S is for Security

Well, here I am, looking like a yuppy in the fancy coffee shop, drinking tea and typing away on my macbook, in the Cedar Rapids Airport. Yup, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. With snow everywhere, I'm very glad to be headed toward slightly warmer clims. Texas here I come baby.

This leg of the trip was pretty successful. We got the equipmentSe up and running, took it all apart, put it all back together, took it apart and packed it up. Then loaded it in the van that left home the same time I did, but arrived two days later. Just in time to watch the snow start to come down again, which very politely stopped in time for my drive to airport today. Since I ran out of stuff to do, I'm here and checked in 3.5 hours before my flight. Thank goodness the Eastern Iowa airport is much more forward thinking than say, Chicago O'Hare and provides free WiFi, so I can blog for you today.

Speaking of what else the airport can provide. How about some visual interest:


That is a fancy old car for sale right here in the airport lounge. It's a sweet ride, and given the amount of snow on the ground here I'm posting it so dear hubby can see getting his own old beauty is possible, even in the bad weather. :)

So, while the goal of the trip was accomplished and overall it was a success, I did have a bit of logistical issues getting here, which I alluded to last time. The short story is my orignal flight was canceled so I was last minute rebooked on another airline, evoking, what I like to refer to as the evil S on my boarding pass. It's actually a set of four capitol letter S's in a row along the bottom, which makes the security agents get out their red pens, and sends you to the special line, with full bag search, triple ID check, and full body pat down. This is the first time I got the S for a legitimate reason (last minute booking), but I'm numbering over a dozen of the Ss in my time. It's not really evil, just inconvenient and raises the heart rate just a tad. As much as I follow the rules there is always a little voice that says what if you left your pocket knife in the bottom of your bag, being scrutinized that closely is never fun. It is a post 9/11 security measure, some Ss are assigned randomly, some are assigned on itineraries that have been flagged and some are just because you might be on a list. For a period of time I think I was on that list, I got the S 2 out of every 3 times I flew, then sometime in the last year and half, the Ss stopped, I've taken 4 or 5 trips without the intense scrutiny. (I think the list was active for 5 years and hence after all those inspections the list expired. I personally don't think there was any logic in the system, just bad luck on my part, or good luck depending on how you view the situation.)

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, because I was reminded of the whole security issue in a roundabout way this morning. I woke up at the hotel this AM to the people in the room screaming. At each other. Loudly. The couple was fighting. Loudly. It was scary. The girl was crying and shreiking, the man was yelling. Loudly. It started off simple enough, a heated discussion in another language. At first, I thought maybe it was the TV next door, I had heard the TV from across the hall the other night, so it was a plausible explanation. Then I realized that there were no foreign language channels on the hotel's cable system. The argument got louder, and more heated. There was more yelling and a loud bang. By this time a little over 20 minutes had passed. So I called my husband, who convinced me that yes I should call the front desk. Who then called the police. In less than 5 minutes, the police where knocking loudly on the door, waking up anyone in the vicinity that had not been awoken by the initial argument. They separated the couple and another 15 minutes of interviewing ensued. (The walls in this hotel were particularly thin, and much of the interviewing occured just outside my door, so I heard almost all of the details).

Then, what I had been dreading from the start happened. Someone was knocking on my door. It was very kind police officer who nicely asked if he could come in an talk with me. Hello heart rate. Here I was, with nothing to fear, having tried to do what I believed to be the right thing, and suddenly I could feel my whole body go into fear mode. I was suddenly like a awkward teenager who didn't know how to talk to anyone. My voice was barely above a whisper as I explained what I heard, why I had called, apologized for calling, etc. Why is that? I am a pretty self assured individual, a law abiding citizen with absolutely nothing to hide. But there it is, a fear of authority. I felt unbelievably vulnerable. And it can't just be because I was still in my pajamas, because it's the same feeling I have every time I'm marked with the evil S, and I never go to the airport in my PJs. Anyone have any good theories on why I apparently have a fear of authority? Anyone else have it? Police and security agents are there to protect us, shouldn't that envoke feelings of safety and calmness, not clammy plams and hot flashes? Anyways, just some random musings I thought I would share. I think we have maybe done something wrong in our society if someone like me has such a stressful reaction in situations that should be just fine.

Anyways, I've rambled long enough, it's time to face the security line. The kind cop did explain that they had been arguing, their stories aligned, there was no evidence of physical violence and that probably something just fell against the wall. He thanked me for calling. Left my room and told the man that the fighting needed to stop because it was disturbing other hotel guests, etc. My breathing returned to normal. Then my alarm clock rang. It was quite a way to start the day!

Here I am

Just a quick post to let you all know I'm safe, busy and tired and the trip is going well. Will the time difference it's been too late to call anyone back home by the time I finish my day, so I'm blogging what you all really want to hear. :)

Hopefully a real post tomorrow.

Let the mobile blogging begin!

Hello blog, I know it's been awhile. I hate to make excuses, I know I should be better, but you know how it is, I've been busy. What were we talking about when we last met. Oh yes, elections I believe. When I have been woefully remiss in my duties as a citizen. I cast my vote, watched the super Tuesday returns, and promptly freed up all thought space to dedicate it to the preparation for the travel whirlwind that is my time. At this point it's out of my hands unless I want to become a crazy political activist of some type and well, I'm on this career path right now, so I guess I'll see where it takes me. Right now, it's taking me EVERYWHERE.

I'm sitting in an airport as I type, waiting to get on the 3rd of 10 planes in my 10 in 10 adventure. 10 different flights in 10 days. A personal best for me (I once did 10 in 11). I'm not flying daily, so it's not as bad as it may originally seem. Most of them come in pairs as there are very few places you can fly direct these days. All in all it is a total of 4 cities 5 if you count my home base which I visited for several hours last night, and won't see again until ??? (I'm hoping for a visit in April). This was a packing nightmare by the way. Today I'm headed to a city that had a high of 18 yesterday, friday one that was 70 yesterday and then Sunday on an interview, pretty much my entire wardrobe is either checked on a plane, or in the back of the van which is carrying my equipment across the country, which I may or may not see on Thursday, then may or may not see on Sunday, so the contingency plan was that I won't see it until a week from Wednesday.

In honor of this craziness, I'm planning to do some mobile blogging, there may or may not be photos since I think the cable to connect the camera to the computer is in that van. There may or may not be blogging because not all places offer free wireless internet in the airport, and some hotels like the one I stayed in last week charge $4 for 20 minutes of net time, and well, I can't blog in <20 minutes, plus, I'm cheap. There may or may not be a theme, because it's hard to keep your head straight when you are traveling so much for so many different activities in such a short time span.

Airports are funny places. The whole system is just crazy. Those self check-in things. Just dumb if you ask me. They are a poor replacement for actual humans. Just so you know, it is 6:19 am, an hour of the day I rarely see and those stupid machines have already failed me twice on two different airlines, so I speak from experience. I log a lot of miles in the air and I've been using those machines for ~6 years now, and I have about a 35% failure rate, so I think that I'm safe in my criticisms.
........

Sorry, I'm back now, the kind airline dude just announced that we should all look at the beautiful sunrise, so we did. It was beautiful (I don't see sunrise all that often so there isn't much basis for comparison), but I was not among the half dozen people who felt it was beautiful enough to capture on my cell phone camera.

I guess my point was just made for me. Airports are funny places.

Finding a candidate: time's up

Well, it seems I have run out of time. Not just for finding a candidate, but for alot of things in my life. I sat down today and felt that it was really time to organize my travel schedule for the next few months (scheduling another interview inspired this, for those of you tracking my career progress and not at all interested in my political leanings). Turns out, I will travel to 10 states and another country by the June 30th. That averages out to traveling every other week. My schedule doesn't work out that nicely. I'm a little stressed.

Anyways, I did not finish The Audacity of Hope as I had hoped (ironic I know). I did get through a fairly big chunk of it, somewhere around 60%, and hubby says that that is enough to give me the right idea, so I'm not going to feel too delinquent about the whole thing. So what are my thoughts. I agree with the comment from last time. It is not as inspiring as I was expecting. Actually I was pretty disappointed for the first 160 pages or so. After all the hype I've heard of this guy's rapid rise to fame to be what some are calling the second coming of Kennedy, I was ready to be INSPIRED. But mostly, it was common sense, a little bit pretenious in the language, and I didn't find the writing all that eloquent. No inspiration. In fact, Obama almost seemed to be making my point for me. My major concern is his lack of experience, and he spends a whole page talking about an older senator who he respects, and the one piece advice this guy gave him was not to rush into running for president, that the senate is really where the government heart and soul is....I'd get out the actual quote and all of that, but I have a headache, and did I mention I'm really out of time with everything...

But, around page 160, something happened, the book turned a corner for me and there where his thoughts on education. Now, I'm not going to say they were inspiring. They were the thoughts on education that anyone who believes in education has already had. Growing up in a house filled with teacher union reps and schoolteachers, (not to mention my own 11 years of higher educational pursuits) I not only believe in education, I live and breathe it. They were the thoughts on education I had before I even knew what thinking was. They weren't new and novel. But they were right. They were so damn right. It was like he had been in my head. And it was the first time I had seen a politician address the issue so well. So close to the way I thought it should be addressed, maybe not inspiring, but exciting. So I was in a little bit of a quandary.

In the end, I don't think it's changed my mind. Paul makes a compelling argument. But, my optimism in many areas of life doesn't extend to politics. I don't think Obama has the experience. I think he has the right ideas, I think he has the right beliefs, I think he brings people together, and in general I don't have a compelling reason to vote against him. But optimism and the White House don't mix (Hillary has already learned that the hard way). Good morals, good ideas, and pretty well defined plans of action, are what we should want in a leader, what we should respect in a leader. But they don't make a successful presidency. Compromises and tough decisions need to be made. I think many of Obama's plans, (health care reform, education, and taxes) underestimate the strength of the opposition he will face, and that means nothing will get done. As much as I want to see real, core value kind of change. It ain't gonna happen this time around. Too many people are still too mad about too many things. I have to vote for reality, not idealism.

In the end, I guess it doesn't matter. The decision being hard for me means I won't have a hard time getting behind whoever gets the nomination, and in general I'll be happy either way.

Finding a candidate week ?: First book review

previous entries in this ongoing conversation here

Well, I didn't give up on my quest; I got distracted by another one. At the very end of week two my office phone rang off the hook with two job interviews, another potential career option and the request for an invited talk. My phone never rings that much in a month, never mind a day and a half. So all of the crazy that goes with preparing for an interview and actually flying to another time zone to have the interview took over all time that I would have blogged about anything, as well as anytime I would have to explore politics.

So here we are, a few days out of Super Tuesday and I'm still digging. I have finished Hillary's book and dear hubby has finished Barack's. I'm now about halfway through Barak's and hub is reading Hillary as I type. There may be a barrage of posting in the next few days as I scramble to share all of my thoughts, but I'm going to break it up into chunks. Today: a review of Living History.

This book is worth reading regardless of an ongoing election.

As a person: First, you should know I like history and I find historical reading fascinating. I mean, who else do you know that read The Glory and the Dream in it's entirety the summer after high school. (I'm a bit of a nerd). So, I found reading Living History to be a fascinating volume of the history taking place during the 8 years I was too busy being a teenager and college student to pay enough attention. I feel I have a greater understanding of many things I just didn't know much about.

As a women: This book is amazing. Hillary tells the story of coming to age during the women's rights movement people of my generation think of as the past. Her experience's should not be comparable to mine 40 years later. It saddens me that that are. But emboldens me as well. Even the little things. She talks about not changing her name, and being forced to when her husband was in the public eye. She talks about people not understanding that she was not Hillary Clinton, but family and friends consistently sending mail to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton. 30 years later I am experiencing the same phenomena, and not just from great-aunts who stick with ingrained social traditions, but from cousins who are younger than me. I recently made the decision to hyphenate my name for the first time since I was married. Not legally, just semi-professionally. My husband and I applied to jobs in the same department and I thought that in light of some universities starting to address the two-body problem and others not being willing to interview women that may not be willing to uproot because they are less likely to do so if they are married to established men that a subtle indication that we were both mobile was appropriate. I agonized over that choice, it wasn't just one of practicality, it was in a sense changing my identity. I was angry that I even had to think about it. That was the aspect of my application I was worrying about, not my credentials, my NAME! In the end I got an interview and my name didn't matter one bit. What a waste of emotional energy. What a crappy world we live in. Anyways, I digress, the bottom line is the book and her personal story resonated with me. Read it, everyone should know how far we haven't come.

As a voter: This is an amazing women. This is an amazing person. She would be a fantastic president. She has experienced, first hand, all of the crap that goes with being in the White House and on the flip side will know how to make progress as a president without letting the crap ruin it. Reading this story one has to admire the strength of a women willing to go back there. Reading this story I realized that she has to have an unbelievable desire to make a difference to be willing to put herself and her family through another presidency. But most of all, I took away a belief that she would run a successful administration. An administration that would fight for the things I believe in. An administration I'd be happy with. The book rings with raw honesty and self-reflection. Above all, I value honesty. I value a person who knows who they are, and is willing to be open about it.

Summary:
Informative: check
Inspirational: check
Qualities I admire: check
Political views in alignment with my own: check

Potential candidate: check