My Take on the TSA

Recently I took a brief weekend vacation and my main worry for the travel part was dealing with the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) search methods being used at US airports. Why? I had read many of the “horror stories” posted on Twitter, Facebook, various websites, and news agencies. As it turns out, my worries were unfounded once I had experienced going through the enhanced screening methods. When all was said and done, I found all TSA agents and their procedures personable, efficient, and professional.

At home, in prepping for my trip, I of course took the usual precautions of leaving sharp, pointed scissors at home; I ensured any small (non-explosive) liquids were in acceptable size containers; and near to my heart, I left my Swiss Army knife so it would not be confiscated.

At the home airport, when approaching the TSA area, the initial screener greeted me with a smile, accepted, and verified my pass and ID. Next was the area for removing shoes and putting all items in the large plastic bins. As those items were screened, I was prompted to walk through a metal detector. No beeps. I was thanked by the agent and I was allowed to gather up my items and move on to my gate.

A few days later at the distant end airport, in line again to come home, the procedure was a little different, but I still feel I was respectfully spoken to and guided through the procedures so no uncertainty came to mind to make me uncomfortable. They did however have a body scanner and I was impressed how they orchestrated the scan and a quick secondary check. Here is how it went:

After walking through the metal scanner, an agent prompted me to approach a few steps forward and place my feet on top of a platform plate with two foot shaped areas. “Okay, we want to do a body scan and I need for you to please place your hands over your head, forming a sort of diamond shape...good. This will take around 10 seconds.”

I waited for about 10 seconds until the agent thanked me and then motioned me to walk a few more steps to another agent. I approached agent #2, paused, and stopped for a moment for them to move. I tactfully asked, “Is everything okay?” I noticed they were looking directly into my eyes, non-aggressively; however I sensed the officer was simply observing me and awaiting some instruction. I stayed calm.

“I’m just waiting for an all clear,” the agent shared. Evidently the screener at the other location checks the scan and then radios his contact, who is standing in front of me, for an all clear or to make a second check. He tilted his head into the shoulder epaulet microphone/speaker and nodded. “Okay, I need to perform a brief search along your left knee and down to your ankle area. Is this okay?”

I slightly shrugged, “Sure.”

He carefully knelt down and searched along the areas he said he would and once done, he also thanked me and motioned me over to my awaiting scanned luggage.

After I got my shoes back on and shouldered my luggage, walking along I noticed nearby a group of about 20 TSA agents circled around having what looked like a quick, on the spot procedure update/Q&A discussion. As I walked passed, probably about 30 feet away in distance, I got a sense that these folks are staying as current, informed, and professional as possible as they and many millions of travelers prepare for this busy holiday season.

A few closing observations, about this whole, recent TSA issue. Here is the way I see it.

The TSA is doing the best job possible, given their dictate to protect all American citizens and foreigners who use US air travel methods. With 65,000 plus agents, not everyone is going to inspect and search in the same style or method. Improvement is an on-going effort. (To me, seeing the TSA group discussing procedures is proof that training is a continual affair, particularly when everyone knows the TSA is being brought under a magnifying glass, often questioned on every and all actions they make as they do their job.) Based on my personal experience with other countries’ security methods, replete with visibly armed security forces, German-Shepherds, barbed / Concertina wire check points, one-way mirrored observation areas, and secretive hidden rooms, American travel security is STILL the most open and unobtrusive in the world.

A few quick suggestions:

• Prepare ahead for your flight, leaving at home anything that current security inspections may alert to.

• If you have children and family, discuss this topic before hand. Everyone needs to understand in the majority of cases, this TSA inspection is not about you. Put in simple terms, the inspections are designed to find any metal and non-metal materials that could be used to harm or destroy an aircraft and its passengers.

• Evaluate your attitude, your perspective, and your willingness to see the big picture as to what's going on around you.

• A Transportation Security Officer may need to double check and perform a physical check on you. He or she may look directly at you—in the eyes and glance around your face and body. They are looking for subtle signs, involuntary muscle twitches, and body language. They understand you may be nervous. It's my guess many have family too, and in the majority of cases they (and you) will be both looking at a fellow American. That should actually be some consolation.

As a final disclaimer, this post in not trying to gloss over some of the recent and real inspection faux pas. Yes, the new security measures were—in my opinion—initiated way too fast on a national scale. Many travelers were taken off guard and some inspection techniques were not done appropriately. All I'm doing here is sharing my experience in hopes that it may help inform travelers.

Dealing with Change

Recently I've thought a lot about change: in my life, in my friends' lives, in our country, and in our world. Change is sometimes like the bend in a river, where a person on a raft must be able to navigate around the turn. You see that change coming and you make adjustments as needed. Sometimes change crashes on you like a wave, threatening to pull you off your feet and disorient you. Change can also knock you flat, groveling for a sense of some meaning in a seemingly uncaring world. Change can also lift you up and make you feel on top of the world.

I've dealt with a lot of change in my life, some of it good and some of it not worth repeating. I'll try to share some of these thoughts over the next few days and weeks.

How I handle Panhandlers

With the current economy, the way it is just about all over, I tend towards frugality. I'm a fair cook, eat at home, and when I go out it's usually a treat with friends--or sometimes to indulge myself with a self-given reward of a fish taco or a cool caramel frappucino. You know what I'm talking about.

Watching my money also extends to regular and potential purchases at the grocery store, computer stores (big weakness there), the hardware/home-repair stores (the Man toy store), and bookstores. However what ever I buy, the receipt is kept till it's entered in my budget spreadsheet, where I track all income, purchases and expenses. I know and totally respect the value of a dollar.

The point of this blog entry is to share how I handle panhandlers, using a basic philosophy I developed some years ago when it dawned in my naive youth's mind that what some folks ask for (money) and what they say they are going to use it for (e.g. gas or food) is often not the truth. And personally, with what I mentioned above, this really infuriates me when I #1 value honesty and #2 know that there are needy people out there who really are in hard times.

Take for example last night, true story. A friend invited me to dinner with some other mutual friends. I arrived on time and got out of my car to begin the short walk across the parking lot.

Immediately, I spotted and "knew" a man approaching was going to ask...

Man: "Excuse me sir. I know what this may look like. Sorry to bother you, but I was heading up to Sacramento and just down the road I ran out of gas. Can I have a few bucks to put some gas in my car?"

I sighed. I've lost count--really and truly--how many times I've heard some variation of the same thing. My response is very simple and I'll cut out all the exact dialog we exchanged for about five minutes. Essentially, the response goes something like this:

RULE: LISTEN AND OFFER TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY ARE ASKING FOR, BUT NOT THE MONEY.

"Hi. Well I'm really sorry to hear that. Listen and please understand. I've learned over the years that my #1 rule of thumb, when people ask for money to get (so and so) gas or food is I will do whatever I can to help: if you need to get gas, I'll go with you and we'll get the gas. If you're hungry, we'll go get some food. And I've eaten many a meal with someone I did not know. Really. But, I will not give you any money directly. It's just a rule I've developed."

(Then oddly enough, though I have not done this in the past, a jewel of a thought hit me...)

I paused then continued. "Now, you need to understand, you coming up to me and asking me to believe you is a sign you're asking me to trust you and what you say. I'm willing to believe you--but to build on that trust I need to ask if you're willing to go with me to get the gas, we first drive to your car, you unlock it and we check the gas gauge to make sure it says what you say. I'm willing to really help you out, whatever it takes, but we need to trust each other first. Can we go to your car first?"

He then (of course) back pedaled and changed his story so that the whole situation was more about food. And as sincere as he came across, as winning as his lowly self could muster a reply, I countered with what I hoped was an empathetic response. "Look. You're now changing your story. Why didn't you ask me that in the first place? I'm sorry. You've broken what could have been a trust between us. I need to go. May I suggest, the next person you come up to you let them know truthfully about your need and not mess about."

And that is how I handle panhandlers. Works every time.

A Dry Time

I seem to be going through a dry time in my writing, like the nearby grassy hills that march into the Central Valley, washed in russet brown. It's a seasonal thing I know. And the early winter rains will feed the hills and grasses with nourishing water.

For myself I daily sit down and make the time to write and research and take notes and allow characters to move in and out of consciousness. They are alive. And the paper and computer screen yearns to capture a small facet of these adventurous lives who lived, loved and moved the world over a century ago.

Just a quick post to mention I'm putting together some travel logs from recent trips to Maker Faire and to San Francisco's Japan-town.

My effort to get back into running, after all the life-changes that occurred between late last year and January of this year, is coming along. Current challenge is to commit to an early morning time to run before the temperature begins climbing into the upper 80s and 90s! Summer is here!!

I'm also back into doing some bike rides with some friends, when we ride out of town, push the speed a little here and there, and then end the ride at some breakfast place.

And of course, after all the fun running and riding happens, it's back to writing on my main story I'll discuss in the coming weeks.

I'm glad Spring will be here soon, beginning March 20th. I feel a lot of life/career/goal changes are in order.

In another area of change, which has me very excited, I'm side-stepping the current direction of a story I've been working on for several years. For months now I've banged my head at what has turned out to be the fleshing out of the characters' back-stories, essentially exploring the childhood experiences of my two main characters in an *undisclosed mystery title* book project. Trouble is, the more I went down that narrative path, the more lengthy the story seemed to deepen.

So right now I've made a decision to use these chapters (planned for use in the book's beginning) as a back-story, inserted here and there throughout the tale. At least for now, it takes away the pressure of going down that path and focusing on cleaning/revising the story I already put together awhile back.

This story refinement decision, thankfully, is somewhat due to reading some key excerpts in this year's 2010 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. (Link points to Amazon.com) One chapter that helped me rethink my story direction is called, Looking Skyward & Other Exercises for Improving Your Craft, by I.J. Schecter. I love his illustration about the deligence of an athlete and a writer who practise continually, and how these are like a bag of pop-corn:

Both the basketball player's and the writer's range of skills can be viewed like a partially cooked bag of microwave popcorn. The fluffy, already-popped kernels represent things like spelling and simple rules of grammar--basic elements of the craft you easily master. Elsewhere in the bag there are some half-popped kernels and unpopped kernels--skills you're in the midst of developing or haven't yet tackled. Getting every one of the kernels in your writing bag to reach its potential demands a serious, ongoing commitment...

Another contributing writer, Jedediah Berry (author of The Manual of Detection) in the Writer's Manual book shares (referring my guess is to The Manual of Detection effort), "...the second half required a great deal of revision. 'An early draft of those later chapters veered deeply into back-story which, upon reflection, didn't contribute much to the novel.'"

When I read that, it dawned on me that a lot of what recently wrote was constructing back-story and that tale does not have to be fully laid out at least in a narrative sense.

Good stuff.

Time to focus on what is ahead...

Some of you who recently stopped by might notice something missing. I removed the first part of what was planned to be a several part posting about my sister, Nancy, who passed away in December. At the time I wanted to capture some early events that transpired in December, Nancy's passing on Dec. 31st., thoughts about the wonderful memorial service that happened January 6th., and things I still think about--the value of life and treasure we all possess in having time to live life.

At the moment, I just do not have the time to construct the thoughts adequately the way Nancy would certainly deserve then to be presented. She was a lovely, spontaneous, and caring person, who in may ways really had it rough for about 10+ years. The early suspect causes and medical assessments are too complex and personal (in my opinion) to post on the web. And so that is another reason I removed the earlier posting, just so you know part of the reasoning.

Another part of the reasoning involves one of the main goals I had when I first created this blog, which at the time was just sort of a way to stick my toes into this writing medium, and check the temperature before diving in. I digress. Then--as in now--the goal is to capture little vignettes of scenes, experiences, and life events as they happen. I view this blog as a camera of a sorts, snapping moments in time because that time will most likely be gone forever after the moment passes.