airport security equals the awesome

Blogging from the airport courtesy of free wireless internet at Albuquerque Sunport International. That's right Phoenix Sky Harbor, you ain't got nothing on this.

It's about 0500 and I'm sitting in majestic terminal B of the airport. I had the less than noteworthy (except here!) distinction of being the first person to check-in to my flight, not counting anyone checking in at home. I sort of bypassed the one couple standing in line since they didn't seem to realize that the self-check-in kiosks were intended to be used and not just looked at. I guess they thought that the absence of any staff meant that they couldn't check-in. Little did they know that the act of checking-in causes the employees to scurry out like ants, very large ants.

In a more noteworthy occurrence, I went through one of those mass spectrometer dealies for the first time at the passenger security checkpoint. Absolutely terrible. Read about this guy's experience first, because there's nothing here about it and then continue. Done? Good. My experience wasn't quite so bad, but that was aided by being the first one through that particular security line. For starters, there was no signage or indication from a TSA employee that I needed to go through it. Hey, I don't know if it's for everyone or every nth passenger or only suspiciously ethnic passengers. Besides, the way around it wasn't cordoned off so I started walking past it. No can do. Gotta go through. I stand in, and the machine puffs air on me, pauses for a good 10-15 seconds (which is way too long to efficiently process passengers but I suppose efficiency isn't the goal) and then the red hand becomes a green walking man and the door opens. Not! The TSA guy walks up and tells me to stand back inside with no explanation given. Meanwhile, did I mention that my laptops, backpack, and wallet have rolled through the X-ray machine and are sitting unattended on the other side? No? Well, they were and that's the biggest problem. Theft of items from the end of the X-ray scan conveyer is certainly way down due to the requirement to have a boarding pass to go through security, but it can still happen, especially with an opportunistic little item like a wallet or watch. Take two with the puffs of air, red hand becomes green walking man, and doors open. Not! The doors didn't open so I stood there and looked at the TSA guy who just sort of stared back at me so I pushed the door open and walked through and then through the metal detector. What a joke. By the way, if they want this mass spec device, they might as well combine it or put it immediately before (not 10 feet before, but 1 foot before) the metal detector. That would make it one process instead of two awkward processes.

In other more or less equally negative news, on my way to the airport, I concluded that running the heat in my car speeds up the growth of the crack in my windshield. It is now much longer than it was before the start of my trip. When I realized how quickly it was growing, I turned off the heat in my car. That made for a very cold drive. I put gloves on to help my hands, but damn, I should've stopped to put on a second pair of socks. Who needs a new car? Being miserable builds character.

If you've pieced together my last post, you might have come to realize that I left Farmington before 2100 and arrived in Albuquerque a little bit after midnight. With a four hour travel time from ABQ to SFO with a layover in PHX, a 0900 arrival means a 0600 departure from here. Remember that I also gain an hour. Thus, we can say that I need to be here no later than 0500. Factor in a travel time of about three-and-a-half hours from Farmington to Albuquerque, plus a little safety margin and I need to leave Farmington by 0100. And this brings us back to the original, implied question, why would I leave Farmington at 2030?

The experience of working at all hours of the day and night in the field has taught me a lot about when I am most alert, how much sleep I need, and how much focus driving takes. Let's say I was to leave Farmington at 0100. There are two ways to do that. The first is to just stay up all the way to 0100 and then leave. This is bad. This puts me up all day, half the night, and then I have to drive the other half of the night. How many of you are in good condition to drive 185 miles after you've already been up for 16 hours? Me neither. I could do it, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. The second option is to go to bed early and ideally get four hours of sleep. Four is best from a circadian rhythm perspective. But let's not deceive ourselves. Am I really capable of going to bed at 2000, actually waking up at midnight, and then hitting the road? That's actually a worse-case scenario to me due to the potential for sleeping in and missing my flight. Very bad. And cost prohibitive. Besides, if I do get any sleep, it's likely to be very fitful and not much better than not sleeping. This takes us to what I did which was sleep in yesterday, leisurely run some errands, pack my bags, eat a light dinner, pack a snack and then hit the road at 2030. This put nearly my entire trip before midnight, a time when I know my alertness to be good. Not great, but generally good, especially if I slept in that morning. This plan also gives me a huge time buffer in case I run into car troubles. All in all, a much better option than leaving Farmington at 0100.

Of course, it would be fair to ask what I do from midnight to 0400 when the check-in counter opens. I sleep, or at least I try to sleep. Remember, car with no heat equals cold me. But when you're tired, you can sleep through a lot. I probably only got an hour of sleep, but since I don't need to drive anymore, it doesn't matter. I can sleep on the plane. One observation from sitting in the parking lot for all those hours is that the night security and parking attendants need something to do. Or fire half of them.

One last note, I was about 60 miles from Farmington, still catching the one hip-hop, pop, current young people music station, when on came this radio ad for investing advice. They were making the usual sales pitch about how not knowing certain things could be keeping you from reaching your financial goals and bladdady blah blah. And then they revealed who they were really targeting: "high net worth investors" was their phrase. By their definition, people with more than $500 thousand invested. By the way, the phrasing seemed to imply that home ownership did not constitute an investment. The obvious question is how many people in the Farmington area does this even apply to?