Chris and Sarah’s blog

For our honeymoon, Sarah and I spent a week in Las Vegas. In brief, we had a great time, and we learned a thing or two. As before, since I’m writing this well after the fact, the events discussed won’t be in chronological order. If I can remember when a thing happened, I’ll try to give a reference time. This post I’ll talk about the actual traveling involved.

Our flying experiences on the way there and back were about the same so I’ll talk about both trips at once. Our trip to Vegas left ABE and went to Detroit, then we waited there for a couple hours to get on a plane to Vegas. On the way back we went from Vegas to Cleveland, then on to ABE. We never had any trouble catching flights or connecting, thankfully. We arrived at each airport for our flights with plenty of time to spare. Sarah has done a lot more air-traveling than I have so she lead the way.

Security felt like a serious violation of privacy — even ABE’s (as I soon learned) comparatively little station. Each way we basically had to unpack our carry-on bags, which contained almost entirely electronics (digital cameras, Nintendo DSs, my iPod, Sarah’s laptop …), we had to take our shoes off … ugh. It’s not as much the annoying waiting in line or unpacking and repacking that irks me (though it does irk me), it’s the feeling like I’m on trial. On the way home, the metal detector in the Vegas airport kept beeping at me, refusing to let me through despite the fact that I’d removed every metal object I could think of. Thankfully, the poor guy who had to pat me down and wave a wand all around me was quite understanding and friendly, but it was still a disturbing experience.

I chose the few moments that they kept me waiting to be patted down in a clear-plastic cell to think of a scene at the beginning of Half-Life 2. In this scene you encounter a woman in the trainstation who says (with desperation in her voice) that her husband was detained by the Combine at the previous stop, but that they’re being nice and letting her wait for him … and it’s quite obvious even then (and made explicit moments later) that anyone who is detained isn’t going to be coming back anytime soon. I pictured Sarah waiting there for me forever and fervently wished I had an HEV suit and an arsenal of weaponry (featuring a crowbar) with which to fight my way out of there. Needless to say it didn’t come to that, but in my sometimes overactive imagination, the possibility was there. It seems like a lot of trouble to go to and stress to put on travelers for what is essentially security theater. I’ll refer the reader to well-known security guru Bruce Shneier to make that argument for me.

Okay, maybe I’ll argue the point a bit myself with a few for-instances. I think we can all agree that anyone crazy and motivated enough to seriously consider hijacking or blowing up a plane is going to be motivated enough to go that extra mile to get through the security. Therefore, unless airport security is guaranteed to catch 100% of the bad guys, all it’s going to do is possibly moderately deter them, while it will certainly seriously inconvenience, stress, and disturb everyone else. I can think of several ways to get through security with things you aren’t supposed to have on a plane, just off the top of my head:
1) escape artists have been swallowing keys forever — what’s to stop a hijacker from swallowing a baggy filled with that bit of liquid needed to make an explosive?
2) print a fake boarding pass — JFGI
3) hide ceramic gun-parts inside the cases for various electronic devices. Between a laptop, a portable gaming system, an mp3 player, a camera, etc I’ll bet you could squirrel away enough parts to assemble several guns.
DISCLAIMER: I am not, nor have I ever, considered hijacking or blowing up a plane. I compiled this list in 2 minutes, without the help of the internet or other bad influences for inspiration.
Sure these things aren’t necessarily easy to do, but if you’re going to blow yourself up or steal a plane, you’re willing to do this stuff too, right? I’d say so. Anyway, I think it’s clear that no security measures we currently have available will catch 100% of the bad guys. All we can do is deter them and keep the grossly-incompetent would-be hijackers away. That would be acceptable if it weren’t for the astounding false-positive rate our current system gets, of which I was one. Seriously, read the Bruce Shneier piece I linked above. He offers some sane alternatives to the idiocy we put up with now.

The flights from Detroit to Vegas and Vegas to Cleveland were each relatively comfortable. The seats were a bit cramped, but we were okay. We could at least stand up straight and stretch once we were at cruising altitude. The planes from ABE to Detroit and Cleveland to ABE were another matter. They were so friggin tiny, Sarah and I couldn’t even possibly squeeze into the seats without putting the armrests up. Thankfully, we were always able to sit next to each other and the rows were just two seats across, so we didn’t have to squish any poor strangers. Our girth was not the only problem, either — apparently we’re both too tall to fly comfortably as well. The space between the seats was so small that, even when sitting all the way up, my knees still pressed up against the seat in front of me. We couldn’t even stand up straight — the ceiling in those planes must have been about six feet high, because I bumped my head if I stood all the way up, and Sarah’s head grazed the ceiling too. Apparently the only way to fly comfortably is to be shorter than six feet tall and weigh less than 250. I fail at both of those. Still, we did get there and back with no permanent damage done, so I can’t complain too much.

Okay, the post that’s actually about Vegas is up next.