Travel Stories: October 2006 Archives
I've finally arrived in Austin, Texas. All in all, it was an uneventful trip getting here. Now, it's time for ApacheCon 2006 US to start!
The weather is warmer than I expected, so no complaints so far.
I do have 2 interesting incidents to share though.
When going through the security checkpoint, I was "caught" with 2 forbidden items. I had a can of shaving cream that was too big, as well as a tube of toothpaste that was also too big. I gave the nice security lady my best :
"Oh, I am sorry, I had no idea you couldn't take this kind of stuff in carry-on luggage anymore..."
Apparently she took pity on me and allowed me to pick one of the items to keep, and she would confiscate the other.
"It's all right, go ahead, pick one and you can keep it, I'll have to confiscate the other one."
I am no security expert, but that sounds like a complete failure of the security mechanism she was trying to enforce.
Before that, when going through US customs, I ended up with a fairly obtuse Immigration Officer that considered my attempts at explaining the concept of OpenSource Software evasive and forwarded me to a nice little waiting room for a secondary screening. Apparently, he suspected there was something very wrong about somebody claiming to be giving software away for free. After what seemed like a long time waiting in a small, removed, waiting room, I finally get interviewed by somebody else. Turns out, he not only understands OpenSource software, he actually runs Linux at home! Very nice, took 10 seconds, shook hands and he let me through. He still wanted to understand one thing:
"Still, why do you guys do this stuff for FREE ?"
Oh, well, if we meet again, and I don't have a plan to catch in 30 minutes, I would have tried to explain it all.
