Re: Airport Checks ewr, for example

[Simon Nathan <simonwide@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

one more thing to watch is being separated from
your gear. you send your bags through and are stalled  at the keys
and coins exercise. also, open, inspect, close one bag a time. sometimes
three inspectors can confuse you. these hourly workers think that they
are cops. i personally know an airport (ewr) employee, xray inspector,
who tried to take his personal protection knife through xray in his domke
bag. they caught it. was he embarrassed? naw. simon nathan

Stephen Puckett wrote:

Of possible interest to some of you with certain kinds of panoramic
cameras that have wireframe and similar finders.

Usually I have some cameras with film still in them so I have these
hand-checked also.  They usually ask to 'look through' the camera
so I show them how, etc.  Sometimes they just look through without
asking so I have to watch them closely to stop undo fiddling.  The
biggest surprise was when I had some cameras with only wireframe
finders.  I told them that there was nothing to look through and
they insisted that they 'look through the lens'.  I thought that I
must unload the cameras, etc., etc., then it dawned on me the
procedure that might satisfy them.  I told them how to look through
the wireframe finder, they then looked through the finder (ie.
through just thin air) at various places in the building, were
satisfied, and so let me go.  8-)  This works now all the time.  A
lot of it seems to me to be just going through the motions (CYA)
for them - I stay courteous and try to be helpful with their CYA
motions.

I'm prepared for it all now.  I set the bags down and immediately
lift out all the film (in 1 place for this) and spread it out, lift
out the cameras and spread them out, and start to undo the rest of
the bags.  They then stop me and check some of the film, some of
the cameras, etc.  Takes 1-5 minutes to go through the motions.