Bringing an Avalanche Airbag on a Plane

Soon I will be headed to Ohio to visit my youngest son and his family. My son had 2 requests for this trip: bring a pair of skis he has at my house and bring his avalanche airbag. Now skis are easy to bring as the airlines are ready to handle them, especially out of Salt Lake. The airbag poses a unique challenge for airplane travel.

I don't imagine a lot of my readers know what an avalanche airbag is and why a skier would need one. Think about a bag of potato chips and how the largest ones always seem to be at the top of the bag while the crumbs sink to the bottom. The same thing happens in an avalanche where the largest objects will rise to the top and the smallest sink. The idea behind an airbag is that you instantly become larger and should float to the surface of the sliding snow and not sink to the bottom where you can quickly suffocate. In order to inflate the airbag, my son's bag has a canister of compressed air. FAA guidelines restrict any container of compressed air even though there is one for every life jacket under every seat.

I have never taken an avalanche airbag on a plane but my older son has and I vaguely remembered what he went through. The first thing is you have to let all of the compressed air out of the cylinder. Standard maintenance requires you do this once a year anyway and so I went into a room with lots of space. I put the backpack on and pulled the trigger cord. A large hissing noise ensued and I expanded to twice my normal size. As I write this I wonder if an avalanche airbag would be a great bear deterrent.

I took off the backpack and found the release button to empty the air out of the inflatable bag. Then I removed the canister before folding up the bag and repacking it like one would a parachute. Now that I had the empty cylinder, I didn't know what to do next and so I went to the source of all information: the Internet. I did a search on flying with an avalanche airbag and made sure to include the manufacturer's name. The result came back with step-by-step instructions on how to disassemble the cylinder and bring everything through airport security. Furthermore it listed the two airports in the world where you will have the most problems: one in Canada and one in Germany. Oh and if you are going to Japan, just leave the cylinder home and rent one when you get there.

The important thing I needed to know is to unscrew the top from the cylinder so TSA can inspect the inside of the empty cylinder which looks like a small metal water bottle. The top contains the release valve and a pressure gauge so you know if you have enough air in the cylinder. I tried with all my might to unscrew the top only to be thwarted by Bubba who cranked that sucker tight at the factory. I had to enlist the service of my wife and together we unscrewed the top so everything is now ready to head to the airport when that time comes.

The last helpful hint I got from the Internet said it is okay to check the airbag but carry the cylinder on the plane. That way you can explain what it is to TSA. Having heard horror stories about passengers called back to baggage check-in because of questionable items in checked bags, I will be sure to heed that advice. After all, I don't want to miss my flight dealing with questions. If I run into problems, I'll be sure to post a follow-up entry. 

First Snow of the Season

I slowly started waking up this morning when my phone started going crazy with text messages. Given the massive amount of rain we received last night, I figured it related to snow in the mountains. Sure enough, that is the primary subject of all those messages.

My son made the mistake of showing my 7-year-old granddaughter webcam pictures of the snow up at Alta. She responded, "Can we go skiing today?" My wife immediately shot back that her grandfather would take her, implying that there is no minimum amount of snow I wouldn't try to ski on. I will confess that the thought did cross my mind until I took a closer look at those webcam images. No we need a lot more snow before I'll brave the conditions. Fortunately we are expecting more precipitation through Wednesday. Unfortunately my schedule won't let me be able to take my granddaughter skiing until Friday afternoon and the snow might not be around then.

The Internet has given us a number of tools to help us know what is happening in the world around us. While it is easy enough to look out the window to see what the weather is doing, we can also use websites to see what the weather is doing anywhere. While I use it to check local ski resorts, I can also check out snow conditions in Colorado, France, or even Japan. For those that don't like the snow and cold, you can check beach webcams around the world. One of my buddies constantly has a webcam up on his computer of his favorite surfing beach in Hawaii.

This access to instant information had me remembering how I used to get ski-resort information as a teenager. Mobile phones didn't exist nor did digital cameras that make placing images online so easy. Now that I think about it, "online" didn't exist either. We didn't have the benefit of websites. We did get a daily newspaper though and could find all sorts of information there. If the paper didn't have what you wanted to know, you either did without or gave someone a phone call. You just needed to know who to call. 

My Mac Doesn't Want to Run the Newest Version of GIMP

The downside of a visit to Japan for work is that I spend a lot of time doing an expense report. I spent the week collecting receipts and then sit down to organize them when I return home. I know some of my colleagues take pictures of the receipt with their phones the moment they get them but I wait until I have a large workspace. I have a well-tested system for making sure I don't forget anything and am reluctant to change it.

I have a nice flatbed scanner that I use to digitize all of those receipts. Then I use use GIMP to edit those images before submitting them in my company's expense reporting system. I make sure to cut out any part of the image that is not needed and it makes for incredibly legible receipts.

Yesterday I went to start GIMP on my Mac only to be told an updated version of the software is available. I try to always use the latest version and so I installed the new one. Unfortunately I did not install it from Apple's App Store and so MacOS didn't want to let the program run. Normally I can just right-click on the application icon and that forces it to start. Yesterday that didn't work. I did a quick search and found that I needed to run the following command using the terminal:

xattr -cr /Applications/GIMP.app

I had to enter the administrator password to get the command to run, then right-click on the icon and select the "Open" option. That forced GIMP to run and it came up nicely. I quickly trimmed receipt images and then completed my expense report in a timely manner.

GIMP may not be as good as Adobe's Photoshop but it has all the features I need to do the image editing I need. Furthermore it is free and does not require an annual subscription. Should you find yourself needing to do some simple photo editing, I highly recommend it.  

Airline Apps

I spent last week in Japan with my wife and youngest daughter. I decided to try something new and flew through Honolulu on the way there. I didn't realize it adds 5 hours to the trip, not including the layover and so I probably won't do that again unless I spend a week or so in Hawaii before continuing on. When I boarded the plane the first leg of the trip, I discovered I had been upgraded to first class. That surprised me as it has been a long time since I have qualified for a first class upgrade on Delta Airlines. Furthermore I got upgraded to a lie-flat seat so I could sleep comfortably on the flight.

The upgrade surprise encouraged me to download Delta's specific application for my phone in the hopes I would not be caught unaware again. I have always resisted installing apps when I can get all the information I need from a website. Apps take up space on your phone and I would much rather use that space for something else. The only downside of the website is that it doesn't push updates to you and so you board a plane not knowing your seat has been switched.

I used the plane's WiFi to install the app and set it up. Then I could use the app throughout the rest of the trip. I used it to check in for my return flights home. I also upgraded my seats to Economy+ and gave my daughter those seats for the way home. While I have been to Japan many times, I have always used a paper ticket to go through security there. This time I didn't print anything and just used the ticket on the app. It worked flawlessly.

It has only been a single trip and I cannot definitely say that the app gives me anything I couldn't get from just going to the website. I'll keep using it for my future trips and see if there are any enlightening features that makes me want to keep it. If not, I'll remove it and free up space on my phone.