F-Body Europe

After dropping off the car this morning, here's the "stats" ...

Miles driven: 4215
$ spent: 410

D@mn, almost spent as much on fuel as on renting the car ... compared to '02, where I drove about 4300 mi which only cost me $175 then ...

Oh well, still cheaper than in Germany ... and more fun, too If it only had been my 'vert ...

D@mn did a little touring did ya?

Just the Keys to my great-aunt was a 850mi trip ... went back down (though slightly detoured, so say 1000mi there) ... 350 from Tampa to the Keys, plus another from the Keys back to Tampa ... adds up ...

well ... getting ready to board ... Off to Detroit, and then back to freezing in Germany ... yuck ...

... I knew I should have packed some sunshine ... it's freakin' COLD here ... plus I had the heaters off of course, so the house isn't much warmer than outside ...

Then had some fun at the airport - got close to Frankfurt about 20 minutes early - then I saw on the monitor that the line to the destination suddenly changed - shortly after, the captain announced that due to almost zero visibility and defective ILS of the FRA airport, he'd have to fly to Düsseldorf ... got there, a couple people asked whether they could just leave the plane there instead of waiting or either better visibility or fixed ILS, which was declined due to Customs reasons ... You can imagine the 300+ passengers were really happy ... NOT! So we all sat there 2 1/2 hours, until we then again headed to Frankfurt ... so instead of being home somewhere like 9:30 or 10, I was home at 1300 ...

Cool did you get to see the Springs in North Florida that I showed you?

Garry, it was for your safety!

That does suck. Glad you made it back in one piece!

Not this time - stayed in Largo the first week (with some heavier winds the first couple days, so no dives then), then NC for another couple days, and back down to West Palm Beach (Moroso Track), Largo and Tampa for the rest of the trip ...

Speaking about safety, if the US really relies on the the "homeland security" measures to do anything --- then you're screwed (at least if the are used as the biometrics stuff are): OK, so I get in, finger on the scanner, picture, yadda yadda ...
While waiting for the flight back out in Detroit, there is one (1) announcement that non-nationals will have to check out at a special visitor station (wonder what the other visitors did who didn't know that ahead of time and didn't hear the announcement). So I do. ID in the machine, finger on the scanner, picture. Out comes a little 4x5 printout with name and 2d-barcode. Btw, one asistant standing in with each of the 4 machines ... so I ask, who do I give it to. He says "if they ask, give it to the flight checkin attendant" (if he asks?).

Well, so at boarding time, I hand over my boarding card and ask what happens with the green I74 (?) stub and the checkout printout. I get a snippy "you have to lay that there (pointing to a stack with a couple I74 stubs), it's your responsibility, we don't take care of that". WTF?

First of all, it's my first visit to the states since those measures came in effect. So how am I suppopsed to know? Then, before the attendants during boarding specifically checked the ID and took the stub themselves.
Then, the tone and style he said that I have not often come across anybody in the States.

My point: so I go to that machine, authenticate myself, get that printout - and hand it off some time later, with no safe way of assuring that the person boarding the plane and the person creating that printout are the same. Anybody could have handed in that printout, letting US authorities think I left the country, while I didn't (no picture ID check at all).

Things look better on paper than in real life! It what I refer to as the Triple P initiative (Piss Poor Planning) The sad thing about it is that it is different measures at different airports. So much for standards.