2010 TSA Statistics

If you have been following my blog then you are aware of how I am a true fan of the TSA and all that they do. I thought I would take a hot minute to tell you about the 2010 statistics recently released by the TSA on their performance for the year. So here is the breakdown of all the things that the TSA found in 2010.

Dildos confiscated (weapons of ass destruction) – 456

Hernias caused – 1,485

Enlarged Prostates – 8,249

Men with one testicle – 765

Hemorrhoid cases – 3,172

Natural blonds – 3.4

Breast implants – 59,350

Dirty diapers – 113,657

Transvestites – 133

Bottles of lube over 3.5 ounces – 79,342

Under wear containing skid marks - 396.5

Women with padded bras – 34

Hamsters that used to belong to Richard Gere – 5

Cases of undiagnosed breast cancer – 59

Little bags of drugs inserted into someone’s ass – 3

"Fake" redheads where the carpet does not match the drapes - 147


Here are the important stats right here:

Terrorist Plots Discovered – 0

Bombs found – 0

Pissed off American travelers – 300,000,000

So I hope you can see the great job our government has been doing to keep us safe and all while you are traveling. Keep up the good work perverts TSA Agents.

I feel a Real Men Of Genius post coming soon.......

Worldly Wednesdays – Scotland

Well if you have been following my blog, you have been reading my series in my worldly travels where I get to travel on someone else’s dime (which is usually my employers) to nice places all over the globe. And if you are new to my blog then you need to go back and read my other posts from this series. Last time I told you I would take you to a European destination and I am not going to disappoint you.

Back in March of 2006 my work asked me to go to Aberdeen, Scotland on a month long business trip. And well honestly I could not say no to going to the land of some of my ancestors (I am like a quarter Scottish roots but a mutt for all practical purposes). So I packed up head for the airport for the long 10 hour flight across the pond.

Kings College

 
I had a long flight from Houston to Amsterdam as there is no direct flight to Aberdeen from the US. I got to the airport in Amsterdam and had to check in for my flight to Aberdeen as it was a different airline for the second leg of my trip. After waiting 2.5 hours in a long ass line to get my boarding pass, I get to the front of the line only to be told that my seat on my connecting flight was in first class, and I could have used the no waiting first class line (my life is full of stories like this as this shit only happens to me). So I ran, yes RAN to the gate and was the last person to get on the plane. After a short flight from Amsterdam to Aberdeen, I was finally on the ground in the land of my forefathers. It was cold, no not just cold but FUCKING cold (yes I said the same thing about Canada). As the only non-Brit on the flight I breezed right through customs and immigration much to the disgust of the Brits who were cussing me while I walked by in my Pittsburgh Steelers jacket.

A Really Old Cemetery

I would have to say that on all of my travels that I have gone on, the hotel I had when in Scotland was the best. I had a proper living room with two couches, a full kitchen with a stove, oven, fridge, and huge bedroom. The bath room was a little lacking, but hey we can’t all get everything that we want can we?

My Hotel

 
Little did I know when I left on this trip that I would be working for 6 days a week for about 14 hours a day, so I did not have very much time to get actually get out and explore the country as I had wanted to. I did manage to get out on Sundays and walk around town (I didn’t rent a car because it was too confusing for me sober and as I was drunk all the time I didn’t want to chance it). The first Sunday I was there, I walked all over the place. I found the concert hall, the huge ass library, the shopping center, City Hall, and Robert Gordon University. The town is beautiful in and of itself as the entire city is grey and made of granite (the nickname of the city is the Granite City). I also managed to find some really old cemeteries and a statue of William Wallace (ie Braveheart and which I think every city in Scotland has one but I can’t blame them).

William Wallace

The weather in Aberdeen is crazy. If you have ever lived in or been to Houston then you know that the weather here is crazy, but in Aberdeen it is very strange. On morning I woke up and it was warm (well as warm as 20F can be) and the skies were clear. Within a few hours it was cloudy and snowing. 3 hours later it was clear again, and a few hours after that it was raining. When it was time to leave for the hotel at the end of the day, it was clear again and warm. The receptionist at the office told me that they have a saying there, “Aberdeen, where you get all 4 seasons in a day’s time.” And I thought Houston weather was crazy.

City Hall

The next Sunday I was off, one of my friends from the Aberdeen office who I used to work with back in Houston, took me for a drive to a castle outside of town. It was a nice castle, but it costs about $50 to go inside of it. And after learning that the castle was just someone’s home and that there was no battle fought there, I passed on the entrance fee. It was a really nice beautiful place though if you take away the high cost. My friend also took me into Old Aberdeen where there was a 1400 year old church and a 500 year old college. I was in awe of the college as it pre-dated Columbus coming to the Americas.

The Castle

During the week when I was working if I was able to get back to the hotel at a decent time, I would change and walk down to the main street in Aberdeen called Union Street for drinks and dinner. I hit up every single bar that Union Street had to offer. The best at the time was a place that was a mecca to all things Frankenstein. Another good place I found was an old church that had been converted into a bar/nightclub called “Soul”. It was really interesting considering that the DJ booth was where the pulpit would have been if it was still a church.

"Soul"

After working what seemed like an eternity, I came to my last night in Aberdeen which happened to be a Friday night. My friend from the office decided that me and him should go out for a nice meal and then to a bar for one drink. Well we ended up at a really nice Chinese place and drank a couple bottles of French wine. We then headed off to a small local bar for one drink of Scotch. Well after drinking a few glasses of Scotch I was ready to leave, but a rowdy group of Scots heard that I was American and that it was my last night in Scotland. So they decided that I would stay at the bar and they would be buying me glasses of all of the different great types of Scotch. Four hours later, I was completely fucking wasted and it was not even 2 am. Did I mention that my flight leaves at 7am and I had not packed yet? Well we left that bar with the group of Scots and headed to a strip club. Now normally I am game for a strip club, but I had to pack and get up before the sun does. Well after 3 hours in the strip club (I was disappointed because none of the women were Scottish, they were all Russian) and tons of more drinks (which I didn’t pay for) I was finally able to stumble out of the strip club and walk stumble back to my hotel room at roughly 5am. I packed my bags while drunk, and then headed to the airport. I was drunk when I checked in at the airport. I was drunk when my flight took off and then landed in Amsterdam. I was still drunk when my flight to Houston took off and I was still drunk when I got back to Houston some 14 hours later. I have never been so damn drunk in my life, but I did not puke so I guess it was a great last night in Scotland.

Union Street

Although I did not get to do the things I had wanted to do while I was there (a visit to the highlands, touring some whiskey distilleries, and a trip to Edinburgh), I did get to enjoy a little bit of another great country and get a nice stamp in my passport. If you ever get a chance to go to Europe, I would highly advise you to head to Scotland as it is very beautiful and it is has a lot of history to take in.

My Take On The TSA

Last week I told you about my humorous story of how you can talk to your kids about getting fondled by the TSA. Well here are my serious thoughts about the TSA and some of the hypocrisy involved with them and our government.

Now unless you have been living under a rock for the last month you have heard about the wonderful new screening procedures at the US airports. It basically goes like this; you can get scanned by their new “high tech” body scanner or you can opt out of going through the scanner and get the full body pat down. Or you can go through the scanner and if they find something you will get the full body pat down. Now I am going to break this down with some common sense.



The scanners emit radiation much like an x-ray machine and the government says that they are safe. Can you believe the government? Of course you can’t believe them and everyone knows this. How many times has the government said that something was safe, and then later it does a double take and says that it is not safe? I can name a few for you. Remember the artificial sweeteners from the 80’s that they said were safe, and then latter said caused cancer? How about DDT and Agent Orange? What about all of the medications that they said were safe and later recalled? What about the tooth paste made in China, or the toys from China? See my point.

Everyone has to go through these procedures. The pilots have to go through this procedure multiple times a day. Why make the pilots go through this procedure looking for a gun or some other weapon? Did you forget that they are pilots and could at will crash any plane into anything that they wanted at any given time? Seems like a waste of their time to screen them as if they are intent on killing people with an airplane, the screener won’t catch that.

The government has said that all the TSA employees are good people. Yet in the past we have heard of TSA agents who were convicted sex offenders having the job of screeners. Yes that is correct. If the government can’t even know who the fuck is working for them and screen them, do you really have any faith in anything that they do which is security related (like the no fly list for example) like screening.

The government has also said that the images from the body scanners are not kept and are destroyed. Well then how come all of these damn images are showing up all over the internet? Yep someone is getting access to them or the TSA agents themselves are not all “good” people as you have told us they are. In either case, the images are not secure.

As I said you can opt out of going through the scanner and having a full body pat down to check you for weapons. So some guy can shove a homemade C4 bomb up his ass and by opting out of the scanner he would only get the pat down which does not check the rectum. So in theory you could smuggle a bomb onto a plane this way. Seems like a dumb ass thing to do to allow people to opt out of the scanner.

The TSA scans the passengers, the airports randomly screens the checked baggage, yet the cargo (mail and packages) does not get scanned. This was one of the major points in the 9/11 commission report. So if you wanted to blow up an airplane all you have to do is mail a bomb and time it to explode while the plane is in the air. Why scan the passengers and their baggage if you don’t scan the mail and cargo? Do you not remember hearing about the FedEx and UPS planes recently having bombs on board? Are the meal carts scanned because you sure as fuck could smuggle a weapon on plane that way couldn’t you. There are so many ways to get something on a plane it is not even funny.


I think that the TSA and the government should use profiling in doing the screenings to some extent. Now all of you are saying “Well Mr. Trash racial profiling and profiling is illegal and we can’t do it,” and I say bullshit. Police forces use profiling all the damn time. Every time a woman is murdered who is it that the police look at first? It is the husband, boyfriend, ex-husband, and ex-boyfriend that get looked at first. That is profiling and the police use it. Anytime there is a serial killer or some mail bomber who is it that they are looking for? It is a white male, early to late 30’s, lives alone or with their mom, is educated, and has problems being social with people. Yes that is profiling and the police use it. So use some common sense here in the airports and use profiling. It is Muslim men who are the ones trying to do the bad things on and to airplanes and their passengers. Look at the picture of the 9/11 hijackers, do you see a 3 year old black boy? Do you see a 65 year old white grandmother? No you don’t. Use some common sense in doing the screenings and look for the people who are actually doing the shit that you are trying to prevent.

Contact the Israelis and ask them what they are doing right with their airline El Al. They have not had a hijacking since the mid to late 1970’s. So I would find out what they are doing to prevent chicken shit terrorists from getting on their planes. Now I know that they have a fraction of the airports and daily flights that the US does, but still you could learn something from them. Most of the world hates them and wants to see their destruction so they are always on their toes security wise and have a system in place to prevent any problems with their airline.

I just think common sense should be used in stuff like this. Well really in damn near fucking anything in world should be done with common sense. Let me tell you a little story which can illustrate this better. Back in 2002 I was flying home from Brazil for Christmas on Christmas Eve. I was flying home first class (I used my frequent flyer miles to do so) and as the first to board the plane, I noticed who was around me. There was me, two white guys from the same town I was working in, an old white grandmother, and a middle aged Muslim man dressed in the garb. Guess what 4 people got the random search in the Rio airport, that’s right, the 4 non-Muslims going home to celebrate a Christian holiday. Now who of the people in first class would you suspect of causing trouble with terrorism? I did find it funny that when I was joking about that fact with the other people in first class, that the Captain of the flight had come out of the cockpit wearing a camouflage hunting jacket and a “I Love To Hunt” camouflage hat on. I knew we were getting home safely after seeing that the captain was a redneck hunter.

I also find it funny that the ACLU completely fucking silent when it comes to this issue of the scanners and the pat downs. The only time it is legal in this country to be searched like this is when you are being arrested. So why is it that the ACLU is silent? Oh yea that is right, the ACLU does not mind rights violations as long as it is a Democrat that has put the practice into law. Do you remember how vocal the ACLU was when Bush got the Patriot Act passed? Can you imagine how vocal the ACLU would be if it was Bush who had the TSA doing pat downs on people like they are now?

Do you remember the shoe bomber who attempted to ignite a bomb which was concealed in his shoe? The only thing which stopped him was the passengers on the plane who got up and stopped him when he was observed trying to ignite the bomb. Do you remember the Christmas Day bomber from last year who tried to ignite a bomb on a plane which was concealed in his underwear? He was also stopped by passengers around him who were not going to be blown up with some damn terrorist. And then Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano said that the system worked. Bullshit you ignorant woman, the system did not work. The system would have worked if this asshole was caught before he boarded the airplane. If the “system” is the passengers stopping terrorists, we are truly fucked.

I guess what I am trying to say is that common sense should be used in trying to stop terrorists from doing what they want to do. At the end of the day though if you don’t want to be felt up, then don’t fly. And also you can’t really stop someone from doing bad if their mind is dead set on doing evil. But since common sense is never used by our government, don’t be shocked to see Congressman Barney Frank feeling up the men, Ellen Degeneres feeling up the women, and someone like Michael Jackson feeling up your kids.

Worldly Wednesdays – Destin, Florida

Well here is another in the series of my worldly travels were I got to travel on someone else’s nickels. Last time I said I would tell you about a warmer place, so here it is. I know it says Florida and that Florida is not really worldly, but it involves me leaving my tiny corner of Texas. And when you leave the state of Texas it is like traveling to another country. I mean have you ever seen how big Texas really is?

Anyway back in March of 2009 for Spring Break I packed up my kids and we drove to Georgia to help their grandparents move into a new house that they had just bought the week before. We stayed there 4 days doing all of the moving, cleaning, painting, and other stuff which goes along with moving into a new house. On the 5th day we (me and their grandparents) packed up the kids and drove south down to Destin, Florida as a reward to the kids for their help with moving.

The whole way driving down to Destin we told the kids we were heading north to Canada, which the kids believed until we actually go to Destin and they could smell the beach air. They were a tad bit pissed off at our lies and deceptions because they were actually by that point wanting to go snow skiing. But they got over it really quick when they discovered that our hotel was a resort on the beach.

We got there on a nice, crisp, COLD Thursday evening and my kids being who they are, just had to go swimming immediately. So we proceeded to unpack the cars and get everything into the resort room. This room was beyond what words can describe, it had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, and a huge living room. Oh and the best thing about it was that I was not paying for it. I was impressed to say the least living like rich folk live.

So we quickly headed down to the beach and it was freezing cold. I did not even go into the water because it was so cold, but my kids being kids jumped in head first and swam until way after dark. After a few hours of that we hit up the resorts heated swimming pool, which I did partake in some of the hot tub.

We spent the next two whole days at the beach from sun up to sun down. The kids were in the water swimming. And since it was Spring Break, I was observing the college co-eds to make sure that they were not drowning. Yes I know what you are thinking, you are a damn pervert. I was sitting in my lawn chair drinking beer; of course I was going to watch the ladies. Sheesh I am a MAN after all.

Words just simply can’t describe how beautiful the beaches of the Florida panhandle truly are. The sand is white and clean, and the water is a light blue and crystal clear. And when I say crystal clear, I mean crystal clear. You can see all of the marine life all around you in the water if you are one of those paranoid people who don’t like sharks.

We also ventured around town a little bit and did some shopping and some eating. The only negative thing I would say is if you ever go to Destin, DO NOT eat at a place called “Fudpuckers”. The place blows chunks, the food sucked, the service sucked, and it is highly overpriced for shitty food and service. You could have a better meal at McDonald’s.

Well after playing on the beach for 3 days, Sunday came around and we had to get on the road for the 8 hour drive back to Texas. Which was depressing to say the least, but I was thankful for the opportunity to get to visit one of the South’s best beaches. If you ever get a chance to go there, I would highly recommend it. You don’t even have to go to Destin, you can go to any of the beaches along the Alabama or Florida panhandle to see a truly beautiful beach.

Next time around I will take you somewhere outside of North America.

Worldly Wednesdays – Canada

One of the perks of working in the oil patch is that occasionally I am required to travel all over the world for work. The best part about this is that I get to travel on someone else’s nickel and sight see at the same time. So I have decided to share occasional stories about where I have been able to travel to and post some pictures from these wonderful places.

Back in November of 2007, I had the privilege of being sent to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for two weeks. Even though I was sad that I was going to miss out on the Thanksgiving Holiday with my kids, I accepted the chance to go to Canada as I have always wanted to visit there.

When I arrived there it was cold. No scratch that, it was FUCKING COLD. It was somewhere around 20 below during the day and 30 below at night. Having grown up in Pittsburgh, I was used to cold. But this shit was so could my penis retracted inside of my body like how a turtles head goes back into his shell.

This is what they show on Canadian TV!

So with a normal schedule of working 8-5 and a company paid rental car I was able to do some exploring of the town. I got out to see the world’s largest shopping mall which has an indoor hockey rink, an indoor water park, a casino, a shooting range (yes they are rednecks like Texans), and here is the kicker - an indoor amusement park with a roller coaster. Although I was a tad bit disappointed in the clothing stores as they had no sizes in men’s clothing above a large. Needless to say I was considered a fat bastard there.
 

The view from the front of my office.

I got to go to many bars and pubs and get completely shit faced. I mean when in Canada does as Canadians do Eh? One of my favorite places to go was a restaurant called Boston Pizza. They had tv’s with games on, cold beer (ah fuck everything is cold in Canada), and some of the best pizza I have ever had.

And since I was in Canada and it was hockey season, I sure as fuck had to take in a NHL game while there. I got lucky enough to snag some free tickets from the office and was able to go see the Edmonton Oilers play the Vancouver Canucks in the house that Gretsky built. Edmonton won a close game that ended up tied in overtime and went to a shootout. It was a great game to see as I had not seen a NHL game since I was a kid back in Pittsburgh.

One of the faceoffs from the game.

My first weekend there I was off so I was able to take a bus and go down and visit one of my friends Teresa in Calgary who I used to work with back in Houston. Her and her boyfriend (now husband) picked me up downtown. We ended up driving out to the Rocky Mountains to a place called Canmore. Canmore is a beautiful little ski resort town nestled in the Canadian Rocky Mountains not too far from Banff. It was breath taking there. I did not want to leave. The mountains, the clean air, needless to say I was in heaven.

Me in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

After having a nice dinner there, we drove back to my friend’s house an hour away in Calgary. We chit chatted for a while and then headed to a Calgary Hitman minor league hockey game at the same arena where the Calgary Flames play. It was a fun time. After the game we headed back to my friends house for pizza, scotch, beer, and good conversation.

The next day I headed back to Edmonton on the bus. And I was very glad I took a bus down to Calgary and had not rented a car as we drove back to Edmonton in a damn blizzard.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful and I just relaxed and stayed warm. I ended up that last week in the hotel bar every night eating dinner and watching sports nightly as it was too damn cold to venture outside.

The view from my hotel balcony.

I would have to say that the best thing I liked about being there was the breakfast buffet in the hotel. They had all you can eat pancakes, bacon, sausage, hash browns, eggs, you name it and they had it to eat. It is amazing though how much more you eat when in cold weather climates to stay warm.

Well I would not say that the free food was the best, the best thing that I loved the most about it up there was the CLEAN air, the snow, and the cold weather. Yes I did enjoy the cold weather as when I got back to Houston, the temperature outside was in the high 80’s. But it was cold up north and as much as I bitched about it, I loved. I went to Canada with a carton of smokes and came home with exactly 5 packs. You bet your ass it is cold when you are drunk every night (as those of you who don’t know, you smoke more when you drink) and you come home with half a carton of smokes.

If you ever get a chance to visit Alberta, I would HIGHLY recommend that you go to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. That was the highlight of my trip. 

Next time I will talk about a warmer place I have been lucky to visit.