I just got back from my first vacation in 2 years to see some friends in Texas and family in Florida.

First leg was San Diego to Houston (Hobby), april 22. All passengers were being scanned using the backscatter machine except for children under 12 and mothers with young children. I also witnessed a elderly lady getting a very quick patdown because she could not stand for the backscatter. Everyone was professional at the checkpoint. There was no yelling. I assumed all the TSO's were told to be very passenger friendly considering it was Easter weekend.

I did not opt out for two reasons. I wanted to see if the machine actually worked, first. Second, I have some industrial injuries from the late 80's that have left me with wires holding the right side of my rib cage in place with some very large scars. Do I like how invasive the scanner is, no. Did it work or did it give some kind of false reading because of my previous injuries? It worked.

Second leg was Houston (Hobby) to Tampa, april 23. All passengers were either being scanned using the millimeter wave scanner or being directed to the walk through metal detector. All children, 12 and under were being sent through the WTMD, including mothers with babies. All the TSO's were very professional, no yelling or barking. I tried to self opt out by getting behind a very attractive woman in her late 20's. The TSO directing traffic sent her through the machine and then had me wait. So I then went into the MMW scanner.

Considering that the BSX did not show anything, I was curious to see if the MMW would do the same. Not to be. The TSO on the other side explained what he was going to do, which was just run his gloved finger around the inside of my waistband. He had a box of gloves right there and put a new pair on. So I have some real concerns at the this point about the effectiveness of the MMW versus the BSX in false positives.

Tampa to San Diego, april 30th. Let me start off with this, who is FSD there? Because that person needs to be fired. It took 50 minutes from the time we entered the security line to the time my brother and myself could go to our gate. They had 2 lines open for security screening. Both had WTMD and MMW scanners. All the TSO's were friendly and professional. By the time we got near the front of the line they opened a WTMD line only. So we both opted out.

They did have one of the lines with the MMW and WTMD for elderly, disabled and families with young children. I couldn't see how they were performing the patdown, but it appeared that it was a pretty quick frisk. They were prioritized to the front that way.

I definitely have a problem with the millimeter wave scanner. First time through one and get a false positive. The grope itself was very quick and very limited. But I did not find one TSO with a bad attitude at any airport I was in. My view is that from the top down in the TSA, they wanted Easter to be a no new complaint time. No yelling, barking orders or anyone being a smug self righteous idiot.

The wait times to get screened at San Diego and Houston were less than 20 minutes each. Very reasonable. Tampa on the other hand was a cluster of epic size. By the time I got to the front of security, the line was back to the shuttles and growing. Very poor planning on some FSD's part.

I will be opting out of the glass box from now on. All in all, I had a very nice time visiting family and friends. Flying, not so much.