It would seem I often forget entire words. Perhaps I was just giddy thinking about a go fortkart.

For those confused, here are the missing words:
on
age

These instructions really over-think the entire process, not to mention they limit the kids to just a playhouse.

Craftiness and DIY be damned, here are the proper instructions:

1. Buy a large appliance/leg lamp.
2. Allow your children access to markers, glue, yarn and all sorts of things that will inevitably end up the walls, in their hair/nose, on the dog, and possibly the floor of the local ER. You know, all the great things we had as kids
3. Go about your daily business, reminding yourself that it's just as important to nurture your children through self-discovery as it is to guide them through life.

Result: A time travel capable transmogrifier castle cave go fortkart.

Note: If you have multiple children of close proximity, this will invariably provide a great source of amusement/headache when it turns into the sibling wrasslin' ring.

I met Fred Rogers twice at Hidden Valley (Somerset, PA). Both times I was delivering a pizza to his home, and both times the guy was a raging jerk. And not just in the sense of "that guy stiffed me" (which he did, twice), but more in the "wow, that guy was just down-right rude and hateful".

I blew the first meeting off as a bad night (everyone has them), after my second run-in I decided that he was just an ass who played a positive character on-screen.

As skreidle noted in #9, modern X-Ray machines are able to do a lot more than find just metal, although that does happen to be one of their strengths.

Most newer devices have the ability to sort based on organic, in-organic and blend materials. Regarding Heathrow, they use (as many airports do) the Smiths-Heimann Hi-Mat capable scanners.

A properly trained person doing sufficient evaluation and detection should have little problem detecting a wad of plastic explosives or something "irregular" in most cases.
The issue is, as I've noted often, TSA and other agency screening officials are running so many people through at such a high rate of speed, accurate assessment is virtually impossible.

Couple this with an apparently lack of adequate training, and the entire process is reduced to a finger exercise.

I frequently travel with a carry-on bag filled with electronic gear: laptop, digital SLR, couple of lenses, iPod, several cell phones, headphones, external hard drive, Nintendo DS, and all the assorted accompanying cables. I then put my Zippo lighter in a small bag in the same bag, and chuckle as it goes through x-ray. *I* can see it, plain as day, but there is so much other "interesting" stuff, the screener typically has me open the bag, glances over all the gear and waves me on.

In Frankfurt, I forgot until I reached the line that I had a leatherman "Wave" knife in my bag. Worried that it would be confiscated, I oriented it in such a way that it would appear less as a "knife" and more as a block of metal, and placed it along-side my external hard drive.

Sweating bullets (aren't they supposed to have people that can spot people like me?) I observed a screener operating a machine fully engaged in conversation with the person next to to them. At no point did they even *look* at the scanner, in fact, they didn't even acknowledge my existence.

The point is, policy, procedure, technology, and so on are only useful when the staff are trained and attentive. Otherwise the entire thing is just a an inconvenience for the honest folk flying, any genuine criminals are free to move about the air.

Currently I am working in place deploying a system not unlike this.

If one were to google "DoDaam aEgis" you would find the exact system we have deployed.