I am back from Atlanta.

I came in amazingly under budget. We can be reimbursed for up to $700, $250 of which is food allowance.

Plane: $173.61
Hotel: $230
Food: $50.33
Misc: $10, but will probably end up being $50.

Since we don't need receipts to claim the food allowance, I can still claim the $250 for food, and actually pocket $200. A part of me feels like it's not right to claim money that I never spent, but considering all the overtime hours I've put in that I never got compensated for, it's hard to feel guilty.

I'll do a more complete post when it's not 3am.

On a totally unrelated topic, airport security is so incredibly ridiculous these days.

On the way there, they checked every single compartment of my bag, and confiscated my bloody peanut butter. Fine, it's a potentially explosive "gel". But any idiot can tell that it's the *nonexplosive* variety of peanut butter, DUH.

I don't understood why they took the peanut butter, but not the poster tubes that can totally be used as clubs.

But the hilarious thing is, they took my peanut butter, but totally missed the RAZOR BLADE that I forgot that I kept in my wallet. I've actually cut myself on that thing, so it *does* work.

Peanut butter vs. razor. Hmmm, I wonder which is more dangerous. Not that my stupid razor is dangerous at all, unless you're, like, a hemophiliac or something, and are dumb enough to swipe your finger across it.

On the way back, I got flagged for having an outdated passport. Oops, I didn't notice, and neither did the airport security folk on the way there.

So I get sent back to the check-in counter for a new boarding pass labelled "SSSS". All that accomplished was wasting my precious time, and separating me from the people I was traveling with. It didn't actually STOP me from getting through eventually, or anything.

But I get routed to the special "suspicious people" line. Whoo-hoo! When I realized that I was in a special line, my first thought was, "I hope this isn't the line for the gas chambers."

So I put all my stuff on the x-ray scanner, and get picked for a random security check! Probably because I have those S's on my boarding pass, and a foreign passport, those racists.

All I could think was, "Way to go, choosing the TINY PACIFICST VEGETARIAN." I don't even kill spiders.

All this hubbub caused me to MISS MY FLIGHT.

Oh, and after all that, they STILL didn't find the razor that was still in my wallet. Because part of me was morbidly curious as to whether I could get away with it a second time.

Yeah, after going through this, I can fully attest that airport security is a total crock that accomplishes absolutely nothing. I don't think they even look that carefully at the x-rays. I'm sure that if I really wanted to, I could have snuck something a lot worse than a razor onto the plane.

I'm glad I don't travel all that often. The frustration would drive me batty.