge to shovel matter into your gaping maw? It doesn’t help that some of these people make that disgusting crunch-munch-gasp-goopy wet sound that comes with people who masticate in public. That alone drives me crazy! Please, for the love of god, either learn how to eat with decorum or eat somewhere else! Anyways, I witnessed this and I instantly thought that that mother was perpetuating two very bad things. First, that you can open a container in a supermarket and just go to town on it without paying for it and second, that her children will grow up spoiled rotten on instant gratification. They put their little prissy hands on their hips and screech and carry on and someone hands them a pack of wafer cookies to shut them up. It ruins the children and sets a bad precedent for normal behavior at the supermarket.

I don’t know if anyone else has witnessed this atrocious behavior where they are. I find it abhorrent and repellent. I can’t stand loud masticators and I really can’t stand such rudeness. Perhaps it has more to do with the idea that I don’t prefer to think of my fellow man as a rude lout with absolutely no manners at all – despite the notion that not everyone can have the same sense of decorum that I was raised with. I think what bothers me is that my sense of decorum shouldn’t be remarkably strict, it should be common!

I didn’t approach the mother and chide her for her bad parenting. I can attribute that to MY sense of decorum. At least one of us has it. Filthy rude loutish proles. Gah!

Can you hear me now?

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It all comes down to trusting the infrastructure. When you can’t trust the infrastructure anymore then it feels as though you are standing in an hourglass and the sand is running out beneath your feet.

This is how I felt after embarrassing myself towards a vendor by the name of eSpatial. I was asked by a coworker to investigate this vendor for geolocating alumni at work. I started their 14 day free trial and uploaded some data, nothing I thought that was too onerous, 250,000 US Postal Addresses. After some back and forth I learned that the trial account only can accept 10,000 addresses, but nowhere was that stated in the trial offer, that there was a limit. On January 12th I sent a link to an eSpatial rep so that they could create a demo account for me and show me what their company could do.

I waited until January 20th and then I wrote an email. I told them that I didn’t like being left in the dark for eight days when it should take them at most an afternoon to load my data and show me what their software could do. Then I got back an email telling me that they tried to email me and tried to call me to no avail. This is when I discovered that the infrastructure at work really isn’t working out for me. Apparently the messages just didn’t arrive. I checked all throughout “Webmail Plus” to no avail and I even checked the “PureMessage” spam system and the messages weren’t in there either. It’s as if the email wasn’t even delivered. Then the fellow from eSpatial told me that he tried to call me and the call never got through. I suspect that my setting my work phone to failover to my cell phone may be to blame on that one. I would put money behind the notion that international incoming calls will not be forwarded by the switches at Western to another line, instead they will simply be dropped. I have my phone set up that way because I absolutely detest voicemail and so I want incoming calls that are inbound to WMU to ring there first and then move on and ring my iPhone. There is a solution for that bit as well, and it involves turning my back on my work phone as well.

So how do I correct this? I can’t trust my work email any longer – I’m losing messages and making a fool of myself. I can’t live with doubt that the infrastructure works, and get anything done, so I have to compensate. The best way to compensate is to leave WMU behind when it comes to this infrastructure. My work phone number is now meaningless. My work email account is now meaningless. So everyone should strike those from their records and use a different number from now on, because I cannot trust that the infrastructure provided by my employer works properly.

I have to turn to Google at this point to provide the infrastructure that I need to do my work properly. Ironic if anyone has known me over the past few years that I’m turning to Google for infrastructure, after all, it was my crazy-eyed ranting that implored my workplace to use Google for their infrastructure but fell on deaf ears. So I’ll do it myself. The accounts and phone numbers will still be technically valid and reachable, but I’d rather people not use them. Instead, please use these instead:

Phone: 269-216-4597

Email: andymchugh75@gmail.com

If you have my personal gmail account, feel free to use that, as I trust gmail.com with my email, but no others.

I hate doubt and I will not accept it in my life.

Winter Driving

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Winter has finally arrived in Southwest Michigan. We received a really good few inches of snow last night and finally the world appears now as it always should have. There are of course some issues which I would like to share, mostly as a matter of public education, but also to honor St. Whinge’s Day which was yesterday1.

First, Good Morning Michigan! I hope you rested well and are ready to take on the challenges of WINTER DRIVING because from what I can see, you aren’t. The most important rule that you have all collectively forgotten is PROPER FOLLOWING DISTANCE. Remember, for each multiple of 10 miles per hour of your speed you should put that car length distance between you and the car in front of you. So if you are going 10, you put 1 car length in front of you, 20 – 2, 30 – 3, and so forth. When it snows? Double that number! So at 10 you put 2 car lengths in front of you, 20 – 4, 30 – 6. See? It isn’t that hard to do! Now why oh why would you put so much space in front of your car? I’ll tell you. Not only is the ground you are traversing now lack any traction at all, but snow changes how your tires and transmission move your vehicle! Not only can’t you start properly but you can’t stop! Oh and something else, you or I might accidentally slide backwards so keep your front bumper in mind, okay?

Second, and this comes down to not risking your stupid worthless lives, but DO NOT MAKE RIGHT ON REDS IN FRONT OF ONCOMING TRAFFIC! Yes, it seems safe, there may be room for your vehicle to fit in the flow and you might think it’s safe, but what if someone is coming downhill and hits ice? Their brakes will be meaningless and your impatience will be rewarded with a T-bone collision! Just don’t do it! Cities in the north ought to pass new traffic laws outlawing the “Right on Red” maneuver when ground traction is compromised.

Third, please for the love of all that is holy, if you are driving on bald tires please have them replaced! I understand that times are hard and money is tight, but when water comes out of the sky in a solid and stays that way, your tires, especially your driving tires really have to have tread on them! If you have non-driving tires that have tread but your driving ones do not, go and have your tires rotated properly. It costs very little and is an acceptable compromise. If you have four bald tires, at least buy two new ones with really kickass tread on them. Think of climbing the hills. If you have bald tires and you are on the roads, we will mock you!

I’m sure there will be more to whinge about as the season progresses. The one thing you can always count on is human stupidity and impatience. What’s the most meaningful proverb of the season? Haste makes waste.

  1. St. Whinge’s Day is a fictional holiday for whinging, or complaining in a whiney fashion. It was coined as far as I know by David Malki at Wondermark.  ↩

Eight Ball

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I’ve about had it with gasoline companies. The prices change daily and nobody is very clear as to why that has to be. I suspect it has more to do with price fixing, gouging, and generally being nasty to the public than it has with supply and demand.

When prices are this variable, to say nothing of being this high, I start to think about ways I can manage my money when it comes to buying fuel. I often times will drive on an empty tank using the range metric from the cars computer as a gauge to determine when I should buy fuel or not. Last night while driving home from the gym it struck me. I allocate $40 a week to gasoline in my budget and I can make it from week to week quite well on that money. Instead of buying fuel in one $40 transaction which today would only really get me three quarters of a full tank from empty I have decided that I am going to buy gasoline in $8 increments. That gives me five opportunities to fuel until I hit my budget cap. So, the last time I fueled, which was last night, I bought $8 worth of gasoline. That won me about 100 miles in the range metric, but since I refuel around 30 miles on that metric it’s actually about 70 miles. Of course the metric is based on a LOT of highway driving so the minute I go back to city driving the MPG will drop through the floor and this mythical 70 miles worth of gasoline per stop will actually turn out to be around 30-40 miles.

With this plan, I don’t have to feel like I got gypped by the variability in gasoline prices. I don’t care about credit card transaction fees on small purchases hurting the vendor. I lack sympathy for the devil.

Up Up and Away!

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The flight from Albany to Chicago went exceptionally well, despite the carrier being United Airlines. The flight boarded on time, took off on time, and we arrived about ten minutes early. The only issues with the flight was the heating system was stuck at 80 degrees making the aft section uncomfortably warm. I commented that we were actually in steerage class and a few passengers around us chuckled at that. Titanic jokes never go out of style.

Getting from our gate to Parking Lot E was more of a challenge. O’Hare’s signage for the economy parking lots leaves a LOT to be desired, eventually we got to where we needed to be but we took the scenic path too far, which tested everyones sense of patience. We got to the car, it was right where we left it, and $154 dollars later (parking is ass-pensive!) we left O’Hare.

Our next stop was to get to Joy’s Noodle Company which is in boystown, one block from Lakeshore Drive. After some ranging about looking for parking (a challenge in the Santa Fe) we eventually found a spot and had a wonderful dinner with our friends Jeffery and Sean. After that we got back to the Santa Fe, got to I-90, then went from Chicago, via the Skyway, along the highway and just after we entered Michigan I felt my nemesis crowding around my consciousness.

My driving nemesis is night driving along dull interstate roads. I tend to get worn out quickly with these straight stretches of nothing, no conversations, nothing to do but drive and listen to whatever was on the radio and interminably wait for us to reach our destination. I am renowned for dozing at the wheel, and so far the rumble strips and terrified passengers are enough to keep me going – but what really scares me, even more than the dozing is trance driving. It’s different than simply being narcoleptic, my eyes are open but nobody is home. I’m conscious but wholly unaware. It’s a huge source of concern for me because I can so easily imagine myself dying at my own hands because I was in one of these situations.

A few months ago I made a pre-new-years-resolution that I would have my car always stocked with a number of “5 Hour Energy” shots. I’ve tried other chemicals before, sugar, caffeine, sugar bound with caffeine, food, brisk walks around the car, jogs, you name it. They all help temporarily but I almost always fall into the same trap I always do. The sugar gives me a huge lift and then I crash even harder when my system burns through it. The caffeine eventually starts to hurt my stomach (caffeine pills), and when I try to bind the two together, like in soda pop I find myself okay for a time but need to use the facilities a LOT, as caffeine keeps me awake and then acts as a diuretic. Sugar, Water, Caffeine, and damn it all to hell, I have to pee again.

I can’t express how happy I am with the 5 hour energy shots. They are loaded with massive quantities of B Vitamins, some caffeine and very little sugar. It’s the magic brew that keeps me up and at ‘em for as long as I need to be running a motor vehicle. So when I drive, like I did tonight, and I start to yawn a lot and feel the power start to fade and my eyes start to get heavy I peel the security plastic off a 5-hour, unscrew the cap and down the entire shot. I’m sure there is a placebo effect also at play here, if I believe that the shot will help then it will, even if the chemicals in the shot cannot make their way into my system within say 10 seconds of taking the shot. My brain, in anticipation of what the shot does for me must give me a wee boost right up front, so it hits me pretty much right after my last swallow is complete.

That feeling of having heavy eyelids, the tiredness in my neck, and my yawning cease almost instantly. I am awake, I am alert, and so far I’ve never sensed an instance of trance driving while hopped up on a 5-hour. So this is my solution. These little shots are the way I can cope with my body telling me that at 10pm after a whole day of flying around creation that it’s time to sleep and SLEEP NOW. I can take a shot and subvert it, at least temporarily.

So now I have a new rule. I cannot operate a motor vehicle without at least one available 5-hour energy shot somewhere in the car with me. I almost never need it, but for those times when I’m driving along and I feel that droopy feeling coming on out it comes. If I don’t have a shot handy, then it’s time to stop at a rest area or a gas station to tend to the supply problem.

I think that every state, in rest areas should have a 5-hour-energy vending machine in operation. Set it to $2 a shot and impress upon motorists the dangers of accidental unconsciousness and what these 5-hours can do for them. A life saved by not passing out at the wheel is worth a measly $2.

So here I am, still a little lit-up from my 5-hour shot, writing a blog post and cradling a very needy cat. Thankfully he has forgiven me for being away so long, it can be challenging to blog while your cat is trying to brace himself against your hand with his paw. Life is hard. 🙂

Flitting Away

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Here I sit at Albany International Airport, Gate A5 waiting for my flight. I went through the TSA security checkpoint. It appears as though Albany has elected to only use the backscatter scanners to secure passengers. After requesting to pass through the magnetometer, a passive scanner that I am comfortable with, and then being denied that, I elected to pursue “Enhanced Patdown” which was a Code 22 in the TSA. I had to wait only a very short while and a man approached me, took me over to a staging area and proceeded with the enhanced patdown.

I don’t really see how that is upsetting to anyone at all unless you are violently touch-sensitive. It was very tame and wholly not-upsetting. I have a longstanding issue with the backscatter scanners, cutting to the chase, I don’t trust that technology. It wasn’t cleared by the FDA, there aren’t thousands of studies that tell me it’s safe, so I assume it’s hazardous to my health. It’s important to understand that I have a special sensitivity to being exposed to ionizing radiation. I have a huge risk factor for prostate cancer and the last thing I want is to expose a prostate cell to any radiation that I don’t actually have to endure. It’s the difference between a cell that lives and dies naturally and a cell that gets damaged, goes on a bloody rampage and kills me with prostate cancer. Would a backscatter scanner do that? Chances are 99 out of 100 that it would not and that I’m simply acting beyond rationality in regards to this. But if I can elect to follow a path that doesn’t require me to walk into a machine I don’t know and don’t trust and do something else, a simple act that allows me to skip the risk altogether, why not? I can sleep at night knowing I didn’t consciously expose myself to something harmful and I don’t have to live with the weaksauce spectre of the headline that might be “Backscatter Scanners Cause Cancer” which may or may not be a New York Times headline. I just skip it altogether.

The enhanced patdown was actually quite a non-event. Perhaps it’s the fact that I have a rather loose sense of propriety, in a way that I’m just a big old slut that means that being touched, all the way to what amounts to a kind of non-sexual petting. It’s really not that thrilling at all. The TSA has stopped exploring all the parts of a mans body, so you don’t actually have to worry anymore about junk-handling. I was half looking forward to some junk-handling personally. The fact that the procedures changed makes a whatever event into a complete non-issue. Oh well. At least the fellow doing the enhanced patdown wasn’t attractive otherwise I’d have lots more to write about. “Do you have anything in a 6’6” blond otter?” If only you could select the TSA rep who gave you the pat-down, that could be a pseudo-non-sexual Top 10 TSA award. 🙂 Yeah yeah yeah, I’m a big old slut. Yeah yeah yeah.

The TSA apparently doesn’t think that my 1L stainless steel Hydroflask is worth commenting on or asking to see the inside of. They missed it in O’Hare, and they missed it in Albany. I think they’ll always miss it. What’s in my Hydroflask? Nothing. I threw out the water before I left for the airport, but what if I didn’t?

This only reinforces my original precepts that the TSA is performing security theater to make us feel better. That there really isn’t any security actually being secured, but actually just people from the federal government who are there to give the impression that we are safe. Either way, they catch some things, and they miss a few others. As for the enhanced pat-down, whatever it was supposed to detect is quite silly. It’s just a procedure to impress upon me how safe my flight is going to be.

Whatever.