Dear Senator Boxer, First, let me congratulate you on your recent electoral victory. The importance of having you in Washington representing California’s interests, especially considering the alternative, cannot be overstated. I’m writing to express my extreme concern and distress over the Transportation Security Agency’s new policies of whole-body imaging and “enhanced” pat-downs at airport checkpoints. [...]

Dear Senator Boxer,

First, let me congratulate you on your recent electoral victory. The importance of having you in Washington representing California’s interests, especially considering the alternative, cannot be overstated.

I’m writing to express my extreme concern and distress over the Transportation Security Agency’s new policies of whole-body imaging and “enhanced” pat-downs at airport checkpoints.

As you must be aware, the whole-body imaging scanners use ionizing radiation to photograph travelers through their clothes, creating a clear image of their naked bodies. TSA claims that these images “cannot be stored or transmitted” have already been proven false. There are no exemptions for children of any age going through these machines and TSA regulations do not exclude from employment convicted sexual abusers whose crime was more than ten years ago.

If a traveller “opts out” of having their naked x-ray photograph taken, they are instead subject to what TSA calls an “enhanced” pat-down, wherein the traveler’s entire body is groped, squeezed and manhandled, including genitalia and women’s breasts. Again, there is no exemption for children, and recent reports show children as young as three years old being subjected to these procedures. In any context, unwanted contact of this kind is rightly termed sexual abuse.

Senator, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” In no way can the act of purchasing an airline ticket or attempting to board a plane be “probable cause” absent any other suspicion. Certainly no Warrants for these invasive and unreasonable searches are issued before the searches are performed.

TSA agents have stated that travelers “give up their rights when purchasing a plane ticket,” but our Declaration of Independence is very clear in that we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights” which cannot be abjured by any government agency.

I see that the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will hold a hearing on Thursday, November 17, 2010, and TSA Administrator Pistole is scheduled to testify. I hope and plead with you, Senator, to question Administrator Pistole on these new procedures, and to take whatever action you can to see that they are abated, and soon.

Respectfully yours,

Andrew Rich
116 Mission Drive
Palo Alto, California 94303
650-270-5863
andrew.rich@project-insomnia.com

Update: I know that there are two varieties of naked body scanners, and only one uses ionizing radiation; the other uses radio frequencies. I’m sure the Senator is or will be aware of this as well. It wasn’t an intentional omission.

Here follows a complete list of everywhere we ate on our recent Winter Olympics trip. I’ll start by simply listing each place and then go back and update the post with links and suchlike. This list is assembled by credit card receipts, since we used plastic almost exclusively to avoid having to exchange cash and [...]

Here follows a complete list of everywhere we ate on our recent Winter Olympics trip. I’ll start by simply listing each place and then go back and update the post with links and suchlike. This list is assembled by credit card receipts, since we used plastic almost exclusively to avoid having to exchange cash and to help track things later. That does mean that there may be a couple of things missing where we did use cash, but nothing significant.

During our recent trip to Vancouver, BC for the 2010 Winter Olympics, we tried lots and lots of different restaurants. One of the highlights was Incendio, a pizza place in Gastown. Jennifer's pizza and my chicken calzone were both terrific. I tried a Stanley Park Amber ale which I enjoyed very much. Service was super [...]

During our recent trip to Vancouver, BC for the 2010 Winter Olympics, we tried lots and lots of different restaurants. One of the highlights was Incendio, a pizza place in Gastown.

Jennifer's pizza and my chicken calzone were both terrific. I tried a Stanley Park Amber ale which I enjoyed very much. Service was super friendly (a clear trend at almost every place we went) and they happily changed the big-screen's channel to the snowboard cross event we wanted to watch (though there weren't too many other people in the restaurant at the time).

If we'd been in Vancouver any longer I'm sure we would have gone back at least one more time. Highly recommended.

So much for the daily updates. I have been taking an awful lot of pictures and video (with my Flip mini) but various events have conspired to either prevent or discourage me from actually posting. Fireworks followed lighting of the Olympic cauldron at Canada Place. We attended Ladies Moguls on Saturday and Mens Moguls on [...]

So much for the daily updates. I have been taking an awful lot of pictures and video (with my Flip mini) but various events have conspired to either prevent or discourage me from actually posting.

Fireworks followed lighting of the Olympic cauldron at Canada Place.

We attended Ladies Moguls on Saturday and Mens Moguls on Sunday at Cypress Mountain. There’s more to say about Cypress Mountain but I’m not going to go into it here because it’ll only raise my blood pressure. Do a Google News search for “Cypress Mountain” and you’ll get the gist.

Canadian Moguls star Jennifer Heil prepares for her silver-medal winning run.

We’re persevering, though, and have replaced most of the canceled tickets with other events in town. Mostly hockey. We’ll be seeing a lot of hockey, both Womens and Mens. Speaking of which, why are the skiing events for women called “Ladies” but the hockey events are called “Womens”?

Face-off near the end of Womens USA vs. Russia hockey at UBC Thunderbird Arena.

The aspect of this trip that’s making all the ticketing troubles fade away is the restaurant and bar scene here in Vancouver. The Gastown area, where we’re staying, is almost nothing but pubs, restaurants, bars, etc for several blocks in every direction.

View Larger Map

Not to mention many, many more places in the downtown area and other neighborhoods. We’ve been here six days, have been to a minimum of two different places per day (no repeats) and there’s no end in sight. At some point I’ll list them all here; I have saved all the receipts both for reference and to apply for GST refund when we get home.

The lights of Gastown as viewed from near the Gassy Jack statue.

There’s plenty to do outside of eating, drinking and the occasional Olympic event, of course. VANOC has set up two “LiveCity” locations, one very close to us in the downtown area and one a bit further away in Yaletown. We found ourselves near the Yaletown location on Tuesday night and stuck around for a while to watch some event coverage, medal ceremonies and a musical act. One of the songs they played might be familiar to longtime Disneyland fans…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3txwe0oH_54]

Today is an off day, with no events scheduled (or canceled…) so we’re doing some more exploring. Vancouver is much like San Francisco in that it’s very walkable, but unlike San Francisco the hills are merely “hills” and not “nearly vertical summits”. Public transit is free to visitors during the Games and we’ve used that a few times, but are mostly walking from place to place.

I’ll continue adding pictures to this photo album every couple of days, and do blog updates when I can. You might be interested in following my Twitter feed at least for the duration; most of what ends up in blog posts is Tweeted live as it happens.

After two years of planning and two days of traveling, we are finally here, and the Games start tonight! Jennifer standing in front of the Molson Canadian Hockey House We flew from San Jose to Seattle on Wednesday morning and took the Amtrak Cascades from Seattle to Vancouver yesterday. We’re staying at a condo rented [...]

After two years of planning and two days of traveling, we are finally here, and the Games start tonight!

Jennifer standing in front of the Molson Canadian Hockey House

We flew from San Jose to Seattle on Wednesday morning and took the Amtrak Cascades from Seattle to Vancouver yesterday. We’re staying at a condo rented by someone Jennifer found on a Web site set up for Vancouver residents who planned to be out of town and wanted to rent their homes to visitors. The place we’re staying is in between Gastown and Chinatown and just a couple of short blocks from BC Place, the stadium complex where most of the in-town events will be held.

The torch relay passed right in front of our place!

Vancouver has a ton of great restaurants and so far we’ve visited three:

• SteamWorks Brewing Co
• Lamplighter Pub
• Smart Mouth Cafe (where this entry is being written)

We haven’t made any dining reservations, instead relying on the great likelihood that with so many places available, we’ll surely get in somewhere.

The opening ceremony is tonight! No, we didn’t spend upwards of $1000 each for tickets, but there will be lots of public spaces to see it live.

There will be many more posts and pictures in the next two weeks.