Happy Thanksgiving to all!

My week of Thanksgiving travel actually wasn't too bad.

Flew out on Monday and the airport was fairly empty. I've flown out on Monday mornings for the past few weeks and had to queue about 15 minutes for security, but this week I had 3 people in front of me. On Tuesday I was booked on an 8 pm flight, but I was able to standby and get confirmed on a 3:30 pm flight.

Business as usual

Where do I want to go and have I been there?

This thread over at Flyertalk got me thinking about where I want to go and have I been there. As a kid I'd watch Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on PBS. I never had the opportunity to go on the show, but just in case I ever did I determined Montana would be the state I chose. I don't really know why, it just seemed like a good place to go. Now that I have more frequent flyer miles than many people accumulate in their life I have still never been to Montana. I have been to at least 40 states, but never Montana. I just need to bite the bullet and make a trip there to see all the national parks and drive the vast stretches of interstate.

Another goal of mine has been to visit all the Disney parks. I guess being born near a Disney park and having a Disney obsessed family probably shaped some of that goal. I have been to the most Disney parks in my family. I have been to Disney World (Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, MGM Studios), Disneyland Paris, Disneyland (main park and California Adventure), so that just leaves Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, and eventually the Shanghai Disneyland. I also need to go back to Disney World and visit Animal Kingdom. It was open last time I went to DW, but the group I went with didn't want to waste time at a brand new park :(.

I've always been an avid fan of the Olympics. I'm one of those people who gets overly obsessed and patriotic seeing those 5 rings. I'd love to attend the games at one point in my life, but as a whole I really hate crowds and I'd probably be very uncomfortable attending. It would still be awesome. My Brazilian visa expires before the games there so I'd have to renew it to attend those, but in the grand scheme of attending the Olympics paying for a new visa is chump change.

People wonder why I try to avoid going back to a place I've already been, but it's because there are a many places I've never been to and it would be a shame to not see as many places as I can while I am still able.

Of places I've wanted to visit and actually have: I can't really remember making a list of places to go. I think Australia was probably on any list and I've been there. I may have added London after my parents went, so mark that off too. Paris seems to be a place many romanticize. Another check.

Most fun travel week of the year

Thanksgiving week is the week where people who only travel once a year turn up in droves at an airport near you. Most of us business travelers don't have to travel for business due to the shortened week, but some do. I, unfortunately, fall into that second category.

Thanksgiving can be a good time for collecting bump vouchers, but since I have to go straight from the airplane to work I'd prefer not to take my chances.

Where did it go?

I figured it had to happen to me at one point. They were about to begin boarding my red eye last night and I was looking for my boarding pass in all my pockets but it was no where to be found. I just went up to the podium and gave the gate agent my ID and voila! a new boarding pass. Crisis averted.

Airtran to begin seat back advertising

Press release here. US Airways has had ads on tray tables for quite a while, but I almost never see them because I don't always put down my tray table. Now Airtran is placing ads on seat backs.

If this means lower ticket prices I can't really argue with this.

Continental and United to offer reciprocal upgrades

Announced today that upgrades will be reciprocal. This is good news as a whole, but has little impact on me. First off United has smaller First cabins so upgrades will be difficult, second, it's only recent that CO has mainline service to CLT and they don't have mainline service most of the time I fly them so I will probably never get upgraded on CO. I'm not sure how CO elites will affect my ability to upgrade on UA.

Man arrested for failing to show ID at TSA checkpoint

I know to most of you out there won't understand the significance of this. You may be thinking "Just show your ID and get it over with." Since TSA came into existence after 9/11 we have been frogs in boiling water. I didn't travel more than once a year pre-9/11, but just in the almost 4 years I've been a weekly traveler the changes are extensive with no real benefit. They've just been charging us $2.50/flight for the privilege of being harassed.

• It started with mainly requiring a ticket to enter the secured area. This was OK because that weeded out the families welcoming home people and blocking your ability to deplane. It also got rid of *some* of the pickpockets and other scammers past security. Most of the people who posted on the Flyertalk thread recently seemed to agree with this move.
  
• After the shoe bomber we were all required to get shoes x-rayed. This has caused me to get athlete's foot several times even though I always wear socks through the checkpoint. I just realized I have a case again!
• then in August 2006 (nb this was NOT September 2001!) the liquids plot resulted in a complete ban on in cabin liquids for a couple months followed by the current 3.4 fl oz (100 mL) container in a 1 qt/1L baggie. This limit is arbitrary and a joke. I think it's just a plot to increase concession sales and travel sized items. I flew on that day and due to TSA wait times (over an hour in STL) and the lack of being able to bring a lot of things through security the few places to eat in STL's A concourse were out of food/beverage.
• One of the newer things is the list of approved IDs and the loupes and blacklights. Before 9/11 ID checking was done at the gate to prevent people transferring nontransferable tickets. It had nothing to do with security and Australia does not check IDs for domestic flights nor to many other countries. They also seem to forget that the 9/11 hijackers all had valid IDs.
  
• The State Department began issuing passport cards which are a valid form of ID for anything except international air travel. Many TSA officers will not accept them because they haven't studied the list of acceptable IDs.
  
• Last time I was at the DMV there were 4 other people waiting in line with me (3 of them over 65) who were needing to get a new state ID or license just because they were about to fly.
• There are virtual strip machines. Child pornography is illegal, but it's perfectly legal for TSA to look at your child naked. No parent should ever let their child in one of the virtual strip search macines.
  
• Now there is this Secure Flight garbage requiring full name, date of birth, and gender. When does it end? Will I need a chip implanted in me to verify I can fly across my own country? So much for the right to travel freely.
  

So back to my buddy Phil. While the rest of us are frogs getting boiled he decided to jump out of the hot water and try to do something. Props to you and I wish I had the guts to do the same. I read his story right before I boarded my flight in LAS. Two TSA officers talked to the gate agent and then stood in the jet bridge during boarding. They didn't have gloves so I knew they couldn't be doing bag searches, but I feared they might be doing the random ID checks at the gate. I thought very hard about declining if this is what they were doing, but they just stood there for a reason I did not determine before boarding.