Today, I left Phoenix behind again, again. Again.
Last time was only 2 months ago, as I headed out to meet Tay and Dad and Neri for Christmas and New Years, fully intending to stay and continue my job search from Houston.
How many times have I left the 48th state, intending to get my career and life started? Five or six times, at least. This time, I was in Phoenix so long, I watched the entire process of mom house hunting, buying, moving, and settling in. At this rate, I might as well call Arizona home for how often I've found myself leaving it.
So once again I loaded up my luggage in the back of Larry's truck and he drove me out to the airport. This time though, I have a place to go, a job, and Saori awaiting me. I don't know when I'll be back to this dusty sprawl, but I'm pretty certain I'll be back sometime.
The airport was a zoo. Apparently today is the first day of Spring Break for a lot of students are either flying out or flying in. It also explains why tickets were so hard to get for today.
Checking the guns was smooth and didn't actually take that long to do. I said "I have some unloaded guns I need to declare" and they had me check in normally on the touch screen. Then they moved me to the side and had me open the case. I don't think she (the ticket agent) made more than a cursory glance before giving me a business card size declaration that the gun was unloaded. I signed it, she put it in the case and asked me to lock it back up. Then she walked me over to the TSA booth where a TSA agent swabbed the exterior of the case and ran it through an explosives detector.
I don't really understand the logic here. If I actually used the gun, or took it to a gun range where people were shooting, I would imagine that there would likely be traces of gunpowder on the case, in which event, they'd have me open it up again so they could run another inspection? Or, perhaps it's a machine looking for high explosives rather than slow explosives, like gunpowder. I could understand if they were concerned about someone trying to disguise a bomb as a gun.
Anyway, the check came back clean and I toddled of with my neutron star dense duffle bag and overstuffed backpack. Slow as usual clearing security screening, but I was happy to see free WiFi offered in the terminal.
Last time was only 2 months ago, as I headed out to meet Tay and Dad and Neri for Christmas and New Years, fully intending to stay and continue my job search from Houston.
How many times have I left the 48th state, intending to get my career and life started? Five or six times, at least. This time, I was in Phoenix so long, I watched the entire process of mom house hunting, buying, moving, and settling in. At this rate, I might as well call Arizona home for how often I've found myself leaving it.
So once again I loaded up my luggage in the back of Larry's truck and he drove me out to the airport. This time though, I have a place to go, a job, and Saori awaiting me. I don't know when I'll be back to this dusty sprawl, but I'm pretty certain I'll be back sometime.
The airport was a zoo. Apparently today is the first day of Spring Break for a lot of students are either flying out or flying in. It also explains why tickets were so hard to get for today.
Checking the guns was smooth and didn't actually take that long to do. I said "I have some unloaded guns I need to declare" and they had me check in normally on the touch screen. Then they moved me to the side and had me open the case. I don't think she (the ticket agent) made more than a cursory glance before giving me a business card size declaration that the gun was unloaded. I signed it, she put it in the case and asked me to lock it back up. Then she walked me over to the TSA booth where a TSA agent swabbed the exterior of the case and ran it through an explosives detector.
I don't really understand the logic here. If I actually used the gun, or took it to a gun range where people were shooting, I would imagine that there would likely be traces of gunpowder on the case, in which event, they'd have me open it up again so they could run another inspection? Or, perhaps it's a machine looking for high explosives rather than slow explosives, like gunpowder. I could understand if they were concerned about someone trying to disguise a bomb as a gun.
Anyway, the check came back clean and I toddled of with my neutron star dense duffle bag and overstuffed backpack. Slow as usual clearing security screening, but I was happy to see free WiFi offered in the terminal.
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