Cleared for takeoff...

Young Son returned from his week of snow play at Grandma and Poppy's house in frosty North Idaho on Sunday, so I went to pick him up. I left the house around 4pm and drove 45 minutes to the airport in order to arrive in time to pick him up from his flight- which was scheduled to arrive at 5:30. Knowing that I would have to stand in line to get a gate pass from the agent at the check-in counter and stand in line again to go through security, I wanted to get there plenty early.

Early is an understatement.

It turned out that his flight left Spokane an hour late, and it was foggy in Oakland so he didn't land until close to 7pm... That ended up being good because the security line was just a little long.

Like out-the-terminal-and-into-the-parking-lot long.

In the end I made it to the gate with minutes to spare- which led me here today. I spent 15 minutes registering online and then 15 minutes at a local office getting fingerprinted and having biometric iris scans taken. In a couple weeks my identification card will arrive and then it's Goodbye security lines! Basically the way it works is that you check in at the Fly Clear kiosk next to security- swipe your card, give your fingerprint, and then you are cleared and escorted to the head of the security line. They say that you'll clear security in an average of 4 minutes... I had already been thinking about signing up before Sunday- but that experience pretty much sealed the deal.

Now if only I had some exciting destination to jet off to!