We drove from Kalamazoo to O’Hare airport yesterday morning and there was absolutely no traffic to contend with. Parked and got in, got our tickets, passed through security and both legs of our trip went without an issue.

One telling bit was the security at O’Hare. I have to admit that it was mostly security theater. I say this because I had stored my empty HydroFlask 1L bottle in the base of my backpack. The HydroFlask is made of stainless steel and should be very opaque to X-Rays yet the TSA scanners elected to not ask to see it opened up and demonstrated that it was empty. One thing I dodged this time was having to walk through the backscatter scanner. For some unknown reason we were shunted off to the magnetometer instead of the backscatter scanner. I was actively going to request an enhanced pat-down if I had no choice but to go through the backscatter scanner.

This time through the entire meat-grinder of airplane travel and TSA security we didn’t have any delays, nor did we have any hangups anywhere. It was unusually easy and straightforward. I have to be careful lest I harvest any sense of hope that it could be like this in the future. 🙂

Although the lapse in security at O’Hare was a concern. It’s a good thing I’m a good guy and not a bad guy. 🙂

While I was on both legs of my trip out to Albany I figured that my Nook Simple Touch wasn’t really an electronic device because of it’s eInk technology. While the page is being displayed, the device is technically in an off-state. So while we were busy climbing and descending in and out of 10,000 feet of altitude I decided it was meaningless to pussyfoot around with using the device so I went along and just used it while the stewardi was busy walking away from me and closing it down when they wander past. It’s stupid that eInk technology is classed with other devices, like iPads and iPhones. The Nook worked great anyways and I really was happy with how it helped me pass the time aloft.