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Tags: Breaking News / Balloons / DIA / Denver / Denver Travel / → All Tags
Homemade Balloon Lands Near Denver Airport, Wife Swap Son Missing
Update 8am EST 10/16: The boy was found hiding in the attic at this house. Since then, the family has been interviewed several times, managing to embarrass themselves when the boy possibly revealed it all as a hoax on Larry King Live and then vomited live on air during the Today Show. We're sure this story will continue.
This afternoon, an emergency story gripped the nation and the internet as it was announced that a 6 year-old boy, Falcon Heene, had taken off in a homemade UFO-shaped balloon and was floating towards Denver International Airport, causing helicopters and air traffic authorities to mobilize in order to track it and bring it safely to the ground.
The balloon, a weak craft with a plywood bottom and a small door through which it is believed the child entered, floated between 5,000 to 7,000 feet for hours, taking off from near Ft. Collins and landing a field near Hudson, CO. The child was not inside of the craft and the search for him continues.
In the meantime, we have realized (as has Huffington Post) that the boy is the son of one of the families featured on the popular TV show Wife Swap. The family, the Heenes, were the reckless family who were stormchasers and daredevils; the wife was switched to a ultra safety-conscious mom. The episode was so spectacular that it opened the season for the show, and one of the children notoriously says "F*ck these rules" to the swapped mom. Check out a clip of that here.
The video, after the jump.
Tags: TSA Watch / Airport Security / Airport Hell / Travel Photography / DIA / Alaska Airlines / → All Tags
TSA Says Maybe To Photos, Yes To Boring Us To Death
As they are so apt to do, the TSA took an opportunity to publicly obfuscate an issue on its Evolution of Security blog this week. The topic: Photography at airports -- can you do it? The answer: Well... On one hand, it's okay if you don't bother anyone or slow down the checkpoint line; on the other hand, you should not "be surprised if someone (TSA, airport police, or a curious passenger) asks you what you’re up to."
Also, the state, city or airport may have its own rules, which apparently TSA can't override despite being a national agency and the First Amendment and can't you just wait to take that profile picture till you get home, Ansel Badams?
Tags: WiFi / Free WiFi / Airport WiFi / PHX / DEN / DIA / → All Tags
Airport WiFi: Phoenix Plays Net Nanny
Say it ain't so, PHX! The Phoenix airport, which we listed as one of the best in the US for WiFi, won't let you check out dirty websites while you're waiting for your flight. The airport filters web content in the terminals, a la Denver International.
Says The Rocky Mountain News, it's only one of a couple airports playing nanny for passengers:
A review of policies at two dozen of the nation's busiest airports found that DIA and Phoenix Sky Harbor are the only two that block content on their WiFi systems for travelers using their own laptops, according to [our] research.
As we told the author of the story, it's pretty ridiculous that the web is being censored while you can pick up nudie mags in the airport newsstand. (Though DIA should get some credit for making the WiFi free.) For more airports with free wireless, check out our handy map.
Related Stories:
· Web Surfers Makin' Waves [RMN]
· Denver Airport, Hotels Censoring the Web [Jaunted]
· Airport WiFi Map [Jaunted]
[Photo: cogdogblog]
Tags: DEN / WiFi / Free WiFi / DIA / → All Tags
DIA Still Keeping Some Sites in the Dark
Apparently the reporters over at the Denver Post don't read Jaunted. If they did, they'd have heard months ago that Denver International censors the web. But we suppose if you haven't heard, it's breaking news to you.
Here's the scoop. DIA implemented Webwasher, a filtering product, after it made its wireless network free. Ostensibly it's to keep bored people from looking up porn, but the filters are also blocking gossip sites like Perez Hilton and Jossip as well as geek fave Boing Boing. We'll concede that Perez may not be embodiment of gentlemanly discourse, but he's hardly worth censoring.
Amazingly, some of the Denver Post's more puritanical readers think it's a good idea for the airport to implement this heavy-handed filtering. Us? We'd rather be left alone--and free to surf the whole Internet as we see fit.
Have your own travel-related web censorship tale? Take a screenshot and let us know.
Related Stories:
· DIA Keeps WiFi on the Mild Side [Denver Post]
· Denver Airport, Hotels Censoring the Web [Jaunted]
· Is United Blocking Jaunted? [Jaunted]
