Okay, question for you out there.....

[patgund]

As I mentioned yesterday, I made the flight reservations to head out to Dallas/Ft. Worth (and surrounding area) next month.

As I was booking my flight on Expedia, I noticed all the work info in my account was for my previous job at the DotCom from hell WebSideStory. Which makes me realize my last plane trip was over three years ago. (Yeah, I'm not much of a traveler I fear.)

Which of course means I have absolutely no experience with dealing with all the new rules and regulations now in place at airports.

First question: My flight from SD leaves at 6:30 am. When should I try to get to the airport. I've heard everything from 1 to 3 hours before the flight. (As early as 3am, ugh. I hope I can get a shuttle to pick me up and take me to the airport then).

Second question: My carry-on luggage is my laptop bag, along with power adapters, DVD's and headphones, assorted cables and connection cords for my cell phone and PDA, etc. Obviously my technician tool kit gets removed from the bag before hand. I know that I need to leave my Powerbook or iBook on during inspection so they can see it's a real laptop. What else should I be aware of??

Third question: What other advice can one give me for traveling currently?

Comments

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

You don't need to turn on your laptop any more. They just make you put it in a separate bin in the x-ray conveyor. Also, the wait for me hasn't been longer than 20 minutes even when the security checkpoint line was fairly long, and I've flown at various times and levels of busyness over the last few years. I wouldn't say you should get there more than an hour early. You will probably be asked to remove your shoes unless they're tennis shoes, so save yourself some trouble and wear ones you can slip off and just take them off without being asked.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

I tend to wear fairly comfy sneakers when traveling, so that shouldn't be a problem. Thanks for the advice.

Now I just have to figure out how to get there. Pity I don't have many night owl friends anymore. (Laugh!)

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Silly man; I'll take you. I start work at 6am anyway, five minutes from the airport. Pick you up at 5?

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Alternately, you could park your car near my house and I could take you in any time you like, before 6. Either way.

[jkusters]

First, you worked at WebSideStory? What can you tell me about them? They made me an offer with my last job search, but I got some bad vibes from Nolly and others. What kinds of hell did they put you through?

Second, I've travelled with my iBook a number of times. You don't need to have it on, or at least I haven't, but they will want to x-ray it separate from anything else you're bringing on board. Be prepared to take jackets and shoes off (I haven't had to do that with San Diego, but I have with Denver, San Jose, and Philadelphia). Put all sharp pointy things in your checked baggage or don't bring it at all. I would plan to arrive at the airport at least 90 minutes before your flight, more if you need to check in at the ticket counter. The last time I went with Cloud 9 shuttle, they picked me up 2 hours before my flight so I got to the airport in time. The security line is the real problem. It can be very long and move very slowly.

I don't remember what day you're flying out. If you're flying out on Monday or Friday, be prepared for it to take a little longer. Those are the contractor and business flights, and they are always very full, and very rarely is there a lot of room in the overhead bins. But you probably know that already. I didn't. :-)

Have fun!

JOhn.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

First, you worked at WebSideStory? What can you tell me about them? They made me an offer with my last job search, but I got some bad vibes from Nolly and others. What kinds of hell did they put you through?

Granted, my information is almost three years out of date, so things may have changed. I was the 23rd person they hired as a startup, the 2nd in their tech support department for a long time, was one of two people that created their QA department, and was there for over 2 and a half years. I was also canned when they started to lay off everyone but the network people, executives, and marketers. Half of engineering and web design got booted, almost the entire QA and Tech Support staffs went.

When it was a startup, it was a pretty good place to live. Half of their income at the time was because they had a secondary job of hosting adult websites, (primary was internet statistics), and you needed to have a good sense of humour with those. However, there was eventually a executive coup that overthrew the founder and most of the upper level people that had started the company, and that started a push towards developing products that marketing thought was wanted. (Great example of this was a short-lived IM/Spyware client. Marketing judged the demand based on AIM, because that's what marketing used. At the time, ICQ was the most popular IM client, but marketing never heard of ICQ so didn't compare against that. It died quickly.

Something to keep in mind is that, at the time I was there, WSS had a major phobia against anything that wasn't Windows *AND* IE. When I started, HitBox 3.0 wouldn't work properly with Netscape or report hits from Netscape properly.

HitBox 4 didn't report hits from IE for Macintosh properly, even though at the time that was the default web browser for Mac. The company attitude was "Netscape? Macintosh? Fuck them, nobody uses them anyway." When I was laid off, the HitBox code would still only count 25% of the hits from any browser on the Macintosh, and they had no desire to fix it. Which is why I always take reports about the Macintosh from StatMarket, (their marketing arm) with a grain of salt.

Marketing and the executives kept trying to force the Network people maintaining the HitBox servers to go away from BSD to the "more advanced" Windows NT Server, (even though tests with a NT server handling the HItBox load showed the server had a 1 hour life expectancy before crashing.)

The art director hired all of the graphic artists there based on PC knowledge rather than ability, and bragged he'd never hire a graphic artist that was a Mac user. I got away with a couple of Macs for tech support and QA reasons, but they weren't supported or very well liked.

Over all, it wasn't a bad place at the start, just phobic of anything non WinTel and IE. I was one of 40 people laid off in March of 2001, and 80 more got canned in June 2001, and towards the end of my time there, everything that had made it a good place to work had died.

I don't remember what day you're flying out. If you're flying out on Monday or Friday, be prepared for it to take a little longer.

Friday, 6:30 am. I was thinking of being there by 4am.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

For data-weighting purposes, I'll note that my words of warning were based on hearing patgund's tales.

[caprine.livejournal.com]

Wear shoes that slip off and on easily. You will be asked to remove them, and you don't want to slow the line down with lacing and unlacing.

I found that getting there an hour in advance worked just fine for my flight to Montreal last year.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Wow. Starting to think I should wear my uggs. Or maybe mukluks instead......

[aeddie.livejournal.com]

Flip-flops or bare feet. :)

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Uggs would be the only shoes I wouldn't take off at the inspection. Also take off your belt, mine's set it off and it has a small buckle. If you get a particularly paranoid TSAer they'll up the sensitivity to where your zipper sets it off (happened to me once--but keeping shoes and belt off lets me through w/o getting forwarded to those guys).

They have plastic trays for stuff, snag a couple as early in the line as you can, have your laptop in one, everything else in the other, empty all pockets including shirt. When the trays come out snag them and take them to one of the chairs by the exit and redress there.

At 6:30 am an hour or 1.5 should be sufficient lead time.

Other hazards--they're not just legally prohibited from having a sense of humor, they actually don't have one, and getting an excuse to roust someone over a joke is the most fun and excitement they can look forward to during a shift. So I don't open my mouth at all except for "Yes, sir" and "thank you, sir". Think of it as the "no civil rights zone".

I tend to be reasonably stoic about the process because I had worse in the Air Force, so it's just like being back on active duty for 30 minutes or so. Alternatively you could shave all your body hair and carry a Koran, so they'll be too terrified of a discrimination complaint to even look at you closely. ;-)

[angelique69.livejournal.com]

Remember no pocket knives, dangerouts crochet hooks, pliers, nail clippers or finger nail files either. Safe and uninteresting journey. Blessed Be, Angelique

[ckgriffin.livejournal.com]

Now finger nail clippers (as well as crochet hooks and knitting needles) are allowed but scissors are not.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Makes me wonder if they would fuss about a lucet. More than likely

[ckgriffin.livejournal.com]

I really doubt that they would have an issue with the lucet, so long as you didn't bring anything to cut the thread with afterwards. :-)

Bring a self addressed stamped padded envelope just it case you need to mail anything to yourself that they won't let you carry on.

[angelique69.livejournal.com]

That's interesting because they confiscated a $25 pair of German jewelry making pliers and threw them away just 2 months ago at Raleigh-Durum Airport. Blessed Be, Angelique

[dancing-star.livejournal.com]

If your carring lancets or needles get a perscription note from your doctor, even if you don't take lancets or needles in your carry on.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Not a diabetic, so the question for me is academic. However, it's still good info to pass onto friends that are.

[dancing-star.livejournal.com]

Many people carry such for other medical reasons...