In a couple of weeks, my family will be going to Walt Disney World for a vacation. We’re all very excited and anxious about this holiday, but the new airport security process is weighing on our minds. The potential of being put through the naked photography or the invasive groping has us worried.

Two years ago, when we made our first family vacation to WDW, we drove in our minivan. It’s a twelve-hour trip, including time for breaks and meals. That’s a pretty long time to keep young boys entertained in an enclosed environment. Plus, in order to get to the destination at a reasonable hour, we have to leave home at an unreasonable hour.

Last year, we chose to take a flight to Florida. From home to WDW resort is less than 3 hours of travel, (1.5 hours on the airplane).

Over the past several years, (post 9/11), I’ve traveled through airports many times across the U.S., and once out of and back into the U.S. The security procedures were simply putting bags and shoes through the x-ray machines, and walking through a metal detector. Other than the annoyance of having to take off and put back on my shoes, it’s not a big deal. Even last year, with the family flying, this was all we had to do. The full body scanners existed, and we saw them in the airports, but they were just inert machines off to the side, unused and almost un-thought of.

When we were setting up this year’s vacation, we decided to again fly for the convenience. We made this decision, and bought the tickets many weeks ago, well before this new security procedure was announced. Full body scanners or invasive pat downs didn’t even come to mind before we were financially fully committed to the flight plans.

We’ve discussed this issue, and we’re going to rely fairly heavily on the idea that the TSA is only picking out 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 people in the security line for this new procedure. The odds of anyone in our party being pulled into this is not high, so we may not have to deal with it at all. We’re going to the airport with this hope.

Here are the issues I have with this situation:

Taking naked pictures of random travelers is wrong. Police can’t do this to random citizens.

Invasive groping of random travelers is wrong. Police can’t do this to random citizens.

The TSA personnel taking and viewing the naked pictures, and performing the invasive groping are not doctors or nurses or any other kind of professional – they are basically just glorified mall cops. I don’t mean to insult the TSA personnel, but it’s just a fact. Police officers have professional training and even they are not allowed to frisk someone without at least reasonable suspicion of a problem. And they aren’t allowed to force a strip without strong reasons. Yet the airport security can strip and grope citizens just randomly picked from a crowd?

I do not believe that the pictures taken by the scanners are secure. The TSA says the ability to save and/or print the images has been deactivated/turned off. It’s a computer system; the ability can be turned back on, the block can be circumvented, or the program hacked. Hell, photos of the computer monitor can be taken with a secondary device. I will not be surprised if a year from now images from these scans start turning up on the Web in some form. It is inevitable.

Picking random travelers from the security line does not make air travel safe. It might prove that 5-10% of the travelers in that line are not a danger, but that leaves 90-95% of the flight still in doubt. If I, a family man on his way to a family vacation, gets pulled to go through the new screening, that may make the person in front of me and behind me feel safe with my presence, but what about me feeling safe about them? If one in ten people are put through the new process, are we supposed to feel 10% secure?

If the security personnel were pulling people of suspicion to go through the new process, then maybe something could be said about it making flights safer. But pulling random travelers, law-abiding citizens who have given no reason to be suspect, and have any number of plainly apparent reasons to not be a terrorist -– that’s just wrong.

Some people raised a lot of ire about the idea of police in Arizona being allowed to ask about citizenship status from people they are already interacting with in a law-enforcement situation. Why aren’t those same people raising ire about the TSA stripping and groping random travelers who are simply legally travelling from city to city?

I do not want anyone to take naked pictures of me or my family. Personally, I would submit to the pat down, this once, just to move on to our vacation. But I will not let someone pat down my child without a damn good reason – not just because he was random passenger #10 in the line. We’ve taught our children that the only people that should ever touch them is their parents and their doctor. Airport security guards are neither.

If this new procedure – the full body scanners and the invasive pat downs – are still in place next year, we will not fly to Florida. And if we can’t fly, we may not go to WDW at all. Airlines and tourist destinations take note: The government overstepping its bounds, treading on citizens’ Constitutional rights, will hurt you.

To restate my basic premise: taking naked pictures of random travelers, and invasive groping of random travelers IS WRONG. It is wrong morally, ethically, socially, and Constitutionally. Some people don’t have a problem with being photographed naked or being groped – fine for them. That doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong as a blanket policy for everyone.

We don’t give up our Constitutional rights when we buy an airplane ticket. Especially when the security process changes after we purchase the tickets.

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

No one can honestly say that taking naked pictures or invasive groping of random travelers — who have not broken any laws, and have not given the security personnel any reason to suspect them of being a threat — is not an unreasonable search of one’s person. Especially with no warrant based on probable cause.

Edit after posting: Anderson Cooper 360 on the TSA screening. I hadn’t seen this specific information and video until after I posted my rant, but it gives a thorough report to back up what I’ve said here.

Bullgrit

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Bullgrit

My boys, (especially Calfgrit6), love playing hide-n-seek with me in the house. They almost never ask their mom, and they never play by themselves; it’s always best with daddy. And I love playing it with them. I rock at hide-n-seek!

They prefer to be the seekers because they like trying to find me, and they don’t have the patience, themselves, to stay hidden in one place very long. When we first started playing, they’d search for me a long time, but almost inevitably, I’d have to give myself up when they were stumped. But every time I did that, I lost that spot as a viable hiding place – they’d make sure to check that spot in subsequent games. So then, instead of letting them find me when they gave up looking around, I’d just sneak out of my spot and “appear” out in the open somewhere. This let me keep my good hiding places a secret.

Sometimes I’d sneak out of a room they hadn’t checked yet and sneak into an area they’d already searched. This could keep the game going for many minutes until they grew too frustrated. A few times of this, and they got mad about it. It’s now a standard rule that I can’t do that anymore. *sigh*

Sometimes they have to get their mom into the seeking, and that’s when I get really serious about the game. Outsmarting a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old is one thing, but outsmarting an adult, well, that’s when my competitive streak shows itself. Sometimes she plays along just to help them, giving ideas, dropping hints, and such, but then there are times when she really gets into it and has to start calculating, “Where can a grown man hide in this house? Would he actually break his own limbs to fit inside that furniture?” (I might.)

The most fun moments in a game of hide-n-seek is when the boys are near me, and search all around me, (or even directly at my spot), but they fail to find me. I have to hold back the laughter when they move on to the next area or room.

One time I was hiding in Calfgrit9’s bed – it was an unmade mess of a blanket, a couple pillows, and several stuffed animals – both boys searched the bed pretty thoroughly, twice, but they failed to notice me. I was wedged down in the corner of where the bed is up against the wall, so the lump I made in the mess was relatively small. They searched that spot once early, and then again later at their mother’s suggestion, even pulling one of the pillows and a couple stuffed animals off of me, but they still didn’t find me. I scared the bejeebers out of them when I rose up with a roar while they were leaving the room. It’s now a standard rule that I can’t do that anymore. *sigh*

Then another time, I hid pretty much in plain sight: I stood up on the sink counter in their bathroom, just to the right side of the door. I had a white towel in my hands, held to cover my lower half — the part at their eye level — (towel was white, walls were white), and just stood very still. If they had done more than a cursory look in the bathroom, (in the tub behind the shower curtain), or if they had looked high, they would have spotted me, surely. But neither boy found me when they looked at separate times. Then they got Mom in on the search, and she found me after several minutes when she gave the bathroom a more thorough look, (after first looking in the tub, herself).

I must admit, too, that one reason why I like hide-n-seek in the house is that sometimes I can find a nice comfortable spot, (like in the bed), where I can just rest for a few minutes. After being ridden like a horse, chasing the boys around the yard, or playing soccer or Nerf gun tag in the cul de sac, it’s nice to be able to lay quietly under some warm blankets and pillows.

One of these games, I’m probably going to fall asleep where I hide, and put the family into a panic when they can’t find me and I don’t reveal myself. I can just imagine my wife trying to explain the situation to the police when they answer the distress call. “Yes, please officers, help us seek and find my husband. We’ve lost him somewhere in the house.”

“OK ma’am. I’ll call in the K-9 unit.”

Bullgrit

The last time I posted about my workout regimen, I was afraid I might not be able to complete the Insanity workout. Well, I pushed through, and I’m now “certified insane.”

Oh my God! Insanity is hard. It’s not even fun, it’s so hard. The P90X workout was extreme, but Insanity is just brutal. After each P90X workout, I felt good, on an endorphin high. But the Insanity workouts are sheer punishment to be endured; afterward, I was just completely worn out. But there is no denying that it can make you fit, super fit. Both regimens work well for getting real fit, real fast. (If you’re interested in learning about them, go look them up. I’m not selling or representing for the company. I’m just a very satisfied customer.)

See these pics for my results:

The thing that really surprised me the most about this whole process was how much fat I had on my body. I knew I was a bit overweight; I figured I could loose at least 10 pounds, maybe even 15 pounds. But at the end of my first 13-weeks round of P90X (the 1.0 pic above), I had lost 18 pounds of padding. I could tell I had more to loose, but I thought maybe just 4 or 5 more pounds.

After finishing about 8 weeks of a second round of P90X (the 1.5 pic above), I had lost a total of 24 pounds — 6 more beyond the 1.0 round. I was astonished at how much fat I had apparently been carrying around on my frame. I never thought I was 20+ pounds overweight. But still, I could tell I had a little more fat to shed to find my six-pack abs. But I seemed to have hit a plateau in my fitness climb; I went some weeks without loosing any fat weight.

I really, really wanted my six-pack abs. A simple desire to “get into shape” became a hard drive to get ripped; it had become the object of my mid-life crisis. Some men buy a sports car, some men pick up a girlfriend, some men run off to “find myself.” My MLC took the form of wanting a hardbody — a body as good or better than the one I had at half my current age. I wanted to be able to keep up physically with my young sons. I wanted to be able to run, jump, and climb faster, easier, and for longer, (without it costing 6 million dollars).

So in hopes of breaking my plateau with P90X, I started Insanity. Taking on a regimen of straight cardio did, indeed, overcome my plateau. In the 9 weeks of Insanity, I lost another 15 pounds for a total loss of 39 pounds. Look at those pics above, again: the “P90X 1.5” pic is 15 pounds heavier than the “Insanity 1.0” pic. That floors me. When I was at the “P90X 1.5” stage of my effort, I would have thought 15 less pounds would make me just skin and bones.

In the couple of weeks since finishing Insanity, I’ve lost another 2 pounds just because my metabolism is much higher revved than it used to be. Human physiology just amazes me.

I’ve lost 41 pounds of fat. Forty-one pounds! That’s three to four times more than I expected. And I’m not skinny — I’m lean. P90X and Insanity are not “just” weight-loss programs, they’re full body fitness. Hell, half of the P90X regimen is weight training to build muscle mass.

I feel freakin’ fantastic! I don’t want to sit on the sofa and watch TV, anymore. I want to move. I want to run, jump, and climb.

But I feel kind of weird about all this. At my core, I’m a nerd, a gamer geek. Have I turned into a jock? Well, I’m still not particularly interested in sports — watching or playing. I still like to read comic books, play RISK, and watch Star Wars.

I don’t have any urge to throw a ball, but I do enjoy push-ups. I haven’t a clue what the infield fly rule is, but I do know how many carbs I need in a day.

I want to play Dungeons & Dragons, but I don’t want to consume the Mountain Dew and Doritos that stereotypically go with a game. I’ll buy a comic book, but I’ll also flip through a fitness magazine for a couple minutes.

Well, whatever strange culture mutation I’ve become, I kind of like it. I’m having a great mid-life crisis.

Bullgrit