If you're travelling regularly between your home and Pennsylvania and your office in California, it sounds much easier to just leave a box of stuff (tools, pocket knife, etc) at the office so that it's always there waiting for you, than figure out how to get it to and from the office by plane.

I see the local travel store sells what amounts to cable ties withunique serial numbers stamped in them. Again, TSA can easily cut them off, but nobody is likely to be able to be able to cut one off and replace it with another one having the same serial number.

Finally, I've heard they search you all the more enthusiastically if you don't check any bags.

I've been scanning the great info on here for some time
now and want to say thanks for the info in this thread
especially. I'm going to have to fly a couple of times this
year if I want to stay married, so I'm thankful for the
great lists for the airplane passenger. I love flying but
ever since the TSA Nazis took over the airports I can't
tolerate the strip searches at the airports. I'll be sending
all my 'contraband' ahead from now on.

Regards,
Indy

The answer is - it depends. Don't take what is on the TSA website "approved" lists as gospel because I don't think a lot of the screenerNazis bother to read their own regulations. I have been hassled repeatedly about an injectible medication I have to have, which I keep it its factory-issued container, along with a refill with the prescription pasted on it. Still ... I will never forget the TSA dimbulb who had me not only take everything out, but completely disassemble it, and then was going to touch the needle to see if it was sharp and therefore a “weapon.” I politely informed her that I had an aversion to blunt, bent, contaminated needles and unless she was thinking of using it on herself, she had about 5 seconds to put it back. I barely made my plane.

I wonder if they can even read.

There is no consistency, and they don't care.

The most recent time I flew was the first since before 9/11. On the way out, the lines were huge, but it was uneventful.

On the way back, the screener refused to let me walk through the arch wearing a nylon passport pouch around my neck. I had worn it outside my shirt on the way out (to make it easier to get at the passport), but this guy insisted that I put it on the conveyer belt to go through the X-ray machine. I politely declined, saying that the only things in the pouch were cash (a few hunded bucks in 20s), my passport, and a credit card, and I wasn't letting it out of my sight. He insisted again, louder, and I just said "no". He then looked at me for a few seconds without saying anything, then told me to take it off of my neck and put it in my pocket. I did so, and then he let me step through the arch. He then told me to take it back out of my pocket so he could hand-search it, even though the metal detector had come up with nothing. He ignored the passport and credit card, but counted the cash. He didn't examine any of the bills, he just counted them.

This sort of petty harassment has nothing to do with terrorism.

One lady at the same gate said that she had a run-in with them, and they "neglected" to return her driver's license. When she went back to ask for it, they denied having it- smirking the whole time, to make it abundantly clear she'd never see it again.

I turned down a job recently that would require some travel just for this reason- I don't want to deal with it, and I hope enough people will just refuse so that it might finally dawn on someone that you just can't expect good people to pay serious money to be treated like convicted criminals.

If that takes more airlines going out of business, so be it.

you might want a "pack towel" good for water collection and good wash cloth holds alot of liquid

Good points - most of my experience with rechargables is with NiCds from at least a couple years ago, and indeed the Li ion batteries are much better with respect to charge retention. The NiCds and NiMHs seem to be a bit better too, though still inferior to Li ions.

I do remember one experience a while back where my spare battery (Li ion, fairly new, initially fully charged, stored in a small plastic bag) turned out to be dead after about a month of idle storage. I don't know how it ended up like this but it did. I suppose it's a cautionary tale.

I'm not sure what the first number you quote means (storage life decreases at a rate less than 0.1 % per month), since that would imply a typical lifetime of 80 years!!! Not even nonrechargable Li batteries have a retention rate even close to that, so I suspect what this number represents is the rate at which the charge retention rate drops off as the battery is charged over and over again (i.e. each subsequent charging attempt results in a charge that's held for a shorter time than the previous one), rather than the retention rate for an individual charge.

So maybe a month is a reasonable length of time to expect a Li-Ion battery to last at reasonably full charge (for Ni based rechargables, make that, perhaps a week). That, of course, is subject to the proviso that the battery be kept at reasonable temperatures (not out in the sun, or in a glove compartment, for example), and not permitted to short out by contacting metal or water. Yeah, it'll probably be good for longer than that, but if it's something you're depending on in an emergency "probably" isn't good enough. "But the manual said..." - famous last words.

That's why I keep both batteries in regular use, and never let one be out of use or the charger for more than a couple days, to best ensure that they'll both be working properly when needed, and to know right away when something goes wrong.

Have the screeners harassed you for carrying a scanner with a list of air traffic control frequencies?

After all, in the Nazi TSA mentality, only Osama could possibly be interested in such a thing...

I put mine in carry on, in a large clear ziplock bag with the wall wart, cell phone and cell phone wall wart. I also have a laminated copy of my Ham license attached to the scanner. None of them have given it a second look, or turned it on or even asked about it. With all the other electronic stuff that goes thru I guess the scanner is not a big thing.
A friend was ripped off by 2 TSA people, while he was trying to stop one fron damaging his camera gear, the second one took $400.00 cash while checking his wallet.

Michael,

Your message says, "4) Also, an inflatable neck pillow is the road warrior's secret weapon. It holds your head still so you can fall asleep." The words "inflatable neck pillow" are linked to the Cloud-Soft Inflatable Pillow at Magellans.

Have you considered the inflatable Komfort Kollar (http://www.magellans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=742&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=0&iSubCat=0&iProductID=742)?
Looks as though it might be even more comfortable.