Well, we had a lot of time to kill at the Fort Lauderdale airport. It amazes me the lengths the security forces have gone to in the US in reaction to the Sept 11th events. To me, it looked for all the world like all the power hungry cops and security guards in the world are finally getting their wish. In a slightly misplaced overreaction, there was an armed checkpoint going into and coming out of the dock area. Then, another armed checkpoint to get through security at the airport. Not surprising, but they are really sloppy in some areas, while being overly strict in other areas. Even though they made Erin take off her shoes, and patted me down, and even did a spot bomb check on our camera bag, they didn’t even ask me to turn on the laptop. Seems a little silly to me. Having gone through security a bunch of times in the past while, I’m pretty sure if I’d wanted to smuggle a shiv on board, I could have done it. Not exactly the point of the heightened security. It seemed to me that the “extra” security was only there to make people feel better about being more secure.
I’d have no problem with the extra security if I thought it would actually work as advertised, but I have absolutely no confidence that this is the case. I mean really, a guy puts a bomb in his shoe, so now they scan shoes more carefully. That doesn’t really help, when security is primarily reactive, the advantage goes to the people trying to break the security. Don’t get me wrong, you have to react to flaws in the security system, but it seems to me that they’re not looking at their security pro actively as well.
Anyway, enough of my rant about the land of the formerly free. We got in to Toronto about 20 minutes late last night, so we really had to hustle to get our baggage, move it through customs and catch our flight to Saskatoon. We rolled in to the gate an hour and a half before our connecting flight was scheduled to leave Toronto, then had to wait 20 minutes for our luggage, clear customs, and put our baggage on a connecting flights conveyor belt. When we got to the conveyor belt, there was a guy there yelling and screaming at the attendants who were working there because they wouldn’t let him check his bags onto his connecting flight, because they wouldn’t have time to load them. I can understand being upset, but yelling and screaming until they have to call security doesn’t do you any good. As we were walking away, we heard the guys wife scream out (literally scream) “Well that’s because she’s a F****** B****” about the attendant. I assume they were still screaming when airport security showed up. I also suspect that the airline didn’t do as much as they normally would to rectify the situation later :) What’s the saying? You catch more flights with honey than with vinegar?
Ok, that was terrible.
Anyway, after that, we had a bit of a trek to the other end of the terminal to go through security again, to find our gate to get there in time to board. We were starving by this point, because it was 6:30 and all we’d had to eat since a small lunch was a bag of chips on the flight from Florida to Toronto. I figured that we had time to get some Harvey’s before the flight took off, but only barely. I waited in line at Harveys for 20 minutes. I would likely have just left, but I paid for my burgers about 5 minutes after I’d gotten there. The people behind the counters were moving in slow motion. I got the burgers and fries and rushed over to our gate just in time to board (or so I thought) but then found out that the plane had been delayed 10 minutes. We wolfed down our burgers, got on the plane, and arrived home last night at around 11:30. Glad to be home, glad to see the snow, glad to see the cold. Glad most of all to be out of the police state that is Florida. Sign me up for Saskatoon any time.
Today we’ve been unpacking, getting things back to normal before work on Monday. I really slept well last night, though our humidifier wasn’t working, so it was quite dry in here. Just needed adjusting really.- no comments