One leg left 

One more reason I'll miss Denmark 

Hopping home 

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By the way, GEL was the most fabulous conference I've ever attended -- I recommend it. Or are you speaking there already?

I recommend the conference -- attended in New York and had a fabulous time. Also, Doc, if Dean hasn't pointed it out to you, please see my little ode to you on my blog. Missed you this year at PDF http://learninglaboratory.blogspot.com/2006/05/pdf-conference-thought-on-politics.html

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That is pretty scary what you went through. Must have been something weird going on.

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I should make clear that the problem isn't customs itself. It's what happens in the customs process for passengers transferring to other planes. They have to claim their bags, then bring them to security screening for re-check, before the passengers themselves go through their own security screening.

The locals get shunted off right after going through customs.

Bag claim is a wide corridor flanked by baggage carousels. By the time passengers get to this area, most bags are off the carousels and lined up on the floor, in some cases with little room to maneuver through, especially with a luggage cart. Passengers need to hunt through thes mazes of bags, retrieve their bags, then bring them to the back of the line, which stretches down the middle of the corridor and all the way back to the customs clearance area. People with lots of bags and carts take up extra room and clog everything up, especially when they go through the luggage mazes. There is little signage identifying which clusters of bags came from which flight, with additional confusion caused by a thick line of passengers with bags, clogging the area between the two lines of baggage carousels. When many flights come in at once, as happened yesterday, the confusion becomes almost total.

Worse, those whose bags come off carousels near the front of the long line tend to want to cut into the line right where they are, rather than haul their luggage to the back of a line so long it apears endless -- when the line also appears not to be moving. The fact that some passengers have minutes to make connections, and will surely miss those connections if they go to the back of the line, makes things much worse. I saw several passengers reduced to tears. When those passengers don't speak English ... well, you an imagine.

Passengers themselves try to sort out who is most likely to miss a flight, and urge others with shorter connections to move ahead. But many passengers still miss flights.

Afterwards I asked somebody behind the counter at the United Red Carpet Club if this happens often. "In Summer." She said. "It goes on all Summer." She added, "The place is just too small. It's not built to handle a high volume of traffic."

There is a lot of construction going on at Dulles. I would hope some of it will be devoted to enlarging the whole customs area.

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