TSA, Trouble Serving America

It was hotter than heck in New York this past week. I took a ton of photos, none of which are very impressive, but here are some hidden treasures in Central Park.

I bought a new lens yesterday. I'm very excited about it. My old zoom has just not been performing to the way it used to and had already had my lenses in the shop. I was either switching everything over to Nikon, or giving a new lens a shot. Excuse the pun.

It's actually not new, but a used lens. Canon EF 80-200mm.

The only negative that I see so far is the weight of the lens. It is one heavy appendage. I won't be flinging this one over my shoulder. And dropping it? Yikes, I could break concrete with it.

So that brings me to an interesting TSA story. Come to find out, you are not allowed to carry weights onto a plane that weigh more than 2 1/2 pounds each. My daughter wanted to continue her weight training during our trip, so she brought her hand weights with her. At LAX, as we went through the scanners, the weights triggered a luggage search of her carry-on. They found them, looked at them, and said they were fine. They were 5 pounds each. (Yes, my daughter carted 10 pounds of weights to New York) On the return, I told her to just take them out and put them in the bin with her shoes so they wouldn't have to do a search. Well, that didn't go well. This power hungry jerk grabbed them and said they couldn't go, quickly demanded that she follow him as he was walking out of the scanning area. It all happened so fast and she had a panicked look. I leaped into action and called to the man. "Excuse me" wouldn't get him to turn around or even give me the time of day. First of all, he had no idea of how old she was. How dare he just take MY kid. NO WAY! He wouldn't speak. Wouldn't say where he was going, what he was doing, nothing. So-- I made her stay there and I followed. No one is allowed to just demand that my kid follow them. Sorry folks. Mother Bear is here. As he was all in his huff and stuff, he handed me the weights and said they couldn't come on the plane. I knew it was worthless to try with him so I asked for a supervisor. He just walked away. Another TSA guy flagged me over and said to just put them through again. That it was fine. Oh, OK. lol That created this other power hungry woman (very vocal) to go nuts. "Not on my shift!" lol

I finally got a supervisor to come over. She was so willing to listen and discuss the issue. She gave me a solution and had one of her people (not the jerk or the vocalist) stay with me through the process to get them checked in. However, he didn't stay with me long enough and as I walked back in, (only shoes/wallet in bin), I got body searched. I got yelled at for trying to take my wallet out of the bin so it sat there until I mentioned I didn't want it stolen. She ran the pad that she patted me down with through the machine to make sure I didn't have any explosive residue on me and I was done. Her words: "You're done". No thank you for the pat down, no thanks for patience and understanding. No hug or kiss for the tender moment I had to endure being touched by another human-being other than my husband. I think these TSA people need to be trained better. I have a serious problem with them.

My observation is that they are minimum wage employees and aren't required to have continued education. I don't know, but give a minimalist power, and you get TSA employees. It wouldn't have taken much to have a dialog. Regardless of how many times they have to say, no liquids, no this, no that, that is their job. That's what they're paid to do. So if they have a problem, they're in the wrong job. Be nice TSA people. Oh-- by the way, the TSA who said it's OK, run them through again, he got reprimanded. Just wait (weight) till I bring my new lens through. LOL. It weighs much more. Yes people, I won't be able to hit anyone over the head with a five pound hand weight, but my lens?? Yes. None of it makes any sense to me.

Rosarito, Mexico

Rosarito, Mexico was our destination during this week's spring break. We stayed in a wonderful area; beach front home with all the amenities you could ask for. Here are just a few pics of my oldest sitting around the complex.

The kids played cards and surfed. We built rock pillars, took a ton of pics of pelicans and flowers, ate and slept. The boys had the downstairs bedrooms and all they had to do was rollover to check out the surf. It doesn't get much better than that!

LACMA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Yesterday K & I went on a field trip for a school project. We went into Los Angeles to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is learning about Japanese traditions. This first photo was one of my favorite statues. Looks like something right from Star Wars.I know, it's illegal in California to drive while talking on a handheld cell phone, but taking photos while driving? Hey when I was young, I used to put on mascara while driving. I learned never to blink. Women are natural multitaskers.Would hate to crash on the top of this overpass! I REALLY hate going on overpasses this tall.LA Traffic - not too bad... SaturdayWorld Impact, Los Angeles; Empowering the Urban Poor.

One thing that I noticed was that most of the graffiti along the freeway was painted over and gone. Gives a false sense of security in my book--I know, most of the tagging doesn't look good, but in LA, some of the taggers are very talented artists. Tagging that looks like scribble is annoying, but artistry tagging can add flavor and flair to a boring block wall. (Just my opionion)