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How NOT to get through airport security
By ravsitar | June 19, 2009
Awe crap! It’s been two months since my last update. While I have been busy, I haven’t been THAT busy. So to make up for it, I have a few photos and a good story.
Last month I was invited to visit the PVI Water Heater plant in Ft. Worth, TX by my local rep. This plant visit is something that most of the other mechanical engineers/designers rave about. You are treated well in Texas.
Seeing as this is only a two day trip, there was no need for any checked luggage. I packed my camera bag and a carry-on bag and was at the airport with plenty of time to check in. Waiting in line for the security check, got my shoes off, pockets empty, belt off, all ready to go. Walk through the metal detector…. and off it goes. Security tells me to check my pockets and try again. Same thing happens. I have no idea what’s going on. The detector says it’s something in the waist area that’s setting it off. So I get shunted into the glass box. The glass box is there so that you can’t go anywhere and security can keep an eye on you until you’re checked out. As soon as a step in there, an overly enthusiastic older lady declares “I got my eyes on him. Not going anywhere.” I had a hard time not laughing as I racked my brains trying to figure out what was setting off the detector. A nice gentleman comes over to relieve the old lady and do my security check. He has me walk over and set on the special chair to check me out. As soon as I sit down, I realize why the metal detector was going off. I’d forgotten that I had me knee braces on. Each one has a small metal rod down the side for added stability. I wear the so often that I don’t really feel them until I sit down. So I tell the guard what happened. He’s fine with it, but sill has to perform the full check. So I get patted down. Wanded for other metal. Verify that my waist band contains nothing. And finally my knee braces get swabbed to check for explosives. All negative thankfully. So off I go to my gate with enough time to make the plane.
The rest of the trip in Ft. Worth was great. We took a tour of the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Drove around the new Cowboys Football stadium being constructed next door. Ate at Del Frisco’s where I had the best steak I’ve ever eaten. Wandered around downtown Ft. Worth for a few hours with my camera. Hit a few bars. Spent a day long tour of the PVI water heater factory. And finally, had a whole mess of BBQ Ribs at Sammy’s.
Back to the airport. This time, I was careful not to leave my knee braces on. They were safely packed away. Some of the other PVI schwag I’d gotten (pens, hat, post-it notes) went into my camera bag as there was room. I thought I was home free. Got up to the scanner, and ran my bags through. And suddenly, the lady watching the screen stops the machine and looks at the screen. Then she calls another security person over… then another… I’m thinking “Awe shit! What now?” They finally take my bag out and ask me to follow them over to a table. They tell me that something in the bad came up looking funny on the x-ray machine. I tell them it’s just camera equipment. Been through an airport scanner a dozen times. So he opens it up to take out the “suspicious item”. It’s the damn PVI post-it notes! They’re a block (2”x2”x2”) setting there right in a lens pocket. He pulls them out, swabs them and puts them back. I ask him why they came up funny (so I can avoid doing it again in the future), and he pulls the “I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to say” crap. I get all my stuff back together and head to the gate. After 5 mins of thinking I figured it out. A large wad of paper on top of a camera in a bag probably looks like an unknown mass on top of a pile of electronics. In other words, an explosive device. Stupid PVI post-it notes.
So here are a few photos from the trip. I would love to return to the plant and spend less time touring and more time taking photos. More photos can be seen in the Ft. Worth set of my Flickr page.
Topics: News, Photos | 1 Comment »
June 19th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
No kidding! Ridiculous. I travel a lot, and thankfully, in Asia, things are a bit less…silly. I am sure the bad guys are laughing themselves silly at all the billions we are spending on airport security to try to stop them AND annoying their targets (everyday people) for them! Truly genius of us.
Hm. I guess I will leave the post-it notes at home next time.