Some interesting two days have just passed. I took the airplane from
Mar del Plata to
Buenos Aires on the 17th, slept one
night in a hostel on a mattress that felt like stone, and went to the
'Circulo del Officieles de la Mar' (or some such, I don't know spanish)
where I had to give a
talk.
The oral feedback I've gotten so far indicates that people did
appreciate it, which is good.
I had originally planned to do some sightseeing in Buenos Aires after
my talk, but me being tired and not immediately finding anyone else to
go with me changed those plans. Instead, I just stayed at the C.O.M.,
where we played some Mao. Amongst other things.
About an hour before I left the place,
Holger Levsen gave me a tripod,
with the request to take it with me to Belgium, and keep it until
FOSDEM. As that would also give me the use of an tripod, and being the
photography hobbyist that I am, I was too happy to oblige. There was
just one problem: the suitcase that contained my luggage already had a
bulge from here to tokio, so adding it was a no-no.
No problem, I thought. I'll just keep it in my carry-on luggage.
There's some space left there, and I certainly didn't have 5kg of
carry-on luggage yet. Problem solved. The 'security' in EZE is a joke;
the security officer
doesn't even look at the screen while
X-raying my luggage. Well done.
So I fly from EZE to MAD on the first, 11-and-a-half-hour leg of my
flight. Madrid Barajas is a crazy airport, with its own private metro.
Somewhere between gates R-something (where IB6844 from EZE arrived) and
J40 (where the flight to BRU will depart from), we need to go through a
security checkpoint. Strange, since I hadn't had to do that on my way in
from BRU to EZE; but of course you have no choice, so I comply.
As I've gotten used to by now, what with the mess of cabling in my
laptop bag and the other metal objects there, I get a baggage check. The
security officer who goes through my very messy bag asks me to open the
bag containing the tripod, so he can see it. He then promptly decides
that it is a "sharp" object, and that it is "not acceptible". Here the
fun begins.
Of course, trying to argue with a security guard isn't the best idea
if you want to be allowed on any flight, ever, so I don't even try that.
I ask him 'can I check that in, instead?' and he tells me how to go
back, to the exit, and to the departures hall where I can have that
little tripod get checked in. So I go there. The lady at the check-in
desk tells me that she cannot check the tripod in, because the flight
has already been closed and I'm too late. I tell her I'm from a
connecting flight, and that I can't help that. She says she knows. So I
ask her what my other options are. She tells me I could try to get on
the next flight to Brussels, which is at 20:00 (rather than the 16:20
flight that I was booked on). I consider that an acceptable compromise,
so ask her how to get that done, and she refers me to the ticket sales
desk, some 10 meters to my left.
Unfortunately, the 20:00 flight turns out to be
completely
booked, and there are no other flights on the same day. The best
alternative he can give me is a flight to Amsterdam at 19:20, which
would cost 'a little more'. I ask him 'how much more'. He starts looking
up things in his computer, and after a few minutes tells me that he
cannot refund my ticket for the 16:20 flight and that a flight to
amsterdam would cost me 429. At this point I get somewhat angry, and
tell him that this is not acceptable. He refers me to the customer
service desk right across.
The lady at the customer service desk is friendly, but firm: she
cannot help me. Either I leave the tripod behind, or I pay whatever the
ticket service asks me—she takes my word that it is 429, because
she cannot check it, and cannot change it, either. I get more agitated,
and ask to see the supervisor. She points me to a lady a little across
who can 'call' the supervisor. At this point it is 15:55
As I reach that lady, apparently someone else had just asked for the
same thing, and starts arguing with a guy in black uniform, who
appears to be the supervisor, about the fact that he's got more
than 30kg of luggage which he isn't allowed to take along with him.
Dude, not a
single airline will let you do that, no matter how
much you argue. I let them argue for about 10 minutes, all the while
nervously looking at my watch, but then I interrupt with 'please, I
don't have much time left before my flight leaves'. That gets his
attention. In our two-minute conversation, the guy in black backs up
everything the other three people have told me, adding that '429
is reasonable; your luggage is already on the flight, and it
will cost Iberia a lot of money to delay the flight and get it off'. I
curse. He also seems surprised at the notion that I'm not allowed to
take a tripod in my carry-on luggage.
Hmm.
Figuring I have nothing to loose, I curse one more time, and make a
run for it. When I reach the security checkpoint, I ask to be allowed to
skip the queue in front of it, on the grounds that I have only 15
minutes left before my flight leaves. Mind you, this is not the same
security checkpoint as the one where I was rejected about an hour
earlier; this is the security checkpoint between the departures hall and
the secure area, whereas the other security checkpoint was one between
two different terminals. I am granted my request, and quickly throw
everything in the X-ray boxes. They need to go through my bag again. I
help them, showing where everything conspicuous is, and opening my flute
box so they know what's in there. He looks at everything, and signals
that I can move on.
Hang on, I think. This can't be right.
'Okay,' I ask?
'Yes,' he says.
I run for the nearest info desk, show them my boarding pass, and tell
them 'please, my flight leaves in 10 minutes, can you tell me where to
go?' They are quick and efficient. Gate J40. I make a run for it again,
and
just make it in time. Of course, I could forget about my
plans of finding a power outlet, plugging in my cell phone and calling
my parents, but that's not a big deal—there's a train station at
Brussels Airport.
So what have we learned? Security on airports is random, arbitrary,
non-standardized, and utterly stupid. Items that pose no danger at
all—plastic bottles containing more than 100ml of water, small
quantities
of yoghurt that are over 100grammes but not over
100ml, tripods—are not allowed, while on the other hand I've
occasionally gotten through security carrying
knives and tools
that are
clearly forbidden by the rules.
We've also learned that the rules very much depend on the particular
person checking you. If you're refused for an item that is not a knife
or a gun or something else similarly problematic, it may help to just
find a
different security checkpoint and try again. It's not as
if they make any sense, anyway.
Many people will sell you many expensive solutions. However, I
think we've hit on something cheap, effective and practical; zip-lock
bags in a deep tub, labelled with sticky tags.
According to a recent article, 6 Common Website Mistakes That Cost Money are:
I’ve had little time in the four years I’ve lived in Roslindale to get involved in community volunteer efforts. My wife Rachele, however, has devoted several years to efforts such as the Roslindale Community Center, 
What I liked
.
Me and 
Since 2005, the talks at Debconf have been recorded on video, to be
I had this books since 2 years under my screens to raise them at work. Never though of opening them, I just realized what they are some days ago.
As 
I've enjoyed reading Sarah Hatter's (from 
I had to learn it the hard way; really cheap plane tickets doesn’t exist unless you buy them months in advance, and killing three hours at an airport can be done by writing a long post on how to kill three hours at an airport. But Finnair does have the funniest instruction videos I’ve ever seen. Going to Helsinki for Assembly 2008 was worth the money.
This was my first party outside Norway, and the one thing that really surprised me was that most of the gamers actually did kill all audio and lights when told to do so. Smash told me that some hardcore gamers just put a towel over their head and screen to continue playing, but I still think it deserves some credit.
Being at the party place was ok, even with the security check. I think the scene booth organized by Truck was great, even though I don’t have anything to compare it to. It was nice to see someone walk up to the booth and ask a lot of questions. I’m happy about missing out on Hesburger, and sad that it took me two days to find the Pizza Hut.
Boozembly was a lot more fun, even with the rain. I found out that Sauli can be a very nice guy, that you don’t need toothpaste when you have mintu, that guys in kilts got nothing under and that kiitos means thanks. I sure hope information like this will be useful to someone someday.
It’s always nice to see old friends, like Spiikki, again and even nicer knowing that you can still pick up where you left two years ago. And it’s fun meeting the skilled people you’ve admired for a long time. Actually telling them that got a bit easier when I managed to stop being so shy.
I always find it difficult to keep it short and still cover the most important things, so I just want to say the following; I think the 4k by Portal Process and TBC rocks, and the 64k by Fairlight did impress me. Thanks to Leia and Little Bitchard for letting me crash at their place. And thanks to Gargaj for being awesome.