As we all know I have nothing to do as I am supposed to be flying across the ocean right now, I read a new book today. Okay, I got up in the middle of the night. That is what I do when I mentally shift to US time zones, I automatically start preparing.
The book is Confessions Of A Failed Southern Lady by Florence King, it is truly a hoot. I laughed until I cried and frankly I was glad I was not reading this on a plane as I am sure they would have put those plastic tie straps on me. Seriously, I had tears running down my face.
If you are from the south you will get it all, if you know nothing about the south it won't matter. Every family the world over has wacko's and generally the same type of lunatics. There is true love in this book, this family actually likes and loves one another. My only disappointment was there was not one, "Bless her heart".
We had to get McDonald's for breakfast as we have no food here. I have not had McDonald's in 15 years. It will be another 15 if all goes well. It was barely acceptable. I think we are ordering German for late lunch and who knows what for late supper. Gotta watch the food for the IBS thing, not good when you are flying.
Bad thunderstorm this afternoon. Not good. Big hi-speed train accident, people died. Not good. China says lightening struck the train and then havoc ensued. One train ran over another train and they fell off the elevated tracks. Not good. China will never ask for help or advice in engineering for the future and I really believe they feel a few casualties are no big deal in the grand scheme of things. These people cannot provide safe drinking water in their major cities and so they move on to providing unsafe train travel for their citizens.
If Piers says one more time how great China is I am personally gonna bop him in the nose and make him drink the fucking green water.
Showing posts with label airflight in China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airflight in China. Show all posts
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
TSA and me
I have been reading a lot lately about the new AIT machines in the US and I am not getting any good answers to my questions. And every thread on FlyerTalk denigrates into a childish rant, with no real answers most of the time. Now I realize from personal experiences with TSA, including a very enlightening ride to the Airlines Parking lot, that some of these people are not real bright. There are employees in other jobs that are not real bright too, but those people generally are not putting me through an x-ray while their buddy is in possesion of all my stuff.
The radiation bothers me. I am not that concerned with the naked aspect because well, ya get what ya pay for. A free peep is not going to yield high quality peeping. But radiation scares me. And how many times a few years after the fact are problems found and people are dying, born with defects, are have damage that is permanent? Too many.
The pat down does not bother me either. A free "cop a feel" is not going to be great and if you hurt me I scream. And you get pat downs all over the world so no biggie.
But today I read you have to remove "metal" jewelry. Now, this is just not right. I will admit, I am a jewelry junkie. I love jewelry. I wear jewelry. Mostly real jewelry, not costume. So I am supposed to remove thousands of dollars of jewelry and do what with it? Who is in charge of the jewelry when I take it off? Can't put it in the carry-on as the TSA have that too. My jewelry does not set off the metal detector. Nor did it set off the one in Federal Court when I was a juror. It is tasteful jewelry, not huge and gaudy crap.
Everyone has a limit, and this is mine. There are so many weird things going on now. When Disney World has a higher level of employees than TSA, when no knows the rules, and people are stealing money right out of the security area,whoa who is in charge of this shit.
And, they say this will make the security screening go faster. Well, when you have to take off, in addition to the regular stuff, your belt and wallet, and now your jewelry, and then get dressed again in 2 different spots, how is this quicker? And they are still patting down everyone who goes through the AIT anyway-according to the reports I am reading. And what about all the grandma's who had to have someone put this stuff on to start out with? Do you think grandma is not going to start crying when you take her wedding ring and watch her dead husband gave her away, especially if she can't do it herself? This is gonna be faster, watching grandma cry while the TSA yells at her to hurry up.
Like I used to say at work, I wish I had been in that meeting when they all thought this was a great idea. I remember one meeting where we were all discussing my parts coming to the line cold. And I mean freezing cold. So in the interest of cheap it was decided to put a pvc pipe with holes in it inside the box with a hair dryer stuck in the top. I asked, what is going to happen when they lose the pipe and set the hair dryer in the box with all the paper layers or the sweating parts? Engineering response: don't be silly that will never happen. That took 24 hours to happen.
Back to the point, I do not understand how China can manage all the travel with none of drama. And they are polite. And you keep your shoes on.
The radiation bothers me. I am not that concerned with the naked aspect because well, ya get what ya pay for. A free peep is not going to yield high quality peeping. But radiation scares me. And how many times a few years after the fact are problems found and people are dying, born with defects, are have damage that is permanent? Too many.
The pat down does not bother me either. A free "cop a feel" is not going to be great and if you hurt me I scream. And you get pat downs all over the world so no biggie.
But today I read you have to remove "metal" jewelry. Now, this is just not right. I will admit, I am a jewelry junkie. I love jewelry. I wear jewelry. Mostly real jewelry, not costume. So I am supposed to remove thousands of dollars of jewelry and do what with it? Who is in charge of the jewelry when I take it off? Can't put it in the carry-on as the TSA have that too. My jewelry does not set off the metal detector. Nor did it set off the one in Federal Court when I was a juror. It is tasteful jewelry, not huge and gaudy crap.
Everyone has a limit, and this is mine. There are so many weird things going on now. When Disney World has a higher level of employees than TSA, when no knows the rules, and people are stealing money right out of the security area,whoa who is in charge of this shit.
And, they say this will make the security screening go faster. Well, when you have to take off, in addition to the regular stuff, your belt and wallet, and now your jewelry, and then get dressed again in 2 different spots, how is this quicker? And they are still patting down everyone who goes through the AIT anyway-according to the reports I am reading. And what about all the grandma's who had to have someone put this stuff on to start out with? Do you think grandma is not going to start crying when you take her wedding ring and watch her dead husband gave her away, especially if she can't do it herself? This is gonna be faster, watching grandma cry while the TSA yells at her to hurry up.
Like I used to say at work, I wish I had been in that meeting when they all thought this was a great idea. I remember one meeting where we were all discussing my parts coming to the line cold. And I mean freezing cold. So in the interest of cheap it was decided to put a pvc pipe with holes in it inside the box with a hair dryer stuck in the top. I asked, what is going to happen when they lose the pipe and set the hair dryer in the box with all the paper layers or the sweating parts? Engineering response: don't be silly that will never happen. That took 24 hours to happen.
Back to the point, I do not understand how China can manage all the travel with none of drama. And they are polite. And you keep your shoes on.
Friday, April 9, 2010
China Observations
Internet is very spotty this week. Not surprising as every day there are new warnings, dire warnings, of how China is preparing for Expo. None of the warnings have been followed up on, so I am assuming this was a cover so they could screw with the Internet. Big Daddy bought a kitchen knife, no big deal. They have never checked out ID coming into the hotel. The taxi just cruises on in with me speaking Chinglish and waving my arms about in the universal language of "I am an idiot".
Come Fly With Me has a whole new meaning here in the People's Republic:
Scheduled take-off time is a suggestion. They may or may not board the flight around this time and it is certainly no indication of when they may take-off. When you are on the plane there is an air traffic control announcement. This means you will wait. Then they bring out the carts and serve drink and boxes full of breads.
Sometime near the end of flight we are all encouraged to exercise in our seats. The first time I saw this I thought, WTF? I barely have room to breathe and you want me to exercise? Yep, they do and show a video. And yep the passengers exercise. So far have not been hit by an elbow.
Expert flying information-no, they do not all speak English. No, they do not wait until we get to the gate to stand up. No, if you have to gate check your bag as they changed the type of plane scheduled, you will not get your bag back at the gate. Yes, you better not lose your little bag tickets, they really do check very carefully for this. Yes, they will find anything that is not supposed to be in your bag. However, they are nice about it.
Sidenote: Can't find matches (no one can unless you give them a reason), but they did find my wine key. Male security did not speak English (yes, this was an international airport) so he called over the female and she said "cosmetics". So we started sorting through the bag and suddenly she said, "opener" and I thought Oh Shit, the wine key, showed it to her and she then re-scanned the bag. When it was all over she asked me what is the name of this, the wine key. She really was nice and wanted to learn what the item was called in English. (They made me open the bag and help search. They remove whatever items they find offensive-she kept the wine key, but wires and such they put in a bin and leave with you while re-scanning) Do not put your umbrella in a carry-on, hand it over to the person that takes your laptop and puts it in the bin. For some reason they are obsessed with umbrellas.
Just so your know, international hotels do not always have English speaking employees not do the western restaurants. Sales people in stores may or may not speak English also. If you are here for a while you will start speaking Chinglese and your family will stare at you the same way the Chinese people do. And just so you know speaking louder and slower does not work here either.
Personal info, job interview did not work out. Hair is out of control. Now have angry red spots all over body, not bugs as Big Daddy has no spots.
Coming home on Sunday. Hoping I still have steroid cream.
Come Fly With Me has a whole new meaning here in the People's Republic:
Scheduled take-off time is a suggestion. They may or may not board the flight around this time and it is certainly no indication of when they may take-off. When you are on the plane there is an air traffic control announcement. This means you will wait. Then they bring out the carts and serve drink and boxes full of breads.
Sometime near the end of flight we are all encouraged to exercise in our seats. The first time I saw this I thought, WTF? I barely have room to breathe and you want me to exercise? Yep, they do and show a video. And yep the passengers exercise. So far have not been hit by an elbow.
Expert flying information-no, they do not all speak English. No, they do not wait until we get to the gate to stand up. No, if you have to gate check your bag as they changed the type of plane scheduled, you will not get your bag back at the gate. Yes, you better not lose your little bag tickets, they really do check very carefully for this. Yes, they will find anything that is not supposed to be in your bag. However, they are nice about it.
Sidenote: Can't find matches (no one can unless you give them a reason), but they did find my wine key. Male security did not speak English (yes, this was an international airport) so he called over the female and she said "cosmetics". So we started sorting through the bag and suddenly she said, "opener" and I thought Oh Shit, the wine key, showed it to her and she then re-scanned the bag. When it was all over she asked me what is the name of this, the wine key. She really was nice and wanted to learn what the item was called in English. (They made me open the bag and help search. They remove whatever items they find offensive-she kept the wine key, but wires and such they put in a bin and leave with you while re-scanning) Do not put your umbrella in a carry-on, hand it over to the person that takes your laptop and puts it in the bin. For some reason they are obsessed with umbrellas.
Just so your know, international hotels do not always have English speaking employees not do the western restaurants. Sales people in stores may or may not speak English also. If you are here for a while you will start speaking Chinglese and your family will stare at you the same way the Chinese people do. And just so you know speaking louder and slower does not work here either.
Personal info, job interview did not work out. Hair is out of control. Now have angry red spots all over body, not bugs as Big Daddy has no spots.
Coming home on Sunday. Hoping I still have steroid cream.
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