Category: People & Human Interest

Twenty years ago today I made the round trip from Northern Virginia to Blacksburg to bring Jason, official youngest son of NewMexiKen, home from Virginia Tech for the summer. It was about a 550 mile drive, so not long after I got home from dropping Jason and his stuff off, I collapsed in my Arlington townhouse’s second floor bedroom; exhausted, but not really asleep.

As I lay there dozing on-and-off a little after nine a thunderstorm blew in. I began listening to it, the lightning closer and the thunder right behind and increasingly loud. I was counting the seconds to see how far away the strikes were, when, BAM, the lightning and thunder came in the same instant.

“Wow! That was close.”

I got up to look out the back and front windows to see which large tree it had hit. Not the one in the back open space. Not the even bigger and older one across the street. Odd I thought. It had to be that close.

I went down the two stories to the basement to reset the circuit breakers that had popped. Coming back through, I began the inventory of damaged electronic gear. No phones worked. The TV was screwy and the VCR was blasted. Sitting in the living room I heard a loud static-like sound upstairs and concluded the clock radio had come on, but didn’t work, or maybe the station was off the air. I headed back up, but the noise wasn’t coming from the radio. I started back down again, confused.

Above the stairway landing was a pull-down stepladder to the attic. As I passed — for the third time since the lightning strike — I looked up. Through the seam around the molding I could see what was making the crinkly sound.

Flames!

It was a townhouse with a common attic so I immediately alerted neighbors on both sides and had one of them call the fire department (remember, my phones didn’t work). Foolishly (though there was no smoke), I went back in to get my wallet and car keys from the top of the bureau in the bedroom upstairs. I also grabbed a couple of envelopes with utility payments — but not my State Department ID (which I later thought was an interesting psychology).

The nearest fire station was only a few blocks down the street but they were already out on a call. It was ten minutes before the next nearest engine company arrived. You think waiting for a computer to load a program or waiting for a red light to change is long? Try standing in the pouring rain waiting for the fire trucks when your house is on fire.

The firefighters arrived, vented the attic, went out of their way to protect some of my furniture, and stopped the fire just in time to keep the slate roof from crashing through the burned-out attic and destroying the place top down. Even so there was water and smoke damage all the way down to the basement (water gets into walls and runs across ceilings). It took $50,000 and several months to rebuild the place (I was a renter, but I did return after it was rebuilt). State Farm handled my personal claim with courtesy and generosity. I got a lot of new stuff.

The fire inspector the next morning told me that lightning strikes are about 2000°F. This one hit the faux chimney about 20 feet from me.

First posted here eight years ago today.

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You can fool some of the people all of the time

In 1938, wallet manufacturer the E. H. Ferree company in Lockport, New York decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. A sample card, used for display purposes, was inserted in each wallet. Company Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be a clever idea to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Mrs. Hilda Schrader Whitcher. The wallet was sold by Woolworth stores and other department stores all over the country. Even though the card was only half the size of a real card, was printed all in red, and had the word “specimen” written across the face, many purchasers of the wallet adopted the SSN as their own. In the peak year of 1943, 5,755 people were using Hilda’s number. SSA acted to eliminate the problem by voiding the number and publicizing that it was incorrect to use it. (Mrs. Whitcher was given a new number.) However, the number continued to be used for many years. In all, over 40,000 people reported this as their SSN. As late as 1977, 12 people were found to still be using the SSN “issued by Woolworth.”

Interesting Facts About Social Security Numbers at Money, Matter, and More Musings

The 40,000 are the same sort of people that some politicians would have manage their own social security investments.

This post is from five years ago yesterday. I thought it was awesome.

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At The Book Bench at The New Yorker Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn lists some of her favorite awesome moments from The Book of Awesome:

-When cashiers open up new checkout lanes at the grocery store.
-Hitting a bunch of green lights in a row.
-Bakery air.
-Waking up before your alarm clock and realizing you’ve got lots of sleep time left.
-The smell of crayons.
-Finally remembering a word that’s been on the tip of your tongue for so long.
-Putting potato chips on a sandwich.
-When you nudge the person snoring next to you and it makes them stop.
-The shampoo head massage you sometimes get at the hairdresser.
-Moving up a shoe size when you’re a kid.
-The smell of books.

What would you add?

By my Granddaughter Kiley (11 when first posted a year ago today).

Every girl, if I’m not mistaken, wants to feel pretty. Maybe all the time. Maybe just once in a while. Maybe hardly ever. But our appearances matter to us. We want to impress people. We want to look cute, or at least clean. So next time you see a girl in a pretty outfit, look closer. If she’s not smiling, she’s not confident. If she’s not smiling, make her smile.

First posted here nine years ago today. I’ve made a couple of minor edits.

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The news item “Recruits Sought for Porn Squad” reminds NewMexiKen of one of the things I don’t list on my résumé. I’ve already served on an FBI “porn squad.”

About 30 years ago, a lawsuit was brought against the National Archives and the FBI for violating the Federal Records Act. The Archives, it was alleged, had allowed the Bureau too much independence in deciding which records to keep under the Act. As a result of the litigation, the Court ordered the Archives to exert much more oversight. In practice it was almost as if the Bureau couldn’t empty its wastebaskets without the Archives sifting through to make sure there were no valuable records.

Things began to pile up at Bureau offices. Among the heaps were whole warehouses full of confiscated pirated copies of popular films and music, particularly in Los Angeles (that is, Hollywood) where I was the National Archives’ regional archivist. Ultimately I was dispatched to the Los Angeles FBI field office to “review” these tapes and affirm they were not legally records and that they could be disposed of consistent with the court order. I’d slap a cassette into the VCR, watch enough of it to attest that it was in fact just another copy of “Patton” or “The Empire Strikes Back,” sampling my way through endless boxes and palettes. Then I’d go back to the office and draft a document saying such-and-such was trash. The Deputy Archivist of the U.S. would sign the affidavit and file it with the court. We cleaned out a large warehouse this way. (Keep in mind that this was just bulk confiscated material. A sample was retained with the case materials to serve as evidence and to provide a historical record.)

[I was not, however, allowed to apply my sampling process to the confiscated cars in the FBI garage. Even then, L.A. drug distributors drove some fancy automobiles.]

It turned out about this time that there was a big bust of audio-visual materials in Honolulu and the FBI field office there was bursting at the seams with worthless junk. “Could I go out to Hawaii for a week and help them out?” “Well,” I said, “OK. If I have to.”

But, in Honolulu, the pirated copies of popular movies were interspersed with confiscated pornography — and in those days at least, the pornography the FBI confiscated wasn’t smut. It was animals and kids and stuff. So there I was in a darkened room at the FBI offices in Honolulu putting cassettes into the VCR and sampling enough to attest that it was in fact just another pornographic film and not a federal record.

Take it from NewMexiKen, there are better ways to spend one’s day than on an FBI porn squad.

First posted here nine years ago today. All true.

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A CIA manager once told me about life under cover. He went by his regular name, lived in a regular neighborhood, etc., but as far as anyone knew he worked for the Navy. In fact, he told me, one time his car broke down and his neighbor insisted on giving him a ride to work at the Washington Navy Yard (in southeast Washington, D.C.). The neighbor kept insisting and he finally had to accept.

After being left off at the Navy Yard the CIA employee had to figure how to get back across the Potomac to Virginia to his “real” office. He was further away than when he started.

In other instances we were often amused when we held a meeting that included CIA or other “under cover” agency personnel. The sign-in sheet consisted of names like Cindy D., Bob L., Frank C., etc.

Lastly, my particular favorite under cover story. After visiting a “secret” location for business and being well treated, I composed a short thank you note to the man in charge. I addressed it to him by name. I ran the draft past my staff member who was liaison with that agency. The staff member came back, saying the note was great except that the man’s name was classified because he worked undercover. So we sent the thank you without the name.

His actual name was John Smith.

Nineteen years ago today I made the round trip from Northern Virginia to Blacksburg to bring Jason, official youngest son of NewMexiKen, home from Virginia Tech for the summer. It was about a 550 mile drive, so not long after I got home from dropping Jason and his stuff off, I collapsed in my Arlington townhouse’s second floor bedroom; exhausted, but not really asleep.

As I lay there dozing on-and-off a little after nine a thunderstorm blew in. I began listening to it, the lightning closer and the thunder right behind and increasingly loud. I was counting the seconds to see how far away the strikes were, when, BAM, the lightning and thunder came in the same instant.

“Wow! That was close.”

I got up to look out the back and front windows to see which large tree it had hit. Not the one in the back open space. Not the even bigger and older one across the street. Odd I thought. It had to be that close.

I went down the two stories to the basement to reset the circuit breakers that had popped. Coming back through, I began the inventory of damaged electronic gear. No phones worked. The TV was screwy and the VCR was blasted. Sitting in the living room I heard a loud static-like sound upstairs and concluded the clock radio had come on, but didn’t work, or maybe the station was off the air. I headed back up, but the noise wasn’t coming from the radio. I started back down again, confused.

Above the stairway landing was a pull-down stepladder to the attic. As I passed—for the third time since the lightning strike I looked up. Through the seam around the molding I could see what was making the crinkly sound.

Flames!

It was a townhouse with a common attic so I immediately alerted neighbors on both sides and had one of them call the fire department (remember, my phones didn’t work). Foolishly (though there was no smoke), I went back in to get my wallet and car keys from the top of the bureau in the bedroom upstairs. I also grabbed a couple of envelopes with utility payments — but not my State Department ID (which I later thought was an interesting psychology).

The nearest fire station was only a few blocks down the street but they were already out on a call. It was ten minutes before the next nearest engine company arrived. You think waiting for a computer to load a program or waiting for a red light to change is long? Try standing in the pouring rain waiting for the fire trucks when your house is on fire.

The firefighters arrived, vented the attic, went out of their way to protect some of my furniture, and stopped the fire just in time to keep the slate roof from crashing through the burned-out attic and destroying the place top down. Even so there was water and smoke damage all the way down to the basement (water gets into walls and runs across ceilings). It took $50,000 and several months to rebuild the place (I was a renter, but I did return after it was rebuilt). State Farm handled my personal claim with courtesy and generosity. I got a lot of new stuff.

The fire inspector the next morning told me that lightning strikes are about 2000°F. This one hit the faux chimney about 20 feet from me.

True story from 5 years ago.

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NewMexiKen went to the lab early this morning for routine blood work. I’m not crazy about needles and so never watch. As I’m sitting there, having felt nothing at all, I realize that the technician is already drawing blood. This is too good to believe — a part of me actually doesn’t believe it — and then she’s done. Wow, I think, that was easy.

“Oh,” she says, “I’m sorry. I’ve got another one [tube] to get. I’ll have to do it again. I’m so sorry.”

It goes without saying I suppose that the second poke was the one that hurt like hell.

From A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond:

Many researchers believe that human intelligence or brainpower consists of dozens of assorted cognitive skills, which they commonly divide into two categories. One bunch falls under the heading “fluid intelligence,” the abilities that produce solutions not based on experience, like pattern recognition, working memory and abstract thinking, the kind of intelligence tested on I.Q. examinations. These abilities tend to peak in one’s 20s.

“Crystallized intelligence,” by contrast, generally refers to skills that are acquired through experience and education, like verbal ability, inductive reasoning and judgment. While fluid intelligence is often considered largely a product of genetics, crystallized intelligence is much more dependent on a bouquet of influences, including personality, motivation, opportunity and culture.

“That early declaration marked, as much as any one moment could, the beginning of a journey that few have taken, one the Maineses themselves couldn’t have imagined until it was theirs. The process of remaking a family of identical twin boys into a family with one boy and one girl has been heartbreaking and harrowing and, in the end, inspiring – a lesson in the courage of a child, a child who led them, and in the transformational power of love.”

The Boston Globe has the story.

Joe Posnanski writes about the darkness at Penn State.

The Albuquerque Journal has a good bear story today.

PhotoBlog – 285 girls make fresh start in India by changing their names from ‘Unwanted’

Go look and try not to be moved.

If you’d like to be sad all day, but somehow also uplifted, read Notes From a Dragon Mom.

The ever-wise and usually right Paul Krugman assesses human behavior. He begins with this, but click the link and read it all. It’s brief.

My sense, after 11 years of punditizing, is that people are complicated, but gangs of people less so. Individuals are often mixed in their behavior: incorruptible politicians may cheat on their spouses, political scoundrels may have impeccable personal lives. But groups, like a politician’s inner circle or the management team of a media empire, tend to behave similarly on multiple fronts. If they lie and cheat routinely in one domain, they tend to do it in others as well.

Three years ago August I posted this:

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Forbes ranked her the third most powerful woman in the world in 2005.

It’s Yulia Tymoshenko, Prime Minister of Ukraine.

She’s 47. She rarely appears without her famous crown braid.

Credit: All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland. Click the image for a larger version.

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Well, today she was sentenced to seven years in prison.

“A Ukrainian court found former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of office Tuesday and sentenced her to seven years in prison in a case widely condemned in the West as politically motivated.”

Here’s a photo taken during the trial.

At The Quill Sisters, my favorite niece, Amylynn, spends the day at Starbucks observing the people. An excerpt:

“I had no idea that Starbucks had a big outlaw biker clientele, but apparently I’ve been busy living my stereotypes. One of them ordered a triple decaf espresso. I don’t understand the point of a dacaf espresso in the first place, and then add the triple part and you confuse the hell out of me.  Wouldn’t you assume a bad-ass biker could handle a real espresso?”

Perhaps the clearest demonstration can be seen in the design of the Pixar campus. In November, 2000, Jobs purchased an abandoned Del Monte canning factory on sixteen acres in Emeryille, just north of Oakland. The original architectural plan called for three buildings, with separate offices for the computer scientists, the animators, and the Pixar executives. Jobs immediately scrapped it. (“We used to joke that the building was Steve’s movie,” Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar, told me last year.) Instead of three buildings, there was going to be a single vast space, with an airy atrium at its center. “The philosophy behind this design is that it’s good to put the most important function at the heart of the building,” Catmull said. “Well, what’s our most important function? It’s the interaction of our employees. That’s why Steve put a big empty space there. He wanted to create an open area for people to always be talking to each other.”

Jobs realized, however, that it wasn’t enough to simply create a space: he needed to make people go there. As he saw it, the main challenge for Pixar was getting its different cultures to work together, forcing the computer geeks and cartoonists to collaborate. (John Lasseter, the chief creative officer at Pixar, describes the equation this way: “Technology inspires art, and art challenges the technology.”) In typical fashion, Jobs saw this as a design problem. He began with the mailboxes, which he shifted to the atrium. Then he moved the meeting rooms to the center of the building, followed by the cafeteria and the coffee bar and the gift shop. But that still wasn’t enough; Jobs insisted that the architects locate the only set of bathrooms in the atrium. (He was later forced to compromise on this detail.) In a 2008 conversation, Brad Bird, the director of “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” said, “The atrium initially might seem like a waste of space…. But Steve realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen.”

Jonah Lehrer Steve Jobs: “Technology Alone Is Not Enough”, The New Yorker Blog.

It was interesting to see that more than half of Jobs’s wealth was from Pixar (now Disney) not Apple.