I’m in Tucson, Arizona, at the IBM Academy of Technology‘s Technology Council meeting. They selected the Hilton Tucson East as the hotel, even though it’s 20 minutes away from the meeting site.

I think they made a good choice; the hotel has been very accomodating and friendly, and there’s a reasonable choice of restaurants in the area. They add lots of nice amenities for Gold members (including cookies and water delivered to the room, as well as chocolate on arrival and bonus Hilton points), too. And they even gave me a room with a southern exposure, so I can listen to XM (though that was a random deal — I didn’t ask for it).

I would happily stay there again, though given my rate of visits to Tucson, that may not happen for a long time (my last visit was 20 years ago).

I have a 1:25pm flight today to Tucson. I’m paranoid, so I left the house at 10:25am. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads, so it didn’t take me very long to get to the airport; in fact, I had returned the car and was in the terminal at 11:25.

That gave me plenty of time for a leisurely lunch (I hit Burger Joint in the International Terminal — it’s good, but I could have found something healthier). Then I walked over to Terminal 1 and the line for security screening.

I usually fly American; I’m an AAdvantage Platinum customer, so I get to use the express entry to the security line. Every time I fly another airline, I remember how much time being an elite member saves me, so I wasn’t looking forward to the long line here. I was pleasantly surprised when they looked at my boarding pass and ushered me over to a shorter line — I thought that the Alaska/American frequent flyer deal was paying off for me.

The pleasantness of the surprise didn’t last long. The TSA agent asked me if I was familiar with the secondary screening process; I wasn’t. So he explained it; I had to take off my shoes, jacket, empty my pockets, and wait for an agent who could wand me down and do a hand-check of my baggage. Fortunately, I hadn’t over-packed, so I wasn’t worried about being unable to get my stuff back into the bag without extreme measures. And I still had plenty of time, so I wasn’t worrying about missing my flight.

The process didn’t take much longer than normal screening — I was finished in less than ten minutes, and I’m pretty sure I missed at least five minutes of standing in line. But on the whole, I’d be happy not to be given this kind of special treatment.