Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Over the weekend, Rachel and I went to Ohio to visit my family. Here’s one thing I learned.

It is apparently not difficult to fly without photo identification. It also appears that proper identification isn’t at all “required” for getting through security or onto a plane. It only affects how well you are screened in security. From United:

All passengers 18 and older are required to present valid and unexpired government-issued photo identification (federal, state or local). For example: driver’s license or passport. All customers must carry government-issued identification with them at all times and may be asked to show identification during boarding.

Sounds pretty concrete, right? Well it continues:

If you do not have government-issued photo identification, two forms of identification are required:

1. Non-photo government identification. For example: a voter registration card or social security card.
2. Credit card or birth certificate

You should be asking yourself, “are you fucking serious? A voter registration card?!”

Even that isn’t the whole story.

Customers without proper identification may be subject to additional security screening procedures.

Translation: “we don’t give a fuck and we can’t believe that you do, either.” I really love that they use the word “may” as opposed to something even a little bit more definite like “will.”

The TSA’s website, at least, throws in the “will.”

We encourage each adult traveler to keep his/her airline boarding pass and government-issued photo ID available until exiting the security checkpoint (children are not required to show identification). The absence of proper identification will result in additional screening.

… not that I can actually find on their website clear language spelling out the identification requirements or rules (other than a few press releases which claim there is a requirement).

So here’s the story of what I experienced.

We flew from Dulles. I checked in online as I always do. I checked a bag and proceeded to the security line, which due the curious use of snakes at Dulles only took about 30 seconds to get through. Then, in the 60 seconds between getting past the end of the line and going through the metal detector my drivers license disappeared into the thin fucking air. Clearly I wasn’t too worried about flying to Ohio at this point (although I would have been doubly pissed if I knew then that my flight was going to be about 3 hours late and that the flight time would be increased by 30 minutes due to some kind of landing gear sensor error, but I digress).

Now, if I still had an Ohio driver’s license, I would have simply gone to the BMV and gotten a new copy. But I’m a certified Virginia Resident now, so that wasn’t an option and I knew I would be at the mercy of the airline and security staffs at Dayton. I did do some research to try to figure out what I was supposed to do. Some bloggers basically said that ID isn’t required but that extra security screenings will occur.

Sunday we were scheduled to fly back from Dayton to Dulles. I didn’t have my mighty voter registration card. Nor did I have my social security card because I finally listened to all the people who told me that I should never carry it. (Although this adds reason for me to finally get my passport renewed.) At the check-in counter I openly disclosed my lack of proper ID, but said that I did have a university ID. The university ID wouldn’t fly, I was told, and that I would get extra security scrutiny and the SSSS mark. (If SSSS is printed on your boarding pass, you get the extra security treatment, a fact I learned after reading a post which I think was linked off of the Orange Yeti). Also, my boarding pass was put into an orange sleeve printed with black esses. Perhaps they’ve had issues with their security screeners not noticing the SSSS on the boarding pass?

I should also note that, at check-in, they didn’t check anything. At least, not that I recall. I don’t think I gave them anything other than my name.

I proceeded to security. At the check point I was told that, in fact, any ID from a state university constituted sufficient identification. I agreed with her that things should be that way. Shouldn’t a state university count as, at least, a local government? Such a student ID is surely better than a voter registration card. And let’s be honest, it has to be at least as good as any ID issued by any local government.

With that hurdle cleared, I proceeded to the x-rays and metal detectors. The screeners there were not at all impressed with my university ID nor the explanation from the other worker that said it was OK. So they pulled me aside. They checked my bag. They patted me down.

And that was it.

That’s how easy it was to get on an airplane without proper identification.

Lately I have hypothesized that the answer to solving our energy problems isn’t in getting people to want mass transit, it is in getting people to want to use mass transit.

Fortunately, solving the former problem is easy. Unfortunately, solving the latter problem is nearly intractable. Why? Because mass transit has a fundamental problem: the masses.

Ok, I lied. It has more than one problem.

For instance, I’d like to sincerely thank the DC Metro for leaving me waiting on the platform for nearly an hour for a train, any train, to get me close to home. With service like that, I’d rather [comment edited to keep myself out of prison].

At some point I passed a car with the bumper sticker “US out of Iraq, into New Orleans.” And first thing that popped into my head was, “they must really hate New Orleans!”

After a 1000+ miles of driving, I found myself amused and frustrated. As usual.

- At one point on the way to Clemson, we passed a little, beat-up red car that said “SWEETRIDE” and myspace.com/sweetride. It is amusing by itself. It is worthy of mention because as soon as I saw it realized that we passed the exact same car in February when we drove from C-ville to Athens, GA.

- Just north of Charlottesville, I was stuck behind a vehicle with the license plate H20 PIPE. Maybe the guy/girl/thing was a major hippie pot head douchebag, or he/she/it is actually somehow involved in irrigation or some such thing and is completely oblivious to the drug references on the license plate. Speaking of oblivious, here’s a hint for the driver when actually driving. In simple terms: get the fuck out of the way. More importantly: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY! More specifically, planning to turn left in 10 miles is not a justification to cruise along in the left lane at the exact same speed as traffic in the right lane. If you are in the left lane and there is no one ahead of you and you aren’t actually passing the cars on your right, you are doing something wrong and need to get over (and failing to realize so might mean that you are too dumb to live).

- Speaking of people who won’t get out of the way, I am thoroughly frustrated by slowpokes in sports cars. Today I realized that I am even more frustrated by slowpokes in sports cars that have racing stripes.

- Just before I got home, I heard Katie Couric on some radio show (Kolb?). She was, with all seriousness, defending the umm seriousness of the Today Show. There’s a very good reason why the writers of South Park decided that mass of human feces should be measured in a unit called the Couric (pronounced kyoor-ick).

- On a nice note, many thanks to Evan and Bear of OrangeCoat for their hospitality on Saturday. The tailgating was excellent.

- Somewhere north of Greenville, SC, I nearly shat my pants. I am pretty good about checking my mirrors and knowing when cars are approaching from behind me. Friday night, I was doing about 70 in the right-hand lane. By the time I sensed headlights beside me, the black police car in the left lane was already past me. He had to have been doing 100 miles per hour without his blue lights on.

As I begin to write this, it is 1AM Eastern and 10PM Pacific.

The trip began Tuesday around 6PM. Rachel and I departed Charlottesville. After a handful of stops to top off the tanks, we cruised into Wha’s house in Huntersville around 10:15. After a couple beers and some catching-up time, I took a shower and hit the sack.

Fast-forward about 5 hours to 4:30AM Wednesday – time to wake up. After a lone use of the snooze alarm, we were mostly awake. By 5 we were out of the house and on the road to Charlotte-Douglas Airport. In no time we parked in a purple-lit garage, checked in with Delta, and passed through security without incident (although in line I learned that I was supposed to have all my little bottles collected in a single, transparent zip-loc bag; after the line I learned that those single bags must not be all that important.).

At that time, it was way before 6 and we had an hour to kill. Coffee sounded like a good idea and predictably there was a Starbucks just around the corner while a 2nd was further down the concourse. Predictably, they also failed to produce a good cup of coffee, providing instead something that could best be described as ‘burned.”

We made it to Cincinnati/Northern-Kentucky airport a little early. Despite it being 8:30AM, Goldstar Chili was open and I had to have a cheese Coney (that’s a hot dog with mustard, onions, chili and shredded cheddar). Rachel and I also had to have some Chic-Fil-A chicken biscuits since the goodness of Chic-Fil-A doesn’t exist on the West Coast.

By 9:10, we were well fed and buckled into our 737 en route to Portland. Just over 4 hours later we landed it was about 10:30.

The rest of the day included a huge, late lunch at Jakes, some napping, multiple cups of coffee, some Fat Tire, and pulled pork barbecue sandwiches.

In all, it was a pretty good day. There were no crying babies on the plane, no delays, and even the Starbucks really isn’t worth complaining about (I just had to throw it out there for Evan and Bear).

So far I haven’t been able to make many observations about my new surroundings. The light rail transit all over the place is certainly different. And the vegetation is mostly new to me.

I also managed to gain internet access at one point, which was about the first time in 24 hours. That, more than anything will remind you just how much junk and crap email I get, as well as how many blog posts and comments I am actually exposed to in any given day. (I think I need to cut back a bit).

That’s about all. I’ll report more when I can.

It’s time to start planning the mother of all road trips. Russia is planning to build a 64 mile tunnel to link to Alaska. Great googely moogely.

The project, which Russia is coordinating with the U.S. and Canada, would take 10 to 15 years to complete… [T]he tunnel… at 64 miles will be more than twice as long as the underwater section of the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and France, according to the plan…
The Bering Strait tunnel will cost $10 billion to $12 billion.

By 10-15 years and $10 to $12 billion, I assume they actually meant 20-25 years and $20 to $25 billion.

So who’s got some vacation retirement time in 2032?