Actually going to sleep...

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Upon sitting here for nearly five hours approximating calendars in my head, I can finally eat a melatonin and wholeheartedly sleep.

The forum lurking compulsion is real but I've invested more energy than required lately. More people than I can count expect me to be ahead of the world but I'm going to sleep...

Not sure if that worked, considering I'm double posting from the exact same place. Bleh... can anybody suggest somewhere to do some reading/programming on a Sunday night which ISN'T a drafty beige house? Have I got inverse claustrophobia from shutdowns or something?

This is where a nice, cuddly lady would do the trick.

Well with any luck I'll have that figured out sooner or later. Nevermind the fact my cuddliness quotient is something around that of a yeti.

Ok time to try this again. 2:30AM At least I'm procrastinating a bit... The alternative being continuing to wrestle in my head with fuzzy scheduling & cryptography. How normal that seems...

YES.

Ha ha ha! I made my 3AM cutoff AGAIN. That's actually huge. Any more emails sent yesterday & I'd be awake 'till 5. See you all soon when I'm wheels down in the collective unconscious I suppose...

I wish I could find one.
cberg, do you have a stable job or are you a freelancer?

I bet you'd "lose an arm" if you tried to hug someone

He's not going to hug a Jedi LOL.

Yes & no. I'm eyeing merging IT consultancies with a friend. My car's a late model Volvo so I'm optimistic about that - it makes a decent office. Had to buy it with my dad after a flood & my Toyota-driving mom ran my last Saab down but I know it's going to last a while. Consulting just amounts to lots of fixes in lots of places on lots of systems - a quick car is a tool where I'm concerned. After years of iffy transportation having a car with every option & then some has been a big dream. With any luck I'll find somewhere to live that lets me bike to some clients too. I'm also looking at a governor's office for public health & environment IT help desk contract assuming I'm well liked among their recruiters/staff. Beyond that I'm planning to follow up on a bunch of nibbles I got at a monster data mining firm after Xmas.

All I really need to do is get brought in on one or two big fixes by January. Or find a substantial gig I can do efficiently. I can handle quite a lot from this laptop... With any luck I can let my buddy handle any Apple-related quandaries I might face.

Yeah I really need to get a new cellphone. Mine is not quite holding up...

Well I win some & lose some... I'm done with reality for tonight so I'll go to bed indignant. I've been flying too much to appease my parents and finally earlier tonight the TSA singles me out & tries to grope my (*&^%$! !! I was so ready to fight those guards it was unreal. All the complacence around me made me ill. They pushed a whole line of people towards them with me in front. Then they asked if I was cool with being molested amongst ~10,000 strangers, at which point I said "You cannot be serious - I'm leaving" and they scooched me back to the scanner which of course then truthfully revealed nothing whatsoever in my pockets. Must have been the balls of steel. Guys should know from one look to keep their hands AWAY from me if they want to keep their hands. And that's where my wallet ended up, of course I had missed the flight on account of the lines. Now tomorrow morning I'm doubtless going to get an earful about doing it again and how it should be worth it. Just so I could get my share of abuse, I got microwaved twice and almost went to airport jail.

I don't really believe in coincidence so while I'd always like to give somebody the benefit of the doubt, tonight I'm glad I didn't get shackled for acting American. I love the ideals of freedom but I'm not selling. Guys stay away. Next time any TSA guy steps towards me any finger I feel I'll break. Probably almost any guy for that matter. That's just how it's gonna be.

If anybody would rather PM than relate to this in the open feel free. This is a disgusting crime being imposed on millions of people all over the country so I'm not about to ask for replies...

People are complacent about it for a couple of reasons:

1. For most, it's a minor irritation at best. Takes hardly any time, and time, to most, is the biggest issue.

And 2, it helps prevent planes from exploding (or people from taking dangerous weapons aboard). Anything that can help with that is a good thing, irritating as hell though it may be. Among other things they may search for (drugs, for instance?)


One way or another, those people *have* to do that job.

These procedures are not created with us in mind; as in, those with sensory issues. But even taking that into account... it still needs to be done. Security is just too important.

One thing though: Dont even THINK about getting violent with security people at an airport. Or even taking up a threatening pose, which wont work on them to begin with. Do that... and the groping will be the EASIEST part of your day, and the nightmare will just get worse from there, and it's likely to last WAY longer than one day. "Airport jail" would only be the beginning. They get VERY serious about that sort of thing, and they're not going to be intimidated by someone no matter how much physical strength the person may have. Physical strength is nothing against the weapons the security guys carry.



Now, that being said, I personally will *always* put up with it rather than go through the absolute hell that is a super long car ride. Short-term groping is MUCH less awful than long, LONG-term searing, burning pain (or nerve pain, which is way worse) that can plague me as a result of trying to do it too long.... at least to me, anyway, since Im prone to that stupid pain. Not to mention that after about 3 or 4 hours of driving I feel like my sanity is going to break, and once I reach my destination I wont even want to LOOK at the car for at least 3 days. I just dont know how the hell anyone can tolerate long drives.

Even O'Hare airport, rated as one of the absolute worst airports there is, isnt as bloody annoying to me as THAT.

Well we have one security checkpoint that's obviously run by some company (not the feds) and it's completely tolerable. I'm not talking about safety, just the law. Unreasonable search & seizure is CONSTITUTIONALLY ILLEGAL and so security firms don't do it. I'm just going to warn them from now on: "You guys already wanted to touch my junk, I am the last person you should ever touch." All I did was stare that last guy down, because I know I'm a nonviolent person and he knew damn well he was in the wrong.

The last five hundred times in the security lines went swimmingly, I love to travel but I'm not gonna get molested just to do so. Airline crews stopped putting up with this something like seven years ago. Somebody please explain to me what my personal sovereignty sells for these days? Am I gonna get paid next time I fork myself over like that?

I'd rather get tased/shot than watch a bunch of pigs feeling up helpless millions. We have ample legal tomes we should be throwing at them you know...

Anyways my thread derailed itself but I guess the good news is that this can't permanently feed into my insomnia. I've seen lots of crazier stuff in my days so that's the only real reason I'm not taking any sh!t from the government. I was legitimately surprised they didn't empty my wallet. Guess they knew I was pretty darn ready to make me a citizen's arrest.

Learn your rights, Misery. Do it for you.

*shrugs*

From what I've seen, completely random searches (of your stuff, not *usually* a pat-down as long as you're not acting like a total wacko, they generally wave those wand things at you instead, but they WILL happily go through your bags, and you either let them, or you're not going to be having a very good day... nor will you be getting on any planes) are normal. Or at least... stuff-searches that dont necessarily explain the reasons (unless you ask directly, probably; I've never cared enough). And if you dont want to go through absolute hell (the people in the airport I'm familiar with would NOT tolerate the sort of reaction you had, believe me on that, and it's a very major airport, not a small one; they do their job and will happily ruin your existence if you get in their way, and with the crap they have to deal with in that hellhole of a facility, I cant blame them) you just let them do their stupid whatever. Believe me, angry reactions just dont work like you might think they do. MAYBE at the smaller airports I could see it ending differently, but at the big ones? No. Not unless the guards are idiots. Not that I know the idiot VS pro ratio of guards in those places, mind you.

Dont forget though: That sort of angry reaction, with many guards, only serves to make them suspicious. In other words... it actually gives them reason in some cases (and again, I cant blame them, my own instant reaction would be "what is this guy hiding?"). This is one of the reasons why IRL I tend to be so passive. Escalating things never ends well. I've found that just by ignoring things, it tends to just roll offa me like water rather than stick. Is how I used to deal with bullies in school; they have very entertaining reactions, really, when they get literally no response whatsoever to their stupid prodding. Or, even funnier, when the response is to get up, and walk directly towards the principal's office in a bored manner. That though is a whole other story.

....that and the guards I typically run into are just as impatient as I am, causing the whole procedure to take all of 3 minutes; they only drag it out if someone is making a jerk of themselves and being rude or whatever (you know how some people in airports can get in those lines). I, too, prefer it to take as little time as possible, so I figure.... whatever. Doesnt matter to me much.

It's annoying, but DRIVING all that way... *shudder* I just cant do it. Not happening. Not when I could just watch them poke at the pointless things in my bags for 3 minutes and wave that bizarre wand around (what DOES that thing do? This will bother me all day now, I hate not knowing stuff).


Either way though, it's good to hear that your insomnia might get better. Insomnia is never fun. I've been through that before, it sucks pretty darn hard. And then you get FOCUSED on it, which just makes it worse. Or at least, that's been my experience with it.

The way I deal with it is to basically decide "I really dont care right now" and just enjoy the experience of laying in the warm bed. But of course something like that doesnt work for everyone.

I'm also always on cyclobenzaprine, which helps me fall asleep too. I think.

They ditched the Garrett metal detector wands. Now the "pat downs" (i.e. 'Stop & Frisk') are based upon the backscatter/xray results AND random selection. I watched myself get randomly selected & corralled to the line where they had obviously premeditated this. The scanner software decided I was their facsimile of the underwear bomber and I wasn't having it. Just what the hell happened to Asimov's three laws? Companies that don't even build robots are already breaking them!

They commissioned software from liars & tried using it to molest a software dev. Hardball... (This is DIA, largest airport in the country last I checked). Next time you're there, avoid the main terminal security at all costs. I'm guessing the A gates bridge checkpoint is run by a defense subcontractor because they're cool. They joke with peoples' kids & I usually see the same people working there. Our main terminal security is run by a bunch of blatantly greasy POAs who apparently don't give a damn who they're trying to pick up. Even if that person would bite their ear off if they really tried. Not even kidding, I saw one use f*****g breath spray!

I have at least been getting some decent sleep since all this sh!t went down. I credit my friends & interwebs for that. Dry hopped brews have also been instrumental.

Only got to sleep by 7AM today, so I guess that's four(ish) hours considering how much of that I was awake for. 9PM here & now, just gonna say whatever & get some code written.

it's just like that...