Reminder of Pilot's concern for safety

[JPenny]

Here's an article in our local paper that shows again how careful pilots are about safety.

greenvilleonline.com/news...353781.htm (http://greenvilleonline.com/news/2004/11/23/2004112353781.htm)

Hope all of you have a happy Thanksgiving!

Jean

[Passenger Mark]

Jean,

Thanks for posting the article.

Yes... it does show that pilots do not mess around when it comes to our safety!

Mark

[Huey]

I was on the 757 return leg from Norfolk to ATL a week ago today. Wonder if it was the same plane.

[spiffyone]

HUey left a smoke bomb in the cockpit!


:wired

[Huey]

Ummmm...two things I never speak about in jest: any threat to the president and making any threat to any airliner. I know you're kidding. You know you're kidding. Everybody here knows you're kidding.

But the nice men in the black suits who speak into their cufflinks may not know you're kidding. :)

[beaugest]

A woman who works for me was taking her kids to Norway. they were on the security line and her 4 year old in a kind of loud 4 year old voice said "why do they want to look at people's bombs."
That kid was searched and wand-ed. Thoroughly.
Years from now that child will be in a therapist's office working through her inability to ever say the word bomb aloud...

[Jeff California]

I speak into my cuff links sometimes. Sometimes I hear people talking back to me.:peace

[mkahanek]

As Huey said. The FBI has not sense of humor they are aware of.

[Passenger Mark]

Jeff, as a true Nascar fan... there is no way that you know what a cuff link is!

BTW, my neighbor works for the Secret Service in Orange County... and you are right... no senses of humor!

[Amelia]

Only one time was I ever searched. I had a lot of batteries in the bottom of my camera case. He told me that they appear as one black blob on their monitor.

I'm surprised I'm not stopped all the time. I always act nervous and I travel with a travel doll. Her name is GinnyFaith and she's always in my carry on bag. She's a small 8 inch doll. Lately, I've been letting her bring along a friend...another little doll named Buffy. I'm wondering if anyone else brings something along for good luck? Actually, I like knowing the girls are with me and I'm not alone. (See...I told you I was nuts.) Among doll collectors a travel doll is not all that unusual. I think there's even a Yahoo Group for travel dolls where the dolls post their trip reports. (I don't belong...GinnyFaith has her own website.) Only one time did a screener ever make a comment. I had GinnyFaith's bike in my carry on and he mentioned that his mom collected small bikes too. They've never said a word about the dolls! Woudn't you love to be a screener for a day? I just wonder what they see in people's bags? Amelia:tada

[CaptainStark]

Mon,

"Out of the mouths of babes...":shocked

Ray:ray

[spiffyone]

Remember the one about the vibrator that was vibrating in the trash at an airport...shut the area down till they identified it...

I have a funny story. When I was 16, we went to Europe with friends. Their son was my age and wanted to buy an air gun in Germany by this particular manufacturer (he was going through this phase of shooting at targets in his backyard...he's a totally normal guy now, not a teenage delinquent) - anyway, obviously pre-9/11, Matt buys the gun and puts the box in his luggage to take home. My dad is a very paranoid type of guy and the whole flight home (8 hours or so from Brussels to NY) keeps telling Matt, "Now, just look casual at customs...don't say ANYTHING about the gun." (It was OK, at the time, to have something like this - but I guess if he had declared it we would have all been stuck there forever while they examined it. Of course, I was Little Miss Law- Abiding, scandalized that my dad was telling him not to mention it.)

Anyway...we get to NY, it's like 5 AM or something, and the custome people are totally burned out. Monotone..."Welcome to New York do you have anything to declare...welcome to New York do you have anything..." (When I go through customs, even though I know they only care about the big things, I annoy them by scrupulously detailing every.."and then I bought a Canadian Twix bar...see here's the wrapper.." ) Anyway, no one in our group had anything of consequence to declare. We all went through, "no, no, no..." Matt was last. He smiled in his cherubic 15-years-old-but-looks-11 way and said, "Oh, just my gun..." They LAUGHED and waved us through.

I don't think that would happen today...

[Huey]

Cute.


"(he was going through this phase of shooting at targets in his backyard...he's a totally normal guy now, not a teenage delinquent)"


Uh, as a normal adolescent, I shot targets in my backyard with an airgun....

[spiffyone]

I KNEW you were going to say that!

I had originally written, "he was going through this phase of shooting targets in his backyard...he's a normal guy now, doesn't own a gun or anything..."

Rut-roe.

I didn't mean it THAT way...I was thinking about the people who would read it and say, "Oh my God...you knew a kid who bought a GUN?"

You see, I grew up in this world where if your kid had a gun, that was bad...I realize it's not like that everywhere...

Just remember my bumper sticker!

[Huey]

I also remember getting my first BB gun, a single shot Daisy, on my 7th or 8th birthday. I remember getting my .22 rifle, which was my grandfather's, on Christmas morning when I was 12. And to tell you how things used to be, I remember being a high school freshman at the ripe old age of 13, and taking my 12 gauge shotgun TO SCHOOL as part of the trap and skeet team, and I remember the practice and discipline I put in to be one of the best sub-junior shooters in the state. We used to reload shells in the German classroom, and we would store our shotguns in the office. This was in the late 1980s.

Know what else? No one got shot.

:)


I'm going to Cedar Rapids on business in about 2 hours. My wife has 2 dogs, an alarm system, and a .357 Magnum. The dogs are great to alert us, the alarm is great to get help rolling, but guess which security device will hold the bad guys at bay until the good guys show up? That's why I can leave for days at a time and know she'll be okay. We had a co-worker of mine and her 5 year old over for Thanksgiving this year. She lives out in the county, just her and her son. Her alarm went off one night. It took 11 minutes for the SO to respond. She had a shotgun and holed up in her bedroom until the cavalry arrived.

I was jumped coming out of the bar I worked in one night. The bad guy stepped around a parked car holding a crow bar. I drew my (concealed) .45 Colt. I walked away. He ran away. I was cornered and likely would have been bludgeoned.


I'm trying to get you NOT to see guns (or gun owners) the way you have viewed them in the past. You're better than that, and I know it. :)