Live from Austin!

The NYT has coined the term “man date” for when two heterosexual men nervously spend time together without the excuse of business or sports. It all sounds rather like something from King of the Hill:

Depending on the activity and on the two men involved, an undercurrent of homoeroticism that may be present determines what feels comfortable or not on a man date, as Mr. Speiser and Mr. Putman discovered in their squeamishness at the Modern.

[...]

The concern about being perceived as gay is one of the major complications of socializing one on one, many straight men acknowledge. That is what Mr. Speiser, now a graduate student at the University of Virginia, recalled about another man date he set up at a highly praised Italian restaurant in a strip mall in Charlottesville. It seemed a comfortable choice to meet his roommate, Thomas Kim, a lawyer, but no sooner had they walked in than they were confronted by cello music, amber lights, white tablecloths and a wine list.

The two exchanged a look. “It was funny,” Mr. Speiser said. “We just knew we couldn’t do it.” Within minutes they were eating fried chicken at a “down and dirty” place down the road.

Mr. Kim, 28, who is now married, was flustered in part because he saw someone he knew at the Italian restaurant. “I was kind of worried that word might get out,” he said. “This is weird, and now there is a witness maybe.”

The article also talks about how a man can never pay for another man’s meal. Has anyone experienced this bizarre response outside the USA? It hasn’t been part of my experience…

It’s starting to look pretty empty in the house, as most of our stuff is now boxed to go. With that in mind, here’s our approximate planned route:

I-90 to NY via Springfield, MA.
I-90, I-87, I-84 to PA. Possible stops at New Paltz.
I-84, I-380, I-81 via Scranton, PA. Possible stop at Harrisburg, PA.
I-81 through MD to WV, via Hagerstown.
I-81 through WV to VA.
I-81, I-66, I-64, I-81 again. Possible stops at Winchester, Harrisonburg, Staunton, Roanoke.
I-40 through TN to AR. Nashville, Memphis, Johnson City, Knoxville.
I-40 through AR to Little Rock, 167 to El Dorado, I-20 to Shreveport LA.
I-20 from Shreveport LA to TX, via Tyler and Waco. Possible stop at Corsicana.

Suggestions for things we simply must see are welcomed. With a little luck we’ll have a Prius with GPS navigation. Failing that, we’ll have an iBook linked to a GPS.

Suggestions for good places to eat are welcomed too. As I’ve discovered on previous road trips, You can only eat so much Taco Bell before going insane.

As far as work goes, today was a change of pace, as I was asked to travel to Virginia to give a presentation to a bunch of sales account managers. These are the guys who handle the big customer accounts and keep the million dollar deals flowing, and the company needs to make sure they know everything there is to know about Lotus software… so I was asked to go tell them where they can find everything there is to know about Lotus software. Metaknowledge. There’s more to this nickname than mere whimsy.

I had the option of staying overnight at the conference facility outside Leesburg, but I had been advised that it had highly limited entertainment options. I decided to fulfil a dream and make it a day trip, traveling with just a courier bag for luggage. Businessmen are supposed to just carry a briefcase, but a courier bag is close enough.

I got to Logan at a civilized hour, and made my way through security; the line was short. The long line was the one on the other side which snaked across to the Starbucks counter. They were the only coffee vendor on the gate side of the security checkpoint. I queued for a while, and then saw the sign saying that the espresso machine was out of order.

Well, that was that. I walked off. I needed caffeine, but Starbucks filter coffee is the crack cocaine of the coffee world; charred to perfection, it packs 3-4 times the dose of regular home-made filter coffee. Instead, I found some insipid New England Coffee Company stuff at a pretzel and hot dog stand. It had been formulated on the Dunkin’ Donuts principle that if you water it down and add lots of cream and sugar, nobody will ever notice the difference. Pity I don’t add cream or sugar.

The flight down was uneventful. I ended up sitting next to a dark-haired girl from Colorado who was about to start eighth grade, and was traveling alone. She was reading a book on genetics, which looked to me like an introductory college level text. She was very talkative, so we started chatting about genetics. She was also interested in web development, and told me how much better Fireworks MX is compared to the version I use. To round it off, her favorite subject is mathemetics, though she also likes languages and is studying French, Latin and Hebrew.

I showed her the book I’m reading at the moment, which is a biography of Nikola Tesla. I told her about a few of his inventions, and how bad luck and bad judgement had cheated him out of fame and fortune. She thought my noise cancelling headphones were really amazing; I explained how they work. We chatted on and off for most of the flight.

To be honest, she reminded me a little of the geeky Jewish girl on Malcolm In The Middle. I was overjoyed to discover that young girls like that really exist; I hope she goes on to great things. I almost wanted to give her my e-mail address in case she wanted to chat, but of course people would probably think I was a Catholic Priest…

I don’t remember there being girls like that when I was at junior school. If there had been, I might have shown some interest in talking to girls. I also hate to think what she’s going to go through when she winds up in an American high school. But anyway…

The presentation went well, I think: I was the last person to present that day, and nobody walked out. I wrapped up early, making up for everyone else running over schedule all day, which I expect was popular. And a couple of people commented that they’d been with the company years, and had still learnt something.

The week-long training event has a rather tiresome “Top Gun” aviation theme, so I snuck in some extra clip-art of my own. A slide on getting initial bearings was illustrated by the Navy Avengers of Flight 19, which famously disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle. The new giant web portal for all IBM software group content was illustrated with a picture of the Hughes HK-1, better known as the “Spruce Goose”. Finally, a slide of information about bug reporting and technote databases had a shot of the Hindenburg. I didn’t label any of them, so I wonder if anyone got the references.

I’m now at Dulles Airport. I booked a late flight back, which allowed me plenty of time to chat to people after the presentation, get a cab to the airport, have something to eat, pick up a latte, and settle down by a power socket. Good move—if I’d booked the flight before this one, I’d have only just made it, which would have meant a big dose of stress. As it is, I’m pretty relaxed.

Dulles airport seems to be pretty empty after 6pm on a Monday, which made getting through security a breeze. Unfortunately, I read that they’re going to introduce new rules requiring security guards to check the functioning of every single electronic device. I’m not looking forward to traveling with that rule in place. For vacations, typically I have a PDA, digital camera, phone, camcorder, CD Walkman, headphone amplifier, noise cancelling headphones, and I guess we can add the GPS to that list now too. I draw the line at taking the laptop, though the phone does have a web browser.

I’m also irritated to read that the airlines have won back the customers they lost to Amtrak. Mind you, it probably comes down to price—it costs more to get Acela from Boston to New York than to get a plane. Libertarians will say it’s because Amtrak doesn’t have competition, but I have a hunch it has more to do with the fact that the airlines get billions of dollars more in direct and hidden subsidies.

There’s an Air France Concorde on the runway outside. It bugs me a little that I’ll never get to fly on one. And even after all these years, I can’t look at a Concorde without thinking of Barry Manilow.

The other thing about spending time in airports is that I end up looking at newsstands, which is generally a depressing experience. Arnold Schwartzneggar? Oh, puh-leeze. Already the far right Republicans are denouncing him as far too liberal; I guess they’re still upset that their prefered choice of Austrian to join the party shot himself in a bunker in Berlin years ago.

The flight was delayed. Very delayed. While we were supposed to be in the air, the plane was still on the ground at LaGuardia. I finally got home at 01:30. sara gave me a gentle, welcoming snore as I collapsed into bed.

US News:

On the evening of February 1, two dozen American officials gathered in a spacious conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. The time had come to make the public case for war against Iraq. For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should—and should not—say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. “I’m not reading this,” he declared. “This is bullshit.”

[…]

Today, the mystery is what happened to Iraq’s terror weapons. “Everyone believed they would find it,” says a senior official. “I have never seen intelligence agencies in this government and other governments so united on one subject.”

Were they right? Powell and Tenet were convinced that chemical agents had been deployed to field units. None have been found. War planners used the intelligence when targeting suspected weapons of mass destruction sites. Yet bomb-damage assessments found that none of the targets contained chemical or biological weapons. “What we don’t know at this point,” says an Air Force war planner, “is what was bad intelligence, what was bad timing, what was bad luck.”

[…]

Senior administration officials say they remain convinced that weapons of mass destruction will turn up. The CIA and the Pentagon reported last week that two trucks seized in Iraq were apparently used as mobile biological weapons labs, though no biological agents were found.

Sydney Morning Herald:

Condoleezza Rice was smart enough to attempt her U-turn weeks ago. According to the US National Security Adviser, WMD bombs, missiles and drones are out. Dual-use technology and just-in-time manufacturing are in. Find a pesticide factory, for instance, and you find a chemical warfare facility. And don’t be concerned about looters. The more the place is trashed, the more difficult will be any dispute about the evidence. More recently, the US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, has said publicly that Iraq may have destroyed its WMDs prior to the war.

[…]

This is not to say that Iraq was of no concern or that some WMD-related materials will never be found in Iraq. Iraq had what’s known in the business as a breakout WMD capability in its many dual-use facilities. The Fallujah III castor oil production plant near Baghdad, for example, was, like similar plants elsewhere in the world, suitable for conversion to a ricin toxin factory.

And Iraq, again like many countries including Australia, probably still has stockpiles of potential WMD ingredients - the chlorine needed for clean water, for example, can also be used to make deadly chemical agents.

Moreover, Iraq almost certainly had other WMD-related materials. US claims about mobile biological warfare facilities could yet prove true, though the implication that Iraq’s biological weapons program relied on a handful of trailers tends to confirm the program was limited.

The trailers, and any other finds, will remain irrelevant until scrutinised by independent officials. The same goes for the interrogation reports of former Iraqi scientists, including those now detained in Morocco. With so much at stake, the possibility can’t be ruled out that a zealous coalition official might attempt to tamper with the evidence.

Claims by Iraqis in custody that the WMD program was dismantled before the war could be true, especially if Saddam thought he could survive the war and achieve some sort of moral victory. But that would mean the program must have been much smaller than US assessments. Just as elusive is hard evidence of active co-operation with al-Qaeda. This was always an extraordinary proposition, not least because Saddam was a secular dictator intent on eradicating Islamic fundamentalism.

[…]

One of the major concerns about the war now is the way it will encourage the proliferation of WMDs. America’s adversaries are being encouraged to acquire WMDs to deter US aggression.

The following are extracts from transcripts of two tape-recorded conversations between undercover investigators from the Office of Special Investigations at the US General Accounting Office and two gun dealers in Nebraska and Oregon, respectively. The calls were part of an investigation by the House Committee on Government Reform into the availability of long-range .50-caliber sniper rifles and armor-piercing ammunition. With an effective range of four miles an the ability to pierce several inches of steel, .50-caliber rifles are among the most powerful and destructive firearms legally available in the United States. The rifles were widely used by US infantrymen in the Gulf War to penetrate armored personnel carriers and concrete bunkers. Convited felons and children under eighteen are not allowed to buy the ammunition or new rifles, though secondhand sales of the rifles are not regulated.

Agent:

Yes, I’m looking to see if you carry .50-caliber BMG armor-piercing incendiary.

Dealer:

A guy just bought the last thousand rounds about twenty minutes ago. I will have more back in here Monday or Tuesday.

Agent:

Okay. How much is it a round?

Dealer:

Two hundred and forty dollars a hundred.

Agent:

This ammo will go through, say, metal, won’t it?

Dealer:

Uh, yeah, it’ll go through metal.

Agent:

Okay. Do you think it would go through, like, an armored limousine?

Dealer:

Well, I think it would. [Laughing]

Agent:

How ’bout bulletproof glass?

Dealer:

Oh, yeah, it’ll go through that.

Agent:

Even if it’s ballistic glass, it’ll still go through?

Dealer:

Right.

Agent:

With the first round, probably?

Dealer:

Right.

Agent:

Okay. Now, I live on the East oast — can you send it to me?

Dealer:

Uh, whereabouts do you live?

Agent:

Uh, I live in Virginia, but I’d like it shipped to D.C.

Dealer:

Okay.

Agent:

How can I go about doing that?

Dealer:

I’ll put my assistant on, and she can give you all the information.

Agent:

Okay, but I’ve got a couple of technical questions first. This ammunition, does it clog up the barrel of the weapon?

Dealer:

Oh no—it’s got the soft jacket on the outside. We also have a sniper round we do for the government. What kind of gun are you shooting?

Agent:

A Barrett Model 82.

Dealer:

We’ve got a round we’ve developed for the Barrett, a solid-brass bullet with a poly coating on it—that’s our sniper round.

Agent:

And that’s what you’ve sold the government?

Dealer:

Yes.

Agent:

Now, that sniper round, does that give you higher velocity, greater distance, or what?

Dealer:

It gives you the best accuracy.

Agent:

So if I wanted to use this against a person, let’s say, the sniper round would be better?

Dealer:

Right, right, because it makes the rifle real accurate.

Agent:

If I got the sniper round instead of the armor-piercing incendiary, though, would it still go through ballistic glass?

Dealer:

Oh, I don’t know—I don’t think we’ve tested on ballistic glass. It’ll go through three-inch aircraft window.

Agent:

But, say, an armored limousine?

Dealer:

Uh, we’ve never tested it on that.

Agent:

All right. What’s the price for these sniper rounds?

Dealer:

Four dollars a round by the hundred, or fifty a round by the ten-round.

Agent:

So they’re more than the API?

Dealer

Oh yeah.

Agent:

Well, I think I’m better off with API. I’m going to be using this against, um, you know, something with an armored limousine and something with ballistic glass, and I just want to make sure I’m going to be able to penetrate. So put me on with your assistant there, and maybe I can figure out how I can get this shipped to me.

Dealer:

Okay, hold on.

Assistant:

Okay. What we’ll need is a copy of your driver’s license to prove that we’re shipping to someone over the age of twenty-one.

Agent:

Okay.

Assistant:

And a statement that you are over the age of twenty-one and that there are no federal, state, or local laws that prohibit you from receiving the ammunition. Once we have that on file, you’d never have to do it again — that’s just, you know, for the first time.

Agent:

Okay. So I just have to write a statement out and sign it, saying that I’m over twenty-one years of age and there’s no federal, state or local laws prohibiting me from –

Assistant:

Receiving the information.

Agent:

Ammunition, you mean.

Assistant:

And, uh, this can be faxed to us. Once we have it on file, we can send some stuff to you.

Agent:

Okay.

Assistant:

Can I get your name?

Agent:

My first name is Roger.

Assistant:

Okay.

Agent:

Well, actually, that’s just what they call me. My real name is Julian.

Assistant:

Okay.

Agent:

You can see why I want to be called Roger?

Assistant:

There you go. [Laughter] Okay.

Dealer:

Can I help you?

Agent:

Yes, I’m interested in ordering some .50-caliber BMG ammo. I was wondering if you have any in stock.

Dealer:

No, it’s all sold. I’m taking orders for a month from now.

Agent:

I may be interested in some API.

Dealer:

Okay.

Agent:

Now, do you know a lot about these rounds?

Dealer:

Well, um, some.

Agent:

Do you think they’ll go through bullet-proof glass?

Dealer:

Well, they’re loaded with the bullet weight the military uses now—660 or something.

Agent:

Uh-huh.

Dealer:

In the old days they used 700 grains or something. But nowadays they use 660, so they’re getting a little more velocity out of it. And I just can’t see glass standing up to that.

Agent:

How about an armored limousine?

Dealer:

You’re using that to test it?

Agent:

Well, you say testing—Yeah, I’ll be testing against armored limousines. But it’s gotta work.

Dealer:

Right.

Agent:

You know, I don’t want to have the chance of it not working.

Dealer:

Well, there’s no way that I can guarantee it. I’m not familiar with the glass they’re using nowadays.

Agent:

But you’ve never had any complaints from your customers about these being misfires or anything? These rounds are pretty good?

Dealer:

They’ll bore through a fair amount of steel.

Agent:

Okay.

Dealer:

I don’t know how strong the glass is, but the ammo will go through a fair amount of steel. [Laughing] It’ll go through the whole car.

Agent:

Okay. Would it go through a lightly armored tank, do you think?

Dealer:

It won’t go through any modern tank, because we have too much armor on them now.

Agent:

Uh-huh.

Dealer:

But it would probably go through two and a half or three inches of mild steel.

Agent:

Oh. An armored limousine definitely doesn’t have that much on it.

Dealer:

That’s what I’m saying. I think a .50 would go all the way through it.

Agent:

Okay. And then, if I theoretically wanted to use these rounds to take down an aircraft—say, a helicopter, or something like that—I should be able to do that, shouldn’t I?

Dealer:

Yeah, they’re not armored. I’ll go through any light stuff like that.

Agent:

Good. You know, I’m very happy to see that we’ll be able to do business. Here on the East Coast, when you go to buy ammunition, they ask a lot of questions.

Dealer:

Oh.

Agent:

And I don’t like people asking me questions about why I want this ammunition.

Dealer:

Well, see, out here they use it for hunting.

Agent:

Uh-huh. Well, you could say I’m going to be using this for hunting also. But just hunting of a different kind.

Dealer:

[Laughing] As long as it’s nothing illegal.

Agent:

Well, I wouldn’t consider it illegal.

Dealer:

All right.

—Found in Harper’s Magazine, March 2001