this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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Fun fact, bringing nmr stuff across borders is very difficult once border security realises N stands for nuclear.
Funny tangential story here.
I used to design electronics. One product is a black box with just a couple of LED lights on the front and an LED display. It also gets inserted into a special socket, from which it gets it's power. So no power cord and it can only be powered on if we have the much larger thing it gets plugged into. Of course, I needed to power it on to demonstrate it to customers, so I took apart one of the sockets that it goes into, and ran a power cord off of it so I could plug it into the wall (it runs off of ~120 VAC).
I figured to make my life easier, so I didn't have to constantly plug and unplug it, I would put a switch on it. So I just glued a red switch on the side and wired it all up.
Then I went through airport security with it. Ended up being pulled aside for about an hour as they questioned me about it and scanned the thing damn near 20 times. It was like every TSA agent in the area was watching the scans as it went through. I was talking to the head TSA guy who said "Man, I know you're fine. However, this is precisely one of the things we are told to look out for: homemade devices with switches on them. Did you have to make it red?" lol
He eventually got some higher up on the phone and it was clear from the one-side of the conversation I heard that the higher up was like "if you think the guy is fine, let him through" and so I was let through. Barely made my flight tho. Glad we got there really early.
Wow what a story. That would be NERVE WRACKING.
I'm glad to hear stories about those kinds of law enforcement folks though.
"Look I'm just trying to make sure everybody's safe, I don't think I'm Jack Bauer here."
Rather than the comical assumption usually perpetrated by Hollywood that you'd be thrown down and have a K9 chewing on your leg and half the airport aiming at you with alarms going off Lol.
Mainly I was nervous that I might miss my flight. The only moment I got a little scared was when the lady first pulled it out, said something like "What is this?" and I went to reach for it to show her. . .and she was like "You can't touch that!" It was at that point I realized I was going to be delayed getting through security. But for the most part everyone was very nice and unconcerned. It was even comical at times, like when they kept running it through the machine, each time bringing someone else over to look as well.
I was much more nervous when, doing the same type of sales, I got pulled away into customs in Canada, separated from my co-worker, him carrying all of the information, with no cell phone because my phone didn't work up there. At least that time we were smart enough to send the equipment ahead of us. lol