I am now sitting in the Air Canada lounge in Pearson Airport's Terminal 2, having cleared the gauntlet. For those who want to know what it was like, keep reading.

(As background, my trip home to Denver was delayed for business reasons from Friday the 7th to Wednesday the 12th. I've been stranded in Toronto since then.)

Blow by blow:

• Four and a half hours before scheduled departure, checking out of Marriott Bloor Yorktown was painless. Clerk said "Good luck. We've already 5 people come back from the airport to check in for another night. Their flights were cancelled."
• Taxi queue had two cabs. No one was in the first one. The second one honked his horn and waved me over. Of course, the driver was Ahmeet Allah-something, very nice and helpful. The usual tokens with Arabic writing were placed here and there in the cab. The ABS light and the Check Engine light were both glowing, and remained glowing for the entire trip to Pearson.
• Traffic on a Sunday morning was light, to say the least.
• Arriving at Pearson was eerie. Maybe 20 cars visible for the length of Terminal 2. It looked a bit like an abandoned terminal from the outside.
• Ahmeet stopped at the first door for US departures. The only other people in sight were two Hasidic Jews wrestling with their bags.
• Paid Ahmeet $40 for a $32 cab ride. He was very grateful and wished me a good trip.
• The Air Canada check in line was HORRENDOUS. My guess was a 90 minute wait, at least.
• The Air Canada line for US ticketing was non-existent, so I took my UA ticket over and tried to find out if I needed it endorsed or anything, or maybe I could even check in there. She first said, "This is for the 7th? You'll have to pay a penalty." Before I could explain my delay for business reasons to Wednesday and what a UA B fare was, she retracted what she said before and said "You're all set, just step over there and check in."
• Rather than endure that horrendous queue I kept walking, hoping for an Air Canada Star Alliance Gold check-in line somewhere -- found one just before the United desks!
• Two agents working, two couples already checking in. I was first in line (queue). Right then and there I thanked my lucky stars that I was SA Gold.
• I gave my UA ticket, and passport to the agent as well as my re-booked flight number. She asked the four questions (see 1st msg in this thread) and issued my boarding pass before I could finish my US Customs Declaration. I re-grouped all my baggage and headed for US Immigration.
• Before I got 10 steps, a security worker stopped me and asked for my boarding pass.
• Stopped at a desk in Immigration to complete my customs declaration then got in line. A long line. Wrapped four times. There were only 6 officers working, that I could see.
• A bit of a disturbance: They pulled a group of 15 Asians (didn't see any passport so I don't know what nationality) and put them in a separate queue. Apparently a tour group -- they had to all pass a single Immigration officer.
• Several more officers come on duty and the line starts moving pretty darn fast. When I got to an officer, I was asked, "Where do you live?" "Denv--uh, Littleton, Colorado." He scanned my passport, checked his computer, then stamped my boarding pass and customs form and waved me on through to Customs.
• Passed by two security workers and overhead one phrase as I walked on by: "Profiling is everything." As much as I wanted to, I did not slow down to hear more. Heck, it could have been a setup or something for someone being paranoid.
• At US customs. Again, first in line. I stood behind the red line as the officer on the left joked with another security officer and the agent on the right chatted with a co-worker. Thirty seconds later I was waved up to the officer on the right, handed her my declaration and paused but she urged me right on through. As if I was taking too long. Weird.
• Put my beloved rollaboard on the belt for checked baggage. Felt a twinge of regret, hoping I would see it on the other end of my journey. Now on to the Big Show.
• The lines for security screening were no longer than 7 people each. I though, "cool, no sweat." I was wrong.
• Nearly everyone set off the metal detectors. The people with the wands were VERY busy. And sure enough, referencing another thread posted here at FlyerTalk, it looked like a woman in the next line over set off the detector with her underwire bra. That was the only area of her body that beeped when the wand was used.
• The X-ray belt hardly moved. Almost every bag was being opened and searched in front of me. The woman immediately in front of me had her's opened to see a camera.
  While waiting for my stuff to clear the x-ray, I asked the guard watching the metal detector if people were being nice about things and she gave me a look of "I wish, but I'd rather be anywhere else but here."
• I had to take out my cell phone to demonstrate that it worked, and power on the laptop to show that it worked. He waited until the initial spash screen went away and was replaced with the Windows NT start up stuff before he was satisified that it was legit. He showed no interest in my Palm Vx, the BattPac charger for it, the Palm Portable Keyboard, the diskette drive for my laptop, the mouse or the power supply. Yet the guy right behind me had his mouse scrutinized. Good thing I put my SwissChamp knife, grooming scissors, and nail file in my checked bag!
• I re-packed my laptop and walked over to the Air Canada lounge. This place is nearly empty! Maybe 15 people in this cavernous clubroom. Not that I'm complaining.

Total time from arrival at airport to entrance to lounge: 32 minutes! In the "old days" it would have taken maybe 15 minutes, tops, to do the same.

It obviously would have been a lot worse if I didn't have Gold status for check in, but all in all, it wasn't that bad. There was certainly a lot more security people around, and I felt like I was being watched a lot more, but it went well.

Now I'm just hoping that my flight really does leave today and I don't have to do all this all over again tomorrow!!!

RAD (looking forward to seeing my girls!)