All posts by John Goerzen

24 hours with Jacob

Family, Uncategorized, , ,

Friday, I wrote about the train trip Jacob and I were planning to take. Here’s the story about it.

Friday night, Jacob was super excited. He was running around the house, talking about trains. I had him pack his own backpack with toys this time, which were — you guessed it — trains. Plus train track. His usual bedtime is around 7. He was still awake in his room at about 11, too excited to sleep.

The train was an hour late into Newton, so got up, got ready, and then went into Jacob’s room at 3:15AM. I put my arm around him and said his name softly. No response. I said, just a little louder, “Jacob, it’s time to wake up to go to the train station.” There was about a 2-second pause and then he sat bolt upright rubbing his eyes. A couple seconds later, in a very tired but clear voice, “OK dad, let’s go!” That is, I believe, a record for waking up speed for Jacob.

We went downstairs, got coats, mittens, hats, etc. on, made sure we had the stuffed butterfly he always sleeps with, and went out the door.

As usual, Jacob chattered happily during the entire 15-minute drive to the Amtrak station. One of these days I need to remember to record it because it’s unique. He described things to me ranging from the difference between freight and passenger trains, to what the dining car is all about, to tractors and how to ride them safely. Newton has some “winter lights”, and a few places still had Christmas lights, which were of course big hits.

We had to wait a few minutes at the Amtrak station, and Jacob hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down yet. He wanted to look at every Amtrak poster, picture, logo, or sign in the building. This generally meant me holding him up high while he leaned over to touch it and make out a few words. Then, of course, he would pick out minute details about the trains, such as how many coach cars he thought they had, and we’d visit about that for awhile.

We got on at about 4:20. We found our seats, and Jacob showed no signs of calming down, despite having had only 4 hours of sleep (instead of his usual 11) so far. We checked out the buttons for lights. And, of course, he excitedly yelled out, “Dad, the train is moving!”

He spent the next while mostly watching out his window, but also still exploring his space. Finally at about 5, I said, “Jacob, I am really tired. I am going to sleep now. Will you sleep too?” His response: “Oh sure dad, I will sleep with my eyes open!” As a result, no sleep was had for Jacob, and only a little for me.

The dining car opens for breakfast at 6:30, which is normally a rather foreign time for breakfast on the train for us. But we were both awake so I figured might as well go. So Jacob and I went to the dining car. We sat with a woman going from New Mexico to Lawrence for her grandpa’s funeral, though it was expected and she was having a good time on the train. Jacob turned completely shy, and refused to say a word, except maybe a few whispered into my ear.

He got his favorite railroad French toast, and had me “drizzle” some syrup on it. I used the word “drizzle” for syrup the first time he had French toast on the train, and if I fail to use that word in the dining car, I will hear about it in no uncertain terms from Jacob.

He loved his dining car breakfast, but we spent about an hour and a half there. He was really slow at eating because his face was pressed up against the window so much. But that was just fine; we had nowhere else to be, the person eating breakfast with us enjoyed visiting (and, apparently, scaring the dining car staff with tales of bears in the New Mexico mountains). This was what the train trip was all about, after all.

We played in the lounge car for awhile. The almost floor-to-ceiling wrap-around windows provided a great view for him, and more opportunities to press his face against a window. We talked about freight trains that he saw, noticed the snow on some of them. Then we found the back of the train and he got to look out the back window.

Back at our seat, he played with his toys for about 10 minutes, which was all he used them on the entire trip. There was just too much else to enjoy.

When we used the restroom on the train, he’d comment on how much he liked the Amtrak soap. “It smells SO very very good!” He wanted to wash his hands on the train. By late morning, he had decided: “Dad, I LOVE this Amtrak soap. It smells like peaches! Shall your hands smell like peaches too?” And, when we’d get back up to our seats, he’d put his hands in my face, saying, “Dad, smell that! My hands smell like peaches! It was from the AMTRAK SOAP!”

At some point, he discovered the airline-style safety brochures in the seat back pockets. These were filled with diagrams of the train car, a few photos, and lots of icons with descriptions. I don’t know how many times I read the thing to him, or really how many times he then recited it to me from memory. It was a lot. He spent hours with those brochures.

Jacob had already told me that he wanted pizza for lunch, so I got him the kid-sized pizza. It wasn’t all that big, and he could have devoured at least half of it when hungry. But he was getting really tired and ate only a few bites of pizza and a few chips. Pretty soon he was leaning up against me, the window, and eventually had his head on the table in some tomato sauce. But he didn’t quite fall asleep by the time we went back to our seats, and of course was wide awake by that point.

Jacob loves spotting the word “Amtrak” on things. It was very exciting when he noticed his orange juice at breakfast, and milk at lunch, were “Amtrak juice” and “Amtrak milk” due to the logo on the cups. At dinner he noticed we had Amtrak plates, and when I pointed out that his metal fork had the Amtrak logo on it, he got very excited and had to check every piece of silverware within reach. “Dad, I have an Amtrak fork too!…. And dad, YOU also have an Amtrak fork! We ALL have Amtrak forks! *cackling laughter*”

I finally insisted that Jacob lay down for some quiet time. I closed the curtains, and he finally did fall asleep… less than an hour before our arrival into Galesburg. So by 2:15 he was up to 4.75 hours of sleep, I guess.

We stopped in the train station briefly, then started our walk to the Discovery Depot Children’s Museum, which was right nearby. Although I made no comment about it, Jacob said, “Dad, there is a train museum RIGHT HERE!” “Yes, you’re right Jacob. I can see a steam engine and some cars here.” “Let’s go in!” “I don’t think it’s open today.” “It IS open — shall we go check?” It wasn’t, and that was mighty sad — though when he spotted another old caboose sitting outside the children’s museum, the day suddenly seemed brighter. He complained of how cold he was, although my suggestion that he stop walking through the big piles of snowdrifts was met with a whiny, “But dad, I WANT to do that!”

We went inside the museum (having to walk right buy the locked caboose — thankfully the people at the desk promised to unlock it for us when we were ready) and Jacob started to explore. There was some wooden play trains big enough for children to climb in which he enjoyed, but in general he went from one thing to the next every minute or two as he does when he’s really tired or overstimulated. Until, that is, he discovered the giant toy train table. It had a multi-level wooden track setup, and many toy trains with magnetic hitches. It was like what we have at home, only much bigger and fancier. He spent a LONG time with that. We then briefly explored the rest of the museum and went out into the caboose. It wasn’t the hit it might have been, possibly because there are several at the Great Plains Transportation Museum that he gets to go in on a somewhat regular basis.

After that, he was ready to go back into the museum, but I was feeling rather over-stimulated. On a day when the highs were still well below freezing, it seemed just about every family in Galesburg was crowded into the children’s museum, making it loud and crowded — which I don’t enjoy at all. So I suggested maybe it was snack time instead. A moment’s thought, then he started to pull me out of the caboose before I could get my gloves back on — “Yes dad, I think it IS snack time. Let’s go. Let’s go NOW!”

We walked over to Uncle Billy’s Bakery (Google link or minimal website). Jacob spotted some sugar cookies shaped like mittens. Despite my reluctance to get him more sugar, he was so excited — plus I had barely prevented a meltdown at lunch by promising him that he would get dessert later in the day — so he picked two red mitten cookies. I got myself a wonderful peach muffin and a croissant and we sat down at one of the tables by the window. I taught Jacob how to hang his coat on his chair and he lit into those cookies.

I spotted a guy at the next table over wearing a BNSF jacket, and asked him if he worked for the railroad. He had retired as an engineer a couple of years ago, and had worked various jobs before that. He grew up in Manhattan, KS and so was interested in our trip — and very friendly. While we visited, Jacob devoured his cookies and increasing portions of my snack as well. He told us about a new shop — The Stray Cat — just two stores down that was having a grand opening event today. They make decorations and art out of basically discarded items, and had some really nifty things that I may have bought had I not been wanting for space in our backpack.

Then I spotted Sweets Old-Fashioned Ice Cream, Candy, and Soda Shop across the road. I figured he’d love it and I was already in for the sugar so might as well. He picked out some “birthday cake” flavor ice cream for himself. I got huckleberry ice cream, which he insisted on calling “purpleberry” and managed to get some tastes of as well.

After that, we went to the train station. It was about an hour until our train would be there. I wasn’t sure if we’d find enough to do, but I shouldn’t have worried. Earlier, we had made the happy discovery that the station’s restroom featured the Amtrak soap, so there was that. Then there was the model Amtrak train in the ticket window, which Jacob kept wanting to look at while I’d hold him. And also, the California Zephyr came in. We watched it arrive from the station window, saw people get off and on, and saw it leave — maybe the first time Jacob has witnessed all that in person. And, of course, we looked at the pictures in that train station. The ticketmaster gave Jacob a paper conductor’s hat with puzzles and mazes on the back side.

And then it was time to get onto our train back home. We ate dinner — Jacob again ate little and almost fell asleep — and got back to our seats. I let Jacob stay awake until about 8, when he was starting to get a bit fragile. It took him awhile to fall asleep, but he finally did at about 8:30.

Today he’s still been all excited. He will randomly tell us about bits of the trip, that the man at supper called his grilled cheese sandwich piece “little” when it was really big, what we did at the ice cream store, etc. And I do think that he is now a train safety expert.

All in all, I think that is probably the most excitement he’s ever had in 24 hours and it was a lot of fun to be with him for it!

Jacob & Dad & Trains

Family, ,

Back in July, our family took a train trip from Kansas to New York for Debconf10. And then in September, we went to Indiana.

The only train service from here leaves at about 3AM in both directions. So starting about November, Jacob started asking me, “Dad, will you wake me up in the middle of the night to go to the train station TODAY?” He didn’t seem to get it through his head that we didn’t have another trip planned, although we surely would at some point. It just couldn’t possibly be, right?

So around Christmas, I booked a round trip from here to Galesburg, IL for just Jacob and me. We’ll get on the train at 3AM Saturday morning, get to Galesburg about noon, and then head back home at 5PM, getting home again at, well, 3:30AM.

Jacob is super excited about this. When the tickets arrived, he didn’t yet know about the trip. I thought he’d be excited then, but the ticket sleeve had a picture of a toy train that he didn’t own, so he was somewhat sad. But starting the next day he was very excited. We wrote “Amtrak” on the Jan. 15 spot on his pharmacy calendar (a local pharmacy gives them away free each year). He carefully checked off each day as it went past. And he’s been getting increasingly excited all week.

Tonight he couldn’t really think, couldn’t really play, couldn’t really calm down. He jabbered about how he would sit by the window, how precisely I would wake him up, and his eyes would open up “right away” and we’ll go straight there. He talked about how he will look out the window at the dark night, and was extra excited when I told him he’d see snow out the window like one of the Amtrak videos he likes to watch on Youtube. He already placed his order for breakfast in the dining car: “French toast with syrup on top.”

He ran past the computer while I was looking at things to do in Galesburg, and saw I had a map up, and immediately noticed the train tracks. Then he pointed to the station, and said, “Dad, that says ‘Galesburg Amtrak’.” A rather stunned dad replied, “Yes indeed it does, Jacob.” I guess it was some combination of pre-reading and detective skills, but that surprised me.

Anyhow, this is the first trip with just Jacob and me. We’re going to have a blast, I’m sure. I may, however, wind up going 24 hours without sleep if his adrenaline level is any guide…

Looking back at 2010: reading

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A year ago, I posted my reading list for 2010. I listed a few highlights, and a link to my Goodreads page, pointing out that this wasn’t necessarily a goal, just a list of things that sounded interesting.

I started off with Homer’s Iliad, which I tremendously enjoyed and found parallels to modern life surprisingly common in that ancient tale. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I quickly jumped to a book that wasn’t on my 2010 list: The Odyssey. I made a somewhat controversial post suggesting that the Old Testament of the Bible can be read similar to how we read The Odyssey. Homer turned out to be much more exciting than I’d expected.

Jordan’s Fires of Heaven (WoT #5) was a good read, though it is one of those books that sometimes is action-packed and interesting, and other times slow-moving and almost depressing. I do plan to continue with the series but I’m not enjoying it as much as I did at first.

War and Peace is something I started late last year. I’m about 400 pages into it, which means I’ve not even read a third of it yet. It has some moving scenes, and is a fun read overall, but the work it takes to keep all the many characters straight can be a bit frustrating at times.

Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith was one of the highlights of the year. A thought-provoking read by someone that embraces both science and religion, and shows a vision of religion that returns to its earlier roots, less concerned about what particular truths a person believes in than it is about more fundamental issues.

Marcus Borg’s Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary began with a surprisingly engaging history lesson on how agriculture caused the formation of domination societies. It also described in a lot of detail how historians analyze ancient texts — their drafting, copying, etc. It paints a vivid portrait of Jewish society in the time that Jesus would have lived, and follows the same lines of thought as Cox regarding religion finally moving past the importance of intellectual assent to a set of statements.

Among books that weren’t on my 2010 list, I also read — and here I’m not listing all of them, just some highlights:

The Cricket on the Hearth in something of a Christmastime tradition of reading one of the shorter Dickens works. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I enjoyed A Christmas Carol last year. Perhaps I made up for that by watching Patrick Stewart as Scrooge instead.

How to Disappear Completely was a fun short humorous read, with a very well-developed first-person narrative.

Paralleling my interest in amateur radio, I read and studied three books in order to prepare myself for the different exams.

In something of a surprise, I laughed a lot at Sh*t My Dad Says, which was more interesting and funny than I expected it to be. All I can say is that Justin’s got quite the dad and quite the interesting childhood.

I even read two other recent releases: The Politician (about John Edwards) and Game Change (about the 2008 presidential race). Both were interesting, vibrant, and mostly unsourced — so hard to know exactly how much to take from them.

And finally, reflecting on and travel before my first trip to Europe, Travel as a Political Act, which encourages us to find the fun in “my cultural furniture rearranged and my ethnocentric self-assuredness walloped.” And that was fun.

Now to make up the 2011 list…

Wikis, Amateur Radio, and Debian

Debian

As I have been getting involved with amateur radio this year, I’ve been taking notes on what I’m learning about certain things: tips from people on rigging up a bicycle antenna to achieve a 40-mile range, setting up packet radio in Linux, etc. I have long run a personal, private wiki where I put such things.

But I really wanted a convenient place to put this stuff in public. There was no reason to keep it private. In fact, I wanted to share with others what I’ve learned. And, as I wanted to let others add their tips if they wish, I set up a public MoinMoin instance on . So far, most of my attention has focused on the amateur radio section of it

This has worked out pretty well for me. Sometimes I will cut and paste tips from emails into there, and then after trying them out, edit them into a more coherent summary based on my experiences.

Now then, on to packet radio and Debian. Packet radio is a digital communications mode that runs on the amateur radio bands. It is a routable, networking protocol that typically runs at 300bps, 1200bps, and 9600bps. My packet radio page gives a better background on it, but essentially AX.25 — the packet protocol — is similar to a scaled-down TCP/IP. One interesting thing about packet is that, since it can use the HF bands, can have direct transcontinental wireless links. More common are links spanning 30-50 miles on VHF and UHF, as well as those going across a continent on HF.

Linux is the only operating system I know of that has AX.25 integrated as a first-class protocol in the kernel. You can create AX.25 sockets and use them with the APIs you’re familiar with already. Not only that, but the Linux AX.25 stack is probably the best there is, and it interfaces easily with TCP/IP — there are global standards for encapsulating TCP/IP within AX.25 and AX.25 within UDP, and both are supported on Linux. Yes, I have telnetted to a machine to work on it over VHF. Of Linux distributions, Debian appears to have the best AX.25 stack built-in.

The AX.25 support in Linux is great, but it’s rather under-documented. So I set up a page for packet radio on Linux. I’ve had a great deal of fun with this. It’s amazing what you can do running a real networking protocol at 300bps over long-distance radio. I’ve had real-time conversations with people, connected to their personal BBS and sent them mail, and even use AX.25 “nodes” (think of them as a kind of router or bridge; you can connect in to them and the connect back out on the same or different frequencies to extend your reach) to connect out to systems that I can’t reach directly.

MoinMoin has worked out well for this. It has an inviting theme and newbie-friendly interface (I want to encourage drive-by contributions).

Christmas Gatherings, a Piano, and a Pickup

Family

Perhaps I am not very imaginative. Or perhaps insufficiently adventurous. But when I woke up today, a day that would actually get a little bit above freezing, I didn’t have a thought of riding without a coat in the bed of a pickup. Nor did I expect to be involved with moving a piano. I didn’t have any thought of listening to piano music outdoors. And I certainly didn’t anticipate the fun to be had doing all of these things simultaneously.

Now, let me back up and set the scene. This was our annual Goerzen Christmas today. We already ate and exchanged gifts.

Here’s the thing about moving pianos, especially the old heavy ones with the cast iron frame inside: it’s not something where a group of people just get together, count to 3, and that’s that. No, you’ve got to start the project out right. You have to break the news that people will be moving a piano gently. And then, of course, you get a room full of people — usually mostly men — and at this point, before any lifting happens, you’ve got to plan. Tape measures must be produced, measurements taken, plans made for how to lift and who should lift where. Differing points of view have to be considered carefully. Then, of course, you have too many people for each one to actually help lift so each person not lifting has to find a job. And then when things actually start going, you realize that not one of the plans fully accounted for the unprecedented weight and maddening stubbornness of the piano, and you have to stop every few feet to plan anew. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piano move happen in any other fashion.

So, today, my uncle, whose house our gathering was at this year, said, “Ahh good, lots of young backs. Just what I need.” Mildly concerned glances pass between my brothers, my cousins, and I. One brother looks like he’s pretending not to have heard. “We have a few things to move.” Anticipation. “A small couch” — probably not too bad, right? “An upholstered chair” — maybe a bit unruly but still not too bad. “And an old piano is going to a neighbor.” Full alert now — more glances, a pause for a second, and then acceptance: “Oh! Uhm… great!”

My uncle’s friend Ken teaches music at the local college, and on the side, Ken also teaches children how to play piano. One of Ken’s students didn’t have a piano at home, and my uncle and aunt had an old one they weren’t using, which they would give to the family of the student just a couple of blocks away. All that remained was moving it.

There was the inevitable measuring, planning, re-planning, until we got it out of the house and onto the back of my uncle’s pickup. We have about 8 men involved, plus my aunt. Most of us rode in the back of the pickup with the piano.

And of course, there came the inevitable request: “Ken, play for us!” So Ken sat on the edge of the pickup, at the piano, playing as we — and the piano — went through town in the open air. He started with Joplin’s Entertainer, then broke out into some Christmas music — We Wish You a Merry Christmas, followed by Nun Ist Sie Erschienen and a few others. It must be said that small towns in Kansas are probably not accustomed to their Christmas carolers having a piano with them, much less being played from the bed of a pickup. But there we were, mostly laughing too hard or enjoying the ride too much to sing.

To add excitement, or perhaps embarrassment, my uncle was sounding the horn. Some thought that his intent was to have it in time with the piano music from the back, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he meant to sound the horn in that rather random fashion.

Eventually we got to the neighbor’s house, and my dad and another uncle who hadn’t been on the pickup came running up. We hopped down and asked them where they wanted the piano. “Upstairs!” That got repeated among everyone there, producing laughter each time. More tape measures were produced, as it was a narrow staircase. The conclusion was that the piano could make it with about an inch (2.54cm) to spare.

So we got it out of the pickup and onto the porch, then into the house. Now, how to get it upstairs? This called for an extra helping of planning and calculating. Ken, the unofficial piano moving boss, kept reminding us in jest that “I grew up on a farm”. He said he could be alone at the top of the piano while we pushed. This quickly turned out to not be practical; due to the incline, the weight at the bottom was just too much to get it up over the stairs. Ken then went and picked up a wooden contraption they use to move pianos at the college. We tried that, but its supports underneath got stuck on the steps as well. Various ideas were tossed around at this point, until I pointed out that four of us on the bottom couldn’t get it up over a step, so when we get it into the stairway — only wide enough for 2 — we won’t be able to get it up anyhow.

That being considered a good point, various other ideas were tossed around. They all seemed to be wanting either for practicality or, perhaps, safety. Though the idea of having a dozen Goerzens stand at the top of the staircase pulling it up by a rope did have some excellent humor value.

In the end, perhaps wanting our group of free, highly ambitious, but somewhat less effective piano movers out of their house, the neighbors found a place for it on the ground floor. We all piled back into the pickup for the ride back, which was rather more quiet due to lack of horn and piano music.

So there you have it. The most fun I have ever had moving a piano. (Really, the only fun I have ever had moving a piano.)

Alternatives to Delicious

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I’ve used Delicious (del.icio.us) for some time now for managing bookmarks. I have never really used its social features, just its management features. With word that it is closing (sigh, just after I had to leave Bloglines, too) I’m looking for something else. There are a somewhat bewildering array of new options available, and I’m wondering if people have had experience with them. My requirements are:

  • Completely reliable syncing between multiple devices, even if each one is being used and actively bookmarking things simultaneously. My browser is Firefox. Back when I chose Delicious, nothing else accomplished this.
  • The ability to present bookmarks as a toolbar in Firefox, either using its own system or a different one.
  • I prefer tagging to hierarchical organization.
  • I can run a service on my own server, IF it is Free Software, trivial to set up, and needs little care and feeding. If it’s not part of Debian, that’s a strong negative here.
  • If it’s hosted in the cloud, I am concerned about privacy, security, and long-term stability. I must have a way to export my data, preferably automatically. I will be reading ToS and privacy policies carefully.
  • A system that can be trusted to encrypt my bookmarks on the server side is another nice to have.
  • Being able to create bookmarks directly from my Android phone is nice but not required.
  • Being able to access bookmarks from a regular web browser is a feature I use a few times a year; again, nice but not required.

    • What should I look into?

    Incidentally, if you need to export your Delicious data, go here.

KR0L: Amateur Radio, Wikis, and Linux

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Since I got my amateur radio license back in July, I’ve had a lot of fun with it. It’s a great hobby for anyone technically-inclined or anyone socially-inclined, and between those categories that includes a lot of people. I’ve learned quite a bit over the last few months and really enjoyed it all.

I passed my extra class exam back this fall, and thus got my new callsign, KR0L. So long, KD0MJT. I’ve enjoyed some contesting, as well as general conversations on the system. I’ve also done some work with the keyboard-to-keyboard digital modes on HF. Debian includes a very nice program called fldigi for this.

Of late, I have developed an interest in packet radio. Packet radio uses a networking protocol called AX.25 over RF links. AX.25 bears a familial resemblance to TCP/IP, and in fact, you can run TCP/IP over AX.25 and AX.25 over TCP/IP. My learning curve on packet was somewhat steep. It has declined in popularity significantly since the growth of generally-available Internet access, though seems to be once again growing now. So a lot of information about it is 10 years old.

As I was learning about packet, I of course was using my Debian system. The Linux kernel has long had AX.25 support integrated as a first-class networking protocol. You can open AX.25 sockets, monitor AX.25 traffic, etc. from the Linux kernel. You can use soundmodem to make a software-defined packet modem (called a TNC), or you can use kissattach to hook up to a traditional TNC via a serial port and a protocol strongly similar to SLIP (which, for those of you with shorter memories, is a predecessor to PPP). Linux can do what you’d expect out of a modern networking system: multiplexing with AX.25, handling lots of simultaneous users, etc.

So I was a bit surprised and baffled to keep running into systems that only supported 1 user at a time, couldn’t easily do some things I was taking for granted, etc. Until I realized that Linux is the only major operating system with integrated AX.25 support in the kernel. Things started to make a bit more sense. I hadn’t realized just how awesome a setup I had until I started learning about the hoops some other people went through. It is pretty easy to run a basic client on Windows, but to run the “server” side of things as I am doing — well some of the features just aren’t there or are really kludgy.

Anyhow, I have decided to start documenting things I learn as I go. Beyond amateur radio, I also have sometimes wanted places to stick bits of information. Things that other people might benefit from if they Google, but that maybe aren’t the best blog fodder or website material. So I have set up a wiki, openly editable of course, at http://wiki.complete.org/. To date, only the amateur radio section has much content in it.

I’m also sending in patches and bug reports to the various projects involved in amateur radio in Linux, and am glad to see development has resumed on several of those.

Game Suggestions?

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I’m not an avid gamer, but I do occasionally enjoy playing video games. I sometimes have time to do so over the holidays, so I’m looking for suggestions. I have a PS3 and a PC available.

Thinking about what I like, most recently it seems to be immersive world games: Oblivion, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1 & 2, and GTA. I’ve also enjoyed simulation games, such as Civ, SimCity, FreeCiv, and Railroad Tycoon in the past — and could again. Some of the Star Wars games (Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy, Force Unleashed) I’ve enjoyed, though the ones that have essentially no plot I didn’t really.

What suggestions do you have?

The TSA: Stupid, Owned, or Complicit?

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I have long been in Bruce Schneier’s camp, thinking that the TSA is a joke: nothing but security theater.

A few recent examples come to mind:

  • In the famous recent event, a man refuses to go through the backscatter machine, and then refuses to be groped. They tell him he can’t board the plane, take a report, and say he is free to leave. Then they say he has to go back to the screening area and be screened before leaving the airport, despite his wishes. Obviously they don’t believe he really had a bomb, because if he did, would they really want him in a cramped area surrounded by hundreds of civilians? So why make him go back?
  • Reading about these screenings, one of my thoughts was, “I sure wouldn’t want to have my kids have to go through that, or a millimeter wave machine whose health effects are completely unknown!” Then I read the TSA’s bulletin, intended to calm people like me: don’t worry, kids under 13 will never be patted down. OK TSA, so either your patdowns are completely ineffective or you are so naive that you think that nobody under 13 could ever be an attacker. If the latter, why fuss with making them go through security in the first place?

I don’t get it. They have been completely reactionary since they began. They have a complete failure of institutional imagination. Something happens, and then a new rule comes out to prevent the thing that everybody is now expecting. And what happens about the thing that people aren’t expecting yet? Nothing. So we now have to take off our shoes because one guy tried to use them for something nefarious. OK, fine, but the next guy is probably going to try something other than shoes.

Which is why, I’m sure, many people are pointing out that the TSA is over-reliant on technology and device detection and completely underemphasizing evildoer detection — as, we are repeatedly reminded, the Israelis excel at. The TSA’s attempt to remedy that was foolish at best, and, according to a recent report, “not grounded in science.”

Which is why I am heartened that, almost a decade after 9/11, Americans are starting to let go of their fear and be ready to reclaim some sense of intelligence at the security line. The fact that politicians think there is something to be gained by being tough on TSA’s invasive screening procedures, rather than risk looking soft on terrorism, is evidence of this.

So, what I haven’t yet worked out is this: What gives, TSA? Are they:

  • Stupid or incompetent? Do they really, deep down, actually believe it when they say this is excellent, best in the world security? Do they really not see how stupid it is?
  • Afraid? Are they afraid that if they don’t deploy every possible technological solution, and then there is an attack, that they will be fired? (This surely doesn’t explain the botched behavioral screening program though)
  • Pressured? Are the vendors of security technology getting at them directly or indirectly via politicians forcing them to deploy this stuff?
  • Apathetic? They simply have a job, don’t really care about it at all, and are just doing the minimum necessary to bring home a paycheck?
  • Stuck in a culture of rigidity? Unable to come up with any sort of process that gives screeners the ability to use discretion, they insist that everyone be treated equally — and that those that aren’t are treated differently on a completely random basis. Some bureaucrats probably spent years on the plan, which is totally useless.

(Note: this criticism is directed mostly at the upper levels of TSA management; I do not believe the people most of us see have the ability to change the system, even if they wanted to.)

One final word: I also get annoyed at all the people that grouse at the TSA checking 80-year-olds as thoroughly as everyone else. An 80-year-old could be wearing a hidden device just as much as anyone else could, and if we don’t check them, then someday they probably will. The key is to be smart about who we check carefully. Use data, behavioral analysis, simple questioning, etc — it works, and is a lot better than exempting people under 13 and over 80 from screening on arbitrary grounds.

Also, it might help anyone with a blurry groin. And it might just save a bunch of us from getting cancer.

Baby Yoda

Family, Humor

Shifting gears from serious tractor injury stuff to the more humorous…

We’re all used to seeing Yoda 900 years old. I’ve noticed over the past couple of months that Oliver, while eating supper, seems to resemble a 1-year-old Yoda. So I got out my camera one evening, with the results below:

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Or this “what’s so hard about lifting an X-wing” pose?

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And of course:

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