Happy New Year!

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007!

Latest Terrorist Weapon Banned from Planes

The Transportation Security Administration reminds all Christmas travelers that snow globes regardless of size or amount of liquid inside, even with documentation, are prohibited in your carry-on. Please ship these items or pack them in your checked baggage.

Is any commentary really necessary?

See Bruce Schneier's blog for more on this topic.

Svanï vs. Sevo in Absurdistan

Anyone who's traveled in Eastern Europe will recognize the territory staked out by Gary Shteyngart in Absurdistan (New York: Random House, 2006).

The Russian-born novelist's prose is as thick and heavy as his protagonist, Mischa Vainberg. His descriptions of the post-communist but pre-capitalist world of a former Soviet satellite state on the Caspian Sea is achingly familiar if you've been there: the island of privilege enjoyed by foreigners in a western-branded hotel, the ease that unlimited funds provides individuals, the sheer rapaciousness of traditional oligarchs negotiating with predatory companies expecting to operate on "cost plus" contracts, the delicate dance between preserving traditional culture (and enmities) as an American music dominated western ethos captures one young adult after another.

If you've ever heard the symphony of car alarms in St. Petersburg or watched uniformed cops shake down motorists for $2 bribes in Yerevan, you've already visited Absurdistan.

If not, pick up a copy and Gary Shteyngart will take you there.

Belfast's troubles are over?

A tour of neighborhoods that used to be ringed with police checkpoints and military garrisons reveal areas that look like residential sections of cities everywhere in the Western world.

Except of course for the corrugated roll-down metal doors that cover storefronts during the off hours that are more reminiscent of Third World countries, or places like inner city Detroit.

Perhaps Protestants and Roman Catholics have finally learned how to get along in these northern most reaches of the Emerald Isle!

Still Green on the Emerald Isle

It may be December, but the grass is emerald green in Ireland. Of course, it's also raining.

And, yet another airline has lost my luggage.

This time Aer Lingus. Last time, Air France. Time before that, SAS.

Ah! The joys of traveling!

Another Post Office Rant

Just back from my PO box, which contained two notices that I'd received Express Mail.

Came home and phoned the post office. Why did I get notices instead of my Express Mail?

Express mail requires a signature for delivery.

Ummmm, I'm not available 24/7 to sign for mail put in my PO box. So, I should tell people not to send me Express Mail because I can't get it at my PO box?

Oh, no. All I had to do was stand in line at the customer service desk and pick it up (the line was more than 20 people long).

Attention all of you who send Express Mail to PO boxes: the recipients may, or may not, get it.

Festival time!

Indianapolis stages its 30th anniversary International Festival this weekend.

In a city known for its "mayonnaise on white bread" image, it's fun to sample the ethnic diversity lying just beneath the mundane Midwestern surface.

Check it out for yourself on the website and then get there in person sometime this weekend (Nov. 3-5).

Switzerland in meltdown mode

The glacier is retreating at Interlaken, and Switzerland has recorded its hottest October on record.

Sitting along the lake in Lucerne yesterday were people in T-shirts eating ice cream cones.

Those who think global warming is a myth should take a look around them.

Rating the Signs

Warning signs are everywhere, but here's somebody who's thought about them for more than five minutes.

A sample: It's troubling that the symbol for "poison" and the symbol for "pirate" are the same.

To learn why, check out Danger Symbols.

Security Theater

Regular readers know that I travel a lot, and that I have definite opinions about the absurdity of the security theater that passes for the real thing in airports today.

As Bruce Schneier writes in his blog, "What we see here is class warfare on the security battleground. The reaction to Sept. 11 has led to harassment, busywork, and inconvenience for us all ­ well, almost all. A select few who know the right people, hold the right office or own the right equipment don’t suffer the ordeals. They are waved around security checkpoints or given broad exceptions to security lockdowns."

He's reacting to Double standards in security hassles.

Here's a snip: "Security in America is a dangerous farce; it’s busywork for tens of thousands of Transportation Security Agency officials, harassment for innocent Americans and full of holes that any slightly determined terrorist could drive an explosive-laden truck through. We are worrying about the wrong things."

IMHO, if Bob Sullivan (the author of that MSNBC piece) hadn't veered off into general aviation, his thesis would have been more coherent. Cory Lidle's small plane accident in Manhattan has little to do with terrorism and even less to do with security.

The bears are back!

My bookmarks disappeared from my browser.

But I was able to find my two favorite timewasters again (thanks, Google!).

Check out Tower of Bears or Just Letters when you'd rather play than work.

Speaking of flying

The tendency of flights to take off and arrive behind schedule continues.

My Delta flight from Atlanta to Paris was late, so I missed my connection to Bordeaux.

My Air France flight from Paris to Chicago was late, so I missed my connection to Indy.

It doesn't help that Air France misplaced one of my suitcases. One claims one's luggage and goes through Customs in Chicago, so I knew it was missing somewhere between Bordeaux and Chicago!

The missing bag didn't arrive at my door until three days after I did (surprisingly, however, it was still locked, undamaged and unpilfered). Where the heck was it?

The TSA has relented...a bit

Nice to know the TSA does have some (the emphasis on "some") common sense.

Stuff purchased in the area between security and boarding is now OK on board, but security theater continues.

Moms who want to carry breast milk with them on airplanes know what I mean. As one mom said in a recent New York Times article, if I had the baby with me, I wouldn't need to carry refrigerated breast milk!

No liquids carried on board, except......

I've been on eleven airplane flights since the Aug. 10 changes in what's permitted on board.

All of us who fly a lot know that the TSA's job is providing the illusion of security, but this whole charade is wearing a little thin.

Toothpaste, babies' gel-filled teethers and sealed bottles of water are absolutely no threat to the airplane passenger, but (for the sake of argument) let's allow the TSA to continue their idiotic ban on such things at the security checkpoints.

Why are such things when purchased in the "sterile area" still taboo?

It's interesting to note that it's now perfectly fine to buy liquor, perfume and (liquid) makeup in Duty Free Shops at airports and have one's purchases delivered on the jetway at the airplane door.

Logic would say that it would be perfectly fine to have (at the very least) bottles of water delivered planeside, too! But I guess that the bottled water folks don't have as much political clout as the Duty Free Shop owners......

Chicago traffic woes

There is just no good way to drive to/through Chicago from the east these days.

Construction on the Indiana Tollroad is done, but the Skyway is torn up again. The condition of the Dan Ryan Expressway is unprintable. The Kennedy is bumper to bumper, and they're doing roadwork on the Edens.

Opting for westbound I-80/94 is no better. There always are slowdowns approaching the Bishop Ford, and the Tri-State isn't done with all of its tollbooth reconstruction -- although I must admit that the no-slowdown I-pass lanes are fabulous once they're open and working.

Is it time for a third belt of interstates to the west -- or a tunnel under Lake Michigan?

Persistence of myth

The United States did not invade Iraq because "they flew airplanes into our buildings".

How can otherwise intelligent and reasonable people still believe that's the case five years after 9/11 and three years after "Mission Accomplished"?

Even the US Senate has figured out that they were, ummm, misled by the administration.

But, I suppose it's easier to believe the lie than admit the truth.

Is a fjord a Norwegian automobile?

You Need to Study More Geography If You Think...

The Balkans are an alien people on Star Trek

The United Kingdom is a cultural theme park

The Tropic of Cancer is a sunscreen lotion

The Gaza Strip is a Middle Eastern folk dance

The Bermuda Triangle is a percussion instrument in a reggae band

The Cumberland Gap gives out free sausages with every set of jeans sold

The International Dateline is a new cable TV network

The Equator is a cartoon action figure

The Continental Shelf is a specialty section of the supermarket

A fault is what you find in other people

A fjord is a Norwegian car 

SAS delays

I don't know what the problem is -- SAS doesn't fly through Heathrow -- but every SAS flight I've been on lately has been delayed.

This time, my Copenhagen-Chicago flight is 3-1/2 hours delayed (30 August) and I'm sure to miss my connecting flight at O'Hare. On the way over here (14 August), my Chicago-Copenhagen took off late, and I missed my connection to Bergen.

Flying is definitely a game of chance these days.

Oslo

After a week of almost uninhabited (and almost uninhabitable) wilderness, Oslo is a welcome shock of urban chaos - especially as university students from around the world are gathering for the start of the fall semester.

Besides, the smorgasbord lunch at the Grand Hotel has desserts (like this one) that shouldn't be missed!

King Neptune's visit

Last evening in the lounge, King Neptune presented certificates to all of us who'd successfully made the crossing -- of the Arctic Circle. We're now headed to Norway's North Cape, the most northerly (more or less) point on the European continent.