From SFGate.com:

While New Yorkers poured out of immobile subway cars, emerged from stuck elevators, began long walks home or rested in local establishments, one unidentified man saw beauty.

"You can actually see the stars in New York City," he said.

"An Amazon.com customer Just Like You enjoys:"

It's amazing how Amazon knows exactly who I am based on the things I buy.

Another very cool technology.

It seems we chose a prime place to pitch our tent in Homer. Not only did it turn out to be the most crowded campsite I've ever seen, but we were fifteen feet from a very busy road, surrounded by a motorcycle gang, and directly under the traffic pattern of the local airport. Not the quiet landing side of the pattern, mind you, but the full-bore engine takeoff side. It's amazing we got any sleep at all.

It's one thing to have grammatical errors in a letter to a friend, in a weblog, on a sign in a store, or even on a movie theater marquee. But if you're planning on engraving a message in metal, maybe you should consult an english teacher.

Alaska was a lot of fun. A lot of it was what I expected - sweeping grandeur of mountain ranges and rugged coastline, small fishing villages, and an incredible variety of wildlife. But there was one thing I was not expecting.

Alaska is crowded. It is overwhelmingly packed with thousands upon thousands of tourists. Flights to and from Alaska are completely full, the airport is a zoo (even Newark airport at rush hour is faster to get through), the roads are clogged with traffic, and RVs are everywhere. We visited Homer for a night, which is a town of just over 4000 permanent residents. The town has a spit of land that extends several miles into the bay, and all along the spit are parking lots filled with an ocean of RVs, stacked four levels deep. The occasional area along the spit not filled with these monsterous vehicles were packed with tents.

We chose to camp for the night along the beginning of the spit, where it wasn't as crowded. We set up the tent around 10pm and went for dinner. When we got back, several more tents had appeared, and more kept coming after we settled down to sleep. There must have been four times the population of the town in tourists that night.

Alaska was definitely an amazing place to visit, but I really dislike crowds, so my next visit will definitely be off-season. I don't care if I have to wade through eight feet of snow...

This is what you don't want to see on your airline ticket. It means you're about to be grabbed from the security line, given a body search, and have to sit there for five or ten minutes while someone roots through all of your carry-on luggage. You have been "randomly" selected. But it's not random at all. You were probably selected because of one of these reasons:

1. You didn't pay for the ticket with a credit card.
2. You don't have a simple round-trip ticket.
3. You bought the ticket at the last minute.

If any or all of these criteria are met, you can bet on spending some extra time with our friendly TSA (Transportation Security Administration) staff, watching the clock and nervously hoping that your flight doesn't decide to leave without you.

These inspections are supposed to be random. They're supposed to be set up so that the terrorists lurking in our borders won't be able to predict when they might get searched. They are a crock of shit. I've never been searched while flying on a normal ticket, and every time I've flown on a non-standard itinerary (one-way, multiple legs, etc), I've been selected. All three legs of my trip to Minnesota and Alaska resulted in waiting for the inspection.

So Mr. Terrorist can avoid being searched simply by buying a round-trip ticket two weeks in advance on his credit card. It's going to be cheaper for him to do that, anyway. And it's not like the minute chance of getting randomly searched is going to dissuade him from following his mission. If he's prepared to die for his cause, it's not like the remote possibility of a prison sentence is going to seem like that big of a deal.

The bottom line is, if someone wants to bring down an airplane, he's going to be able to do it. It's just too hard to stop someone who is motivated enough. We can only take comfort in the fact that it doesn't happen very often; terrorism hasn't even put a dent in how safe it is to fly, but the increased security at airports hasn't done anything for that safety record. It's there as a placebo; it's designed to make people think that flying is safe from attack, but nothing they do will make attacks impossible. After all, how many terrorists have been foiled at the airport? The worst they've found are guys from texas with handguns in their briefcases. Of course, maybe these are the guys we should really be afraid of.

So the next time you get your boarding pass, look for the little "SSSSS". If you've been randomly selected, you had better hope you've got some time before your flight boards.