Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

So last weekend I made my way into Canada during our travels. The border crossing of choice was at the 1000 Islands. This is not uncommon for me.

The 1000 Islands border crossing is not overly busy outside of tourist season and that’s actually one of the reasons I like crossing there. Crossing the border is a game of chance no matter where you’re doing it. Sometimes the customs officer is reasonably nice, other times they’re quite cranky and rarely do you drive away thinking they were actually friendly. The cranky level goes up depending on which direction you’re traveling in. You’re usually welcomed into “The Land of the Free” by very surly people. Heading the other direction makes you feel like the whole experience had a touch of maple syrup sugary sweetness.

As we crossed the bridge from Wellesley Island to Hill Island, I noticed that something was amiss. Everyone was stopping before the Canadian customs station. Trucks with flashing lights were being used to herd all the vehicles into one lane all the way to the left. As we got closer I realised that we were being herded into one of the U.S. Customs lanes and passing through it backwards (since it’s designed for traffic moving in the other direction). There was a whole bunch of U.S. Customs officers inspecting vehicles leaving the U.S.

Um, why?

Now I understand that the customs folks are there to keep the U.S. safe at all points of entry. They look for a whole variety of illegal activities going on. Now that everyone has to have some sort of passport to get back into the states it’s become very, very militaristic. I laugh when I look at some of my old maps from the 60s and 70s which tell how to cross the border easily and efficiently and tout the U.S.-Canadian border as “the easiest border to cross in the world”, because that is hardly the case in this day and age.

I’m sorry, I believe that it’s Canada’s job to inspect people headed into their country. I do not believe that the U.S. should be inspecting my credentials, vehicle, etc. as we are *leaving* the country.

As I pulled up to this impromptu U.S. inspection station our passports were taken and numerous questions were fired off.

“Where are you going?”
“What’s your citizenship?”
“Where do you live?”
“What do you do for a living?”
“How do you know each other?”

Now that last question can be interesting for us. It was our friend dave that was crossing with me this time, and we met dave through online connections. Explaining this is difficult to U.S. border agents because they apparently haven’t heard of the internet yet and they don’t fathom the idea that we have met friends online. The relatively homely woman looked at me askance when I told her that we had met online and had been friends for a few years.

After a few more questions I was told to put the car into park (of course I said, “it’s a stick so I’ll go with neutral”) and several people rifled through the things in the back of my car. I heard murmurs of discussion and bags being rifled through. I smirked. I don’t really care anymore when they go through my bags. I think I’m going to start packing some really shocking underwear or magazines or something to give them something to talk about at their coffee break. I noticed that I didn’t hear the bags zip close before they slammed down the hatch.

A few more questions from the homely woman and off we were a few hundred feet to the Canadian border station, where the pleasant (and pleasantly bearded) official asked where were going, for how long, if we had anything in the car like tobacco, alcohol or firearms and then we were told to have a nice day. Off we were to the 401.

As a tax paying American citizens I have a Really Big Problem with the United States government inspecting me as I LEAVE the United States. I really don’t think it’s any of their business as to when I’m leaving the states. I think they should only care when I coming back into the states, and then I think that they’re inspection process is overly intrusive, laughable and ridiculous. One is assumed to be nearly a criminal these days and I don’t appreciate it at all. I thought things would ease up a little bit when Obama took office in January but no, it’s the same old, same old as when GWB was there.

I don’t know if the 1000 Islands border control is overly zealous or what but that’s the third time that I have had such an intrusive crossing experience. I was thinking that I have a note on a file somewhere but the outgoing U.S. border officers didn’t scan my passport, they just searched and grilled me.

I don’t feel any safer, I don’t feel any comfort and I am certainly not happy being treated like this by my own country, which is supposedly “The Land of the Free”. I felt a great deal of comfort when we were finally in Canada.

To me that’s a little sad.

It’s 4 a.m. and I am wide awake. Not only am I wide awake, but I’m feeling very rested. I feel like I could take on the day today without a care in the world and have a really good day. I am hyped up, amped up and ready to go. But in the back of my mind I’m wondering if I would fade before noon.

I have an ear bug replaying over and over. This time it’s Reba McEntire’s “I’m A Survivor”, the version used for her television show “Reba”. Lucky me, I even have visuals to go along with it.

I’m up and around writing in my blog during this little episode of insomnia hoping that it will somehow make me sleepy and I’ll be able to finish my night’s sleep. I’m sure this little ditty of a blog entry has made someone, somewhere fall asleep.

So Earl and I just got back from doing our civic duty and voting in the local elections. There were two referendums on the ballot: one was for New York State to turn some land over to one of the power companies so they could put a 48kV powerline along Route 56 somewhere in the North Country, the other was to allow prison inmates to work for not-for-profit organizations.

There were many choices on the ballot for the smattering of offices we were voting for. Many choices were the same vertically – the same person was running on Democrat, Republican, Independent and Conservative ticket. Some choices didn’t have a Democrat running at all. I did make choices in all elections though.

When we walked into the Town Hall we instantly knew something was decidedly different from previous voting experiences. There was no sound of levers being ticked, no crunching of the big red handle opening the curtain and locking in your vote. No. All the ceremony is gone. You now sign in, are handed a score card, instructed to fill in the square completely in a black, felt-tipped pen and sent to a bank of cubicles that really don’t afford any privacy. Gone are the days where no one else was allowed in the voting booth with you. Gone are the days when you cast your vote in confidence and felt like you were making a difference with the pull of a lever. Gone are the days when your vote was confirmed with the swing of the big red lever and a woosh of the curtains.

You now fill in squares with a black pen and take your scorecard to a big electronic machine and feed it into a document scanner. The LCD screen tells you that your vote is registered. There isn’t even a beep nor is there a Happy Mac icon congratulating you on being a good American.

I asked every election official that I had contact with if they liked the new voting machines and if it made their work any easier or more efficient.

It was a “NO” on all accounts. This is a waste of the taxpayer’s money. In the 1980s the local Super Duper (grocery store) didn’t replace their large, hulking mechanical cash registers until they broke down and were no longer functional. And when it was time to replace them, they did it one at a time. New York State should replace these machines one by one as they start to malfunction, giving the voters a choice between the old and new machines until the old machines are no longer viable.

I’m a geek. I am a certified geek. I have many documents saying how geeky I am. I’m even considering a geek tattoo.

I HATE HATE HATE HATE electronic voting. I don’t trust the voting machines. I don’t trust the companies that make them, I don’t trust the programmers that program them and I certainly don’t trust that they’re going to scan my black dot correctly and accurately. They do NOT make the process simpler for the voting citizen and they are not a step in the right direction.

I feel like voting has gone from a participatory to a spectator sport. I am not comfortable with this at all.

Bad move.