I arrived in Seattle for the MVP Summit yesterday. It was not an uneventful flight...
My Montreal departure was at 8:20AM so I arrived at Montreal-Trudeau at 6:15AM only to spent 45 minutes in line at Air Canada. At one point, a lady asked the people in line if there were people heading to Denver (I was) and started to give us hell because we were late. I told her that I was in line at 6:15AM and she told me that wasn't early enough!!! One gentleman ask her if we needed to come a day before the flight. C'mon!
Next was the American customs...
2 years ago, I had the worst experience ever crossing to the US with an over zealous custom officer. Guest what? I meet my friend again. I don't mind beeing asked questions trying to disorient people. I don't mind because it's important. I don't mind because it's all about security. What I don't like the tone this custom officer takes when trying to distabilize people. He walks a fine line and almost insulted me. That, I don't like. Do you job but do it respecting people.
"Where do you live?"
"Montreal"
"How to you came to the airport?"
"I drove"
"Wow! You must be self employed to drive here?"
"?????? Yes, I'm self employed"
and so on....
Oh BTW, the face recognition algorythms are clearly working. Remember your last passport picture? They are now taken with some very strick rules well, the custom officer haven't even scanned my passport that he was asking me questions that only my file would reveal.
2 years ago, that guy must have flagged me in the US custom system because for 6 months, every time I crossed the border, my luggages were searched. I just hope that he didn't do that this time.
OK, so I had a connection thru enver. The layover was a short 35 minutes. I feared that my luggage wouldn't make it and...yep. After waiting 30 minutes, I was told that it didn't made it and it would came on the next flight (4PM). At least it was not lost. The luggage finaly arrived at my hotel at 9:30PM. Boy was I relived.
My good friends Etienne Tremblay, Mario Cardinal and Laurent Duveau picked me up at the airport after a pilgrinage at Fry's, geek heaven on earth. They each bought a Zune. Cool!