Posted on 11/19/2004 10:30:49 AM PST by Mo1
It is really hard finding technology that is good to use when your are half asleep.
I know what the buttons on my machine do, but I dred the tour through the instruction manual to reset things.
When my long distance provider changed the sequence of entering digits, I had to go through all the steps of resetting what automatically dialed the numbers and pass codes.
Then the stupid box has a mode if anything has come in and you have not diddled with the buttons that look at received calls, it sets up to rapid flashing of a bright red light.
I got so sick and tired of checking a dark house with a panicky red light I took the thing to my shop, opened it up, and snipped it out.
I am on the do-not-call registry, but that does not exclude business from calling existing customers. With a number of accounts nation wide, they call for do-you-want-insurance, do-you-want-opportunity, do-you-want-to-contribute, and do-you-want-to-give-your-opinion more times than I care to answer.
I do answer what is 'Political_Party' since they know I'm good for a buck.
Wow, I guess we've been lucky...
Count your blessings.
If you think being searched at an airport after 9/11 is humiliating, you are emotionally unstable. It's part of life.
***
Too sad for words.
These people will have neither liberty nor security.
I got selected for "special attention" at the gate a couple of years ago - I was flying one-way because I was driving back with my mom in a rental truck with a load of furniture and dishes was giving me. So, I got taken aside, and patted down. It was not an intrusive pat down, though, and I didn't have to peel back my waistband or anything like that. I had to take off my shoes. It was absurd - the screen didn't really look at them, just lifted them up and set them down. Then my carry-on bag - she just unzipped, and riffled the stuff on top, and closed it. Then my purse - she didn't look through it, either. Unzipped the main compartment, lifted out my wallet, just looked at it, put it back in my purse and zipped it up. Now, my purse had a whole lot of other zipped up compartments that she never looked at. It really was ridiculous, and I was highly annoyed by it. It was Southwest Airlines, I was in group A, and by the time she was through, everyone else was on the plane.
Same thing happened to my mom on her way home. Now, being elderly, she should have been able to preboard. Like me, she had a group A boarding pass, but she was selected for extra screening at the gate. By the time they were through with her, everyone else had boarded, and she got the last seat on the plane. It really stinks. But apparently, this kind of treatment makes a lot of people "feeeeeellll" safer.
Check out Pooky's cartoons.
I like the one, "If you are planning on travel this Holiday season, you should be advised to wear clean underwear."
I came back from Texas with a watermellon in my suit-case once, and when it went through the X-ray machine they really wanted to find out what could possibly look like that.
I almost told them it was an elephant testicle and I was doing genetic research, but you remember... No joking.
Yeah, you don't want to joke with these guys.
Quite a few years ago I was flying back with a bag full of my mom's homemade pickles. When it went through Xray, the screener grabbed it, muttering about all the glass. They had the most bemused looks on their faces when they unwrapped the jars and saw nothing but pickles!
My mom makes the BEST dill pickles in the entire world.
Out of the three times I had to fly somewhere this past year, my checked baggage was inspected. I can't imagine why. Sooooo, i've decided that the next time I fly, I'm going to salt my husband's dirty socks and underwear throughout my belongings. I hope they enjoy going through my suitcase next time.
Loddy, it was beyond disturbing reading how many are willing to give up their rights - and for what??? Let's talk about our open borders and all the criminals pouring in as we speak.
Someone posted this:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." Benjamin Franklin - 1759
I didn't scan it yesterday, we've been down since 12:30
or 1:00 yesterday. The phone company switched our
phone number with our neighbors & screwed us up, then
closed at 5:00 & left us with the situation. It's was just fixed.
That is sick and disturbing to me how they paw through your checked baggage. I managed to do carry-on the last couple of times and it was bad enough to see all my things thrown about the counter. It was almost better to get a paralyzed back driving ten hours to CA last week than to be subjected those people touching me or my stuff.
OH, yeah, and the horror story when I tried to bring the leftover bottles of wine from our wedding reception to my parents in SF. The wine was from a good local winery and I had the bottles bubble-wrapped and secure. That was in 2000 and I was on my way to another funeral, from Tucson. They acted like I was a drunk (I don't even drink), like I was going to attack someone with my wine bottles, etc. etc. They confiscated them and we eventually got them back. Last time I flew America Worst.
Sounds like you've had worse experiences than I have. Did these things happen at SFO? I NEVER fly out of SFO, I usually fly out of Oakland, and sometimes will take the longer trek to Sacramento because I've found that airport to be less obnoxious.
My daughter went to Shanghai, China, for her brown-belt karate examination at the Shao-Lin temple there, and when she came back she had bought a duffle-bag and stuffed it full of ornamental swords, daggers, knives, and sabers to pass out to her friends back home, more than 20 of them full size.
It was just prior to 9/11, but she carted that load of weapons all the way from Shang-hai to Korea to LAX to SLC and passed right through every customs and inspection point.
Curious... Huh?
I was desperate to get to SF the last two funerals :( Otherwise, believe me, I would not have been on an airplane being treated like a criminal. I went through Salt Lake en-route so that was incident-free, but on the return trip, the Levi "strip search" was in SFO this July. I'll grant this, the TSA woman was very polite and professional, but the whole thing is just beyond humiliating and a stupid waste.
The wine incident happened in Tucson in 2000 with a bunch of bozo rentacops. I reported that incident and America Worst eventually gave me a $200 for another ticket (they could not prove they had any grounds for confiscating my wine), but I never flew them again.
I was just telling my friend this morning that the next time I go to the Bay Area, I might try Sacto. My sister lives in Fairfield anyway so she can bring me to the City. I like that airport but Oakland isn't that convenient for my parents.
As far as I'm concerned, the government shouldn't have bailed out the airlines after 9/11... I think only Southwest would have survived.
It's all horrible.
Off to pay some bills and grill some pork chops.
I can't mind you going against the grain, you're kind of cute anyway.
I would like to vote for those Xray machines that bounce the X-rays off your skin and let an inspector see what you've got without ever laying a hand on you.
??????? Technology -- Isn't it great ??????????????
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