Our Tax Dollars at work..

It has been an interesting week to say the least.

Left San Jose last Sunday afternoon to visit a few Texan cities and came back Friday night.

Needless to say the kids were happy to see daddy back, the wife expected daddy to be his 100% as though he has not left the couch after a week of hectic work, and the work just continues on..

While this is all expected and is being handled with some deep breathing and selective shutting off of various senses at various times, the trip did have its tense moments.

My drivers license, god bless the DMV expired in November. Anticipating this had gone and stood in line for a few hours at the DMV in late October and received an extension (which is a piece of paper with my signature and DMV seal etc.) which lasted a few months.

We keep waiting for this license that never showed and have traveled multiple times with the expired license and this piece of paper. As it so happens, the paper also has an expiry date and it had "expired" recently!

Without realizing this, yours truly keeps showing this piece of paper and travels.. the typical conversation when I show my ID will be :

ID'er (TSA agent, Car renter, Hotel lobby clerk, etc. ) : This license is expired. You know that right ?

Me : Oh Yeah. Here is my extension. Waiting for the license to come in the mail

ID'er : Okay, go right on..

So on this trip, got waived through San Jose TSA, Boarding card checking dude, AVIS car renting dude at counter .. and finally when I was about to go out of the parking lot some kid who probably gets paid a minimum wage at AVIS to verify your identity against your contract says :

Sir, your license has expired

Me : Oh Yeah. Here is my extension. Waiting for the license to come in the mail

MWD : Sir, your extension has also expired. I cannot let you drive out with this vehicle. I have to cancel this contract ASAP.

Me : WTF !!!

So had to think on my feet, call a colleague to the airport and get him to rent me a vehicle.

Subsequent to that the same Drivers license was used at two different hotel lobbies and they waved me through while my friend couldn't contain his laughter watching me hand it over nonchalantly. What else could I do?

That got me worried. What if the Austin TSA flagged this and don't let me fly back to San Jose without a "valid" photo ID?

Spent a few hours on hold with the California DMV and finally reached a person in Sacramento headquarters who was nice enough to send me another extension by FAX !

The funny thing was Austin TSA dudes who looked at my expired license and waved me through as well! I did have the extension in my pocket if asked and was ready go through the "Oh yeah..." routine..

While I was contemplating all this tax dollars at work, an older lady (in her early seventies is my guess) who happened to be just in front of me on the security line was pulled out because she had a tub of skin cream. The conversation with the agent was

TSA : Maam, we need to take you and the bag because there is something in your bag which should have been in a separate ziploc bag..

Lady : It is skin cream and it is almost empty

TSA : 100ml or less maam. You know the rules

Lady: The tub says more but the amount left in the tub is way less than 100 mL

TSA : You have two options. Either we throw this away now or you go back in line to the counter and put it in your bag and check it in and come back through the counter.

Lady : Fine. Throw it away ! (and shakes her head)

That sparked a different thought in my head. With technology being so advanced why cannot they

a. detect that it is indeed skin creme
b. make the lady put some on her skin to show it is indeed skin creme
c. check it to be really <100 ml

and send it on!

Better still do away with this 100mL bullshit because I am sure the real terrorists who bring explosives will manage to pack a punch in <100 mL and will be whisked in with good valid ID's!

Took one look at the drum where the skin creme went and was appalled by the sight of so many tubes of diaper rash creme, face creme, shaving cremes, perfumes, colognes, etc. etc.

How much of value is wasted across the United States with this stupid rule? We seriously need to reevaluate the security policy that continues to harass folks and does not do what it is supposed to do..

Until then we continue on with thought like "Hmm.. didn't know we could blow up planes with diaper rash cream!"

As irony would have it, the new drivers license arrived by post on Saturday afternoon!

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Security...

Security is a double edged sword!

Take for example the full body scanners that are going to be at most major airports in the near future. You pretty much get an x-ray picture of everyone's nakedness (be it man, woman or child) and the airport security people get to watch you and your dear ones naked on the x-ray machine.

1. This is a violation of privacy in the name of security

2. Reminds you of those Holocaust movies where the Jews get paraded naked past a checkpost and they have that bleak resigned look on their faces and their biggest concern is not the nudity but the fear of losing their life. (except the irony here is you are being stripped bare on a machine by the supposed good guys!)

3. Apparently this doesn't work as intended.

4. These machines are made by companies which have a connection to the officials who is responsible for putting these machines in the airports. . . (this is like politicians who are on the boards of weapons manufacturers pushing for the Iraq war). Looks like somethings never change)

Someone posts an inappropriate comment and we think of turning on comment moderation. Then we realize the hazzle it becomes and turn it off. (Wish google would publish stats of how many people turned off comment moderation after turning it on for the first time).

People start violating my openness in facebook and I stop using facebook! There are only so many things where you can go into a shell.. you choose your options based on the bandwidth you have to handle all these security vs. freedom compromises!

Have pretty much stopped using facebook, twitter etc. and this blog is the only online thing I do. So imagine my surprise when I was presented with this security thing to read...

and I failed!

On a sidebar note, why should all these different sites have different logins, userids, passwords etc.

The way the world is going, the best thing would be to ask for the dad and mom to request a userid for the kid the day it is born, along with the birth certificate, social security number etc.

That way the kids birth certificate will arrive in 2 days.

The Social Security number in a week

Passport in 6 weeks

UUID (Universal User ID- I am patenting this concept if it hasn't been patented already) will arrive same day with premade google, yahoo, hotmail, twitter, facebook, myspace, etc. etc. accounts...

The kid will be able to use this ID on his/her 10th birthday?!

In any case, back to the topic of security, I think if we take the first family, and the top 10 Homeland security officials and post their full body scan pictures on the internet, this thing will go away real soon!

What do you think?

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