by falling building structures. They were lucky to be alive.
We were very lucky. Bubbles had been out of the building to see her fertility specialist. Her co-workers were not so lucky. Out of her small office of 100 staff only 40 lived to see the following week. It was bloody, it was messy and terrorised Bubbles’ confidence in being in a secured environment and even a safe country.
10/1/2013
An attempt was made on the Prime Minister’s wife. The assassin killed two of her bodyguards and was in turn gunned down by the third. The extra security was in place due to the bombings, if it wasn’t for the security the PM would have been a widower.
Police are uncertain if this was a terrorist attack or some form of sick act. However the PM has labelled it a sickening attack on his family by deranged terrorists.
I don’t know what to make of it, all I know is it has become a sorry and sick country.
15/1/2013
Bubbles never went back to work, and wanted nothing more to do with the whole situation. She still has nightmares of dying in a blast of fire and flying objects. I said we have to leave Australia, if we wanted to give our unborn child a chance to be safe. Through my contacts with the Mayor of Wellington, Sammy Murphy, he had a position for a computer professional and potential part-time work for Bubbles.
So we have decided to go to New Zealand for a short break to see what this opportunity might entail, and also to see what was going on around the country. The Australian media and government were painting a very negative image of the country, one which was so hard to believe and not collaborated by my friends who we knew in New Zealand.
So we are packing our bags and are ready to leave Australia, to see if the land of the long white cloud would be better for us, or if we should stay in Australia and take our risks on the future.
Time can only tell. I hate this madness that has infected this world and only wish to find a place that is safe and hopefully survive the disease of hatred and over controlling governments. So much for the United Nation’s proclamation that the war on terror would be over by the end of the year, it’s only getting worse.
I’m convinced that the world is stuffed and that I need to find a place that was safe for Bubbles and our unborn baby. If such a place even exists any more. I feel like saying stop the world, I want to get off.
19/1/2013
We have made it to New Zealand, Wellington. Our flight was good, only a bit bumpy on the descent. Our day started out with a three hour boarding process to secure our seat on the plane. Our paranoia with terrorism has seen massive efforts to restrict and control passengers’ movements to and from our airports, around the country. To gain access to the airport you can only catch secure public transport to the terminals, you can no longer be dropped off by friends or relatives. Only people who have flight boarding passes are allowed to access the terminal building. Your finger prints are scanned by finger print readers that look out for known suspect and criminal identities that have been held captive by police forces around the world.
Our bags are taken from us to be scanned and sniffed for explosive chemicals and other identifiable items on the restricted materials list. There are no personal objects allowed to be carried onto the plane, you can’t even take a favourite book with you. If you want something to do on the plane you have to buy something from one of the terminal vendors’ pre-screened items. Medical items are secured into a wheel-on trolley that is controlled by security guards throughout the flight.
Once your bags have been taken from you and you have secured a boarding pass, you are bundled into a secure bus where you take an allocated seat and wait for the other passengers to arrive. Then you are escorted to the terminal in a convoy of armed security guards along a secured road way to the terminal. Once you board the bus you aren’t allowed to change seats or get off the bus again until it’s reached the terminal. If you don’t make the cut off time for this process you are not allowed on the bus and your flight leaves without you. There are no last minute arrivals for anyone.
Once you arrive at the terminal you are confronted with more security personnel and a large number of coffin sized camera booths. Our ‘masters’ are no longer happy with just searching our bags, scanning us for metal and patting us down, they now take pictures of us. Not just any normal pictures of us waiting to board, they now take detailed pictures through our clothes using millimetre wave (MMW) technology. MMW uses radio waves to form a reasonably detailed 3-dimensional image of our bodies and any items that have been concealed underneath our clothes. MMW effectively strips back layers of your clothes until it either reaches your body or items that can’t be penetrated by the radio waves. It doesn’t leave anything to the imagination; you are naked to the person or persons reviewing the images.
So the cost of flying now comes as a cost to personal dignity, but not surprisingly after several successful and unsuccessful hijacking attempts the technology has been welcomed by the general public. The only concern which a lot of the public share is who controls access to the images and what happens to them after they have been taken.
Civil libertarians have raged a fight against the use of the machines and have even said that the system invites paedophiles to become security guards to perve on young children. The governments of the world have been assuring the public that these extreme measures are required to protect its citizens from harm. It’s a catch-22 position; if we do nothing then the risks are extreme that terrorists will take advantage of the situation, so instead we risk the chance that some security personnel will get their thrills from looking at naked people.
I didn’t like the idea of being scanned but give what has happened in the past and the potential for more violence, the invasion of my dignity is only a small price to pay if, and only if, the technology prevents these acts from occurring.
There is no rushing to process people; it’s a fully controlled process. You step into the booth, a door closes behind you, you then hear some whirring noises and it’s over. If you pass another door opens up and you find yourself stepping into the terminal lounge and retail areas. If you don’t pass, you find yourself trapped in a box until an armed security team arrives to escort you away.
When the system first went live, many people learnt the hard way not to try to carry things on their person. These days, for the experienced traveller it’s just a five second pause in your transition into the secure terminal facilities. Anyone caught now is either an idiot trying to do something that is illegal and therefore is charged and denied access to the flight or is potentially a terrorist waiting to strike, so the security teams are very passionate when someone is detected doing the wrong thing.
Once we had passed the booths we had a coffee and some cheesecake from the café. Having the coffee reminded me of June and why I call her Bubbles. Early on in our courtship, June and I were at a café where June ordered a creamy iced coffee and was taking a sip when I made her laugh at a story I was telling her. She laughed so hard that she ended up with bubbles of milk and cream coming out of her nose, and hence why I’ve called her Bubbles ever since.
Then we went searching for something to do on the flight, in case the in-flight entertainment was boring. I ended up with an eBook on New Zealand to read and Bubbles settled for the current news briefings being offered on the in-flight internet access.
Anyway we have reached our hotel and are settling down for the evening in our comfortable room overlooking the city and its waterways. It’s a nice setting. Tomorrow we meet up with Sammy to discuss the future and see what he and his town have to offer us. Hopefully this might be the start of a new way of life for us, and more importantly one that may not be at risk to terror.
Arrival
23/1/2013 @ 9pm
I had just finished making love with Bubbles when we both became aware of the rattling of the windows of the motel room. We looked at each other and said “Wow an earthquake, what do we do now?” We had never been in an earthquake and had no idea as to what we should do. It didn’t seem bad as it