Lions, tigers, and terrorists! Oh my!

It was another day at the Portland International Airport. Stepped off the half empty, but conveniently-designed Trimet Max onto an equally convenient escalator to the second floor for the check-in counters. Overall, seemed to be pretty typical and humdrum. But then something stopped me in my tracks. It was a sign. A rather large sign posted in front of the security checkpoint.

Ladies and gentlemen, not like I paid attention before, but we are now at a level ORANGE terrorist alert. Now on the ROYGBIV spectrum, it may not seem as threatening. Orange, after all, is the color of supernovas, of the jumpsuits that super-max prisoners wear, and ironically, oranges. But if we were to convert these colors into a more understandable scale, like lets say grades (for most of us that are in school right now) that means our terrorist protection is at a D- or D at best! (And conversely, these terrorists are scoring a B+/A- in succeeding to terrorize us!) OH MY!

For a moment, I was frozen in my tracks. Should I or shouldn't I continue on this 2 hour journey to Los Angeles? Was I scared enough to cancel my Thanksgiving plans? Then I took a look around me, let out a big sigh of relief, and continued as I was.