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Lightning bolts from an orbital Olympus

Monday, August 24, 2009

As a businessmen working in defense, I believe it’s my responsibility to terrify people. I draw a certain pleasure, you know, from the knowledge of a job well done.

But! Let’s back up.

ENIAC was a revolution in computing. It measured 680 square feet, but it could compute—the Internet tells me—the equivalent of 500 FLOPS: floating point operations per second. It was never intended for peaceful use; they planned to make it calculate artillery tables, and wound up using it for the H-bomb. In this way we learn the importance of vision.

Modern computers, of course, do different things. Some of them measure weather, or at least the atmosphere. At the McMinnville campus for Baird Aircraft Systems, we maintain—I am told—one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. The complex sprawls over 7200 square feet, which sounds like a terrible lot. Were we to use ENIAC instead, however—or rather, the fleet of them it would take to perform the same calculations—the complex would take up 93,160,000,000,000 square feet, or 3.34 million square miles. This is not all that big; for instance, the United States is larger. Barely.

I’m not sure exactly how it’s put together or what it’s made of. I asked the chief engineer in charge of the computing project to explain it to me, and we had this conversation:

Me: “Hey, Sarah [name changed to protect the innocent; it's actually Christina]. Can you explain how this computer is put together, or what it is made of?”

Sarah: “No.”

Then she offered to give me the Non-Technical (”Stupid”) Proletarian Tour that people get when the campus is open, like “take your child to work even though it’s mostly just offices or cubicles with computers in them and the really exciting stuff is classified day”, but I had work to do, and so did she, and I knew neither of us would benefit from the “Do you know the computer under your desk? Well this is more powerful than a whole lot of those.” So I settled for the ENIAC analogy.

Anyway, this supercomputer complex is dedicated to modelling large, semi-chaotic systems, like the weather. It is useful for testing the interference between currents in the atmosphere and any projects we might undertake up there. Baird is a subcontractor to NOAA in performing high-altitude balloon research (Yes, Virginia, there are “weather balloons”), and the computer both guides that and is improved by it, all at once.

This isn’t scary. Wait for it… wait for it… here we go!

This weekend, the computer was crunching numbers on a new and special project. Essentially, here’s the idea: you know how if you stand on the top of the Empire State Building and drop a penny, it’ll kill someone? (that’s why they have barriers to keep you from doing this) Well, now, picture instead of a penny, you’re dropping a tungsten-jacketed DU rod 30-odd feet long, and instead of dropping it off the Empire State Building, you’re dropping it from orbit.

Welcome to Kinetic Energy Penetration!

Getting a tungsten-jacketed DU telephone pole into orbit is a bitch, because it weighs a ton. Once it’s there, though, it can just sit. And wait. When it hits the ground (here’s where the “kinetic energy” part comes in) it impacts (that’s the “penetration”) to deliver about 20 terajoules to whatever it touches/obliterates. It doesn’t require any terminal guidance! It can’t be defeated by any SDI! It doesn’t give a launch warning!

And—best of all—because it’s non-nuclear, it doesn’t violate any space weaponization treaties!

I should clarify, for people worried that these things exist, that they don’t—yet. The government funds research on an off-again, on-again basis. Generally, research on next-gen pants-shitting weaponry gets money based on how aware the public is of it, and how likely they are to complain to their representative when they learn that Lockheed has been given a billion dollars to figure out the best way to cause volcanoes or thunderstorms or whatever.

Not being able to rely on constant government funds, this is a project we work on ourselves. Orbital bombardment has uses outside of Ragnarok; for instance, destroying caves in Afghanistan (smaller payloads would be used). Currently, I’m writing a brief on sub-theater orbital weapons, though. Essentially, we envision being able to attach satellite-deployed kinetic weaponry at the AO level or below, giving direct control to operations commanders for low-energy kinetic energy penetrators. For large-scale weapons, the communications framework is entirely strategic, by which I mean “slow, because it involves people arguing in the War Room about casualty figures and retaliation”.

Tactical KEP systems could circumvent this to go straight from ISTAR to the battlespace commander to boom. The Pentagon has been stonewalling me on attaching orbital weapons systems at anything below DIVARTY-style organization, but a TKEPS could actually serve in near-direct fire capacity in immediate support of a FIST—just lase, confirm mission, “hey what’s that whistling sound?”. A 20 kilogram rod, assisted by nothing but gravity, impacts with the force of a 250-lb bomb. Total time from orbit: four and a half minutes. You can get the same impact (ha!) with a 5kg rod boosted by a 50kg rocket, which also conveniently drops the time from orbit to 70 seconds. Seventy seconds!

There are substantial problems with this, though. For one, the space shuttle doesn’t have the payload capacity to hoist the real big ones up there. Also, because they’re orbiting very quickly several hundred kilometres up, it can be hard to get them where you want to go, exactly. This problem is what the computer was working on, apparently. This morning, the project lead came into my office with their test results. According to the computer, in an ideal environment, a deploying TKEP satellite, using existing technology, can drop a 20-kg rod with a 25-cm CEP.

And that’s enough to get you in your bed while you’re sleeping. Pleasant dreams!

Join me next week when I talk about plans to spawn tornadoes! Anywhere!

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Leonardo di Caprio will not play me in the movie

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Some fox I know wrote a pretty cogent overview of what he does, and since I’m slightly bored–didn’t go into work yesterday, seeing as how I’m supposed to be vacationing (see?) so I’m getting caught up, but of course nobody is really working this weekend so it takes some time.

I have the good fortune to run a company Mother Jones once called “the scariest little company you’ve never heard of,” and as an entity known for their quality, unbiased reporting MoJo should probably be trusted.  The more staid folks at Jane’s say this:

Baird-Marhoff Airplane Works was founded in 1946 as an aircraft maintenance firm that later developed into a small civil aircraft company. Its current form, Baird Aircraft Systems, was realised in 1974 and is primarily a defence contractor associated with missiles, electronics, space technology, communications, support services and, to a lesser degree, military aircraft. Publicly-traded through the 1980s; in 1992 the Carlyle Group agreed to a buyback of the last outstanding shares and the company has been extremely reluctant to disclose financial information since. Announced plans to buy Atmos Electrics division from Garcia Aerodyne in July 2005; acquisition completed by January 2006, estimated at USD190 million.

Jane’s Aircraft Upgrades, 2007

This is correct, but boring. So, never mind, let’s turn it over to MoJo:

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait last year, the United States military was quick to respond. Early indicators of the fighting were relayed by Boeing E-3s using sophisticated sensors developed by an Oregon company called Baird Aircraft Systems. When troops on the ground pulled the trigger on their Colt M-16 rifles, they were constantly in contact with men in General Dynamics M1 tanks and Hughes Ah-64 choppers through the use of radios designed and built by an Oregon company called Baird Aircraft Systems. If that wasn’t enough, they could call in air support from Fairchild A-10 attack jets, delivering American-style justice using fire-control systems developed by an Oregon company called Baird Aircraft Systems to launch Hughes A-65 Maverick missiles with Thiokol engines controlled using widgets made by an Oregon company called Baird Aircraft Systems. And when the going got super-tough, there was always the magical Lockheed F-117, dropping laser-guided “Paved Way” bombs automatically flown down chimneys through computers built by an Oregon company called, you guessed it, Baird Aircraft Systems.

Formerly a publically-traded company, Baird went private earlier this year after buying back shares issued during the 1980s. A call to their headquarters in McMinnville, Oregon–a curious place for an aviation company, unless you’re Evergreen International Aviation, Air America front company for the CIA and also based there–will net you nothing but corporate spin about the company’s history as a post-war aircraft maintenance shop founded by two guys in their garage. Virtually nothing is known about them. Press statements released by other companies reveal cooperation with Martin-Marietta and Hughes. The company’s president gave a substantial private donation to Ronald Reagan in 1984, as well as George Bush in 1988 and again this year. In the last five years, company president Jacob Baird has issued only one public statement: “it’s not my habit to comment on business matters”. Examining the federal budget suggests Baird’s contracts net 9-digit numbers, and possibly more. A top Air Force general says BAS “has got their finger in every pie”. They have their own island with a self-imposed 200-mile “exclusion zone”. In short, Baird Aircraft Systems just may be the scariest little company you’ve never heard of.

“The Government’s Baird Teeth”, Mother Jones, July 1st 1992.

This is incorrect, but exciting. You have to take your lumps. Anyway, to respond to these: yes, Baird Aircraft Systems works predominantly with the government or other defense contractors. We are regarded as the preeminent ADA-programming shop in the Pacific Northwest, and embedded software gets contracted to Baird frequently. Naturally I am not at liberty to disclose what literal products we work on, but suffice it to say, yes it includes everything from radios to guidance systems.

We do not “have our own island,” though sometimes I wish we did. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Baird was involved in missile-defense work. As part of this, we (in cooperation with other defense companies including Lockheed) leased an uninhabited island and requested that fishermen keep their distance, partly because we were concerned about the missiles coming down in the wrong place, substantially more because we were concerned about contamination from the hazardous chemicals in rockets, and mostly because we didn’t want people spying on what was, at the time, highly-advanced technology (it has since been superseded).

Jacob Baird was notoriously taciturn, and one of the reasons I agreed to write this journal thing (other than the late-night phone call where the Bot told me to) is that I am expected to put a non-sinister, non-secretive public face on what is, actually, a fairly boring company. Aerospace work has very little in common with The Aviator. However, as far as the size or wealth of the company, it is not my habit to comment on the financial aspects of business matters.

Basically, Baird consists of four operations of varying degrees of mundanity. Firstly, there is a small side of the business that is what we call “public-facing”. Baird is at its heart still an aircraft design shop; we perform contracts for civilians, generally in retrofitting older-model aircraft. Work is ongoing on a regional jet design, but its unconventional nature and the unappealing economy, particularly as airlines are concerned, means that negotiations with carriers is going very slowly.

Secondly, there is the majority of the business, which performs contracting work with the United States Department of Defense. Much of this is aviation related, either in terms of guided missile technology, satellites, GPS units, communications, security, etc. Some of it is not, like the handheld GPS device I was talking about a few weeks ago. This business is frequently classified, both for national security reasons and because we don’t do much “primary work”–as opposed to defense subcontracting–and the companies we work for don’t want their trade secrets revealed.

Thirdly, there is a small “physical presence” division. This includes aircraft we lease out to other companies and entities, such as a one-off experimental heavy-lift aircraft that has seen use fighting wildfires in California. Occasionally these are contracted for government work beyond that, occasionally in hostile situations, such as search-and-rescue operations in Afghanistan. The notion, promoted by DailyKos (I think) last year, that this division is a PMC is needlessly simplistic and provocative.

Fourth, there is a consulting and design bureau–our “skunk works”. Here we try out unconventional ideas and see if they work. They rarely do. Frequently other companies come to us and ask for assistance with their own aircraft designs. These work out much better, because we have specific problems to solve. Our job is to be a “punk design firm” and tell people what they’re doing wrong and how to do it better–frequently more radically. It is not a money-making venture, on the whole. It is called the “Aces Division,” both because it is where the unconventional but genius tend to reside and because it originated in a government project known internally as “BLUE ACE” (a cancelled missile project, declassified).

Incidentally it does not, no matter what anyone says, stand for “Asshole Collie’s Engineering Sweatshop”.

And that is Baird. Quite frankly, the fox’s work is much more interesting :D

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I hate Mondays

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

“But, hey,” you’re saying. “This is being posted on a Tuesday”. Yes. That’s true. It is however being posted on a Tuesday because I’m going into work late today. This is because Monday didn’t end until 6 o’clock this morning. This is because halfway through Monday (e.g., 7PM) one of the project leads came into my office with a grave look on her face.

“We have a problem,” she said. My heart sank.

“A serious kind of problem?” I said. She works on a project to develop a guided missile; these differences are important.

“Probably not,” she said. The gist of it: if there’s enough moisture in the air to partially “diffuse” the data the optical sensor gets and the missile is fired at its maximum angle off the direction its carrier is flying and the carrier is turning more than 6 Gs and the intended target is at a certain weird angle and the missile loses its sensor lock halfway through its turn then it’s possible it might…

… lock on to the airplane that fired it instead.

We are scheduled to test this today, in front of representatives from the United States Air Force. Generally, a demonstration is seen as going wrong if you’re trying to show the kill capabilities of a missile and it turns around and blows up your launch plane. I asked the engineer if there was anything I could do to help, and the response was a measured “maybe” and then a string of what I think was Greek and presumably describes some detail of the missile’s flight plan. I don’t know.

I don’t really know all that much about airplanes and things, to be honest. I don’t like flying very much. I agreed to take over the company because otherwise the family was going to lose control, and I hate to see that happen, but if you were to ask me how an airplane stays in the air I would probably look at you and say “… the wings?”. I worked with the engineers to design the specifications for this particular missile project because I have work experience in the Defense Department and I know what they really want when they say they want something, and I know what they think is useful and cool. But damned if I know how the pieces all go together. I volunteer to help anyway because I can carry things and hit buttons on a computer.

RD Baumgartner’s book Working Stiff says that one of the defining characteristics of a workaholic is that they have convinced themselves that nothing will work if they don’t.

Reasonable, thinking people still fall prey to a basic, narcissistic delusion: their work environment is a carefully structured and ordered whole that will collapse without constant, detailed tinkering. Such individuals rationalize their unhealthy lifestyles by declaring, publicly or privately, that their work needs them much more than they need it. By externalizing their addictions–aided by the general public’s failure to equate the destructiveness of this addition with substance abuse–workaholics free themselves of responsibility. Particularly for successful individuals, for whom hard work appears to have paid dividends, this is a vicious circle.

Working Stiff, 2008, Richard D. Baumgartner. page 258

… if I went biking, things wouldn’t get done at work.

“Capitol Hell,” 2009. Kyros Mazekais.

I guess I overstated things. I don’t really believe things “wouldn’t get done,” I just… want to help out where I can. Now, last night that just involved pushing carts around and going to McDonald’s at 3 in the morning. But if my workers can’t rely on me, how can I demand my own reliance on them?

This morning I called my contact at the Pentagon to provide an update and say that, while we had resolved some problems with the design, I wanted to advise them that development was still ongoing before today’s test. That was when the man, who apparently has never heard of deadlines, told me, quote, “it’s ok, we won’t be ready for a couple of weeks anyway. I was going to call and let you know that this afternoon! Why don’t we reschedule for mid-August?”. I would’ve been on a plane this afternoon, heading for the test site, and unable to take his call. But, you know, what the hell right?

I gave the team the day off, anyhow, and I came in at noon. I know when to back off just like anybody else. See?

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The working life

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

I’ve been thinking about my own mortality. This–in large part–comes from somebody telling me I should read RD Baumgartner’s new book Working Stiff, which spent some time last year on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s not a good beach book, but it is interesting. In the fourth chapter, which he calls “Working the 9 to 6-feet-under”, he goes on about the health risks of working too hard. Apparently the Japanese do this all the time. But he says:

Of course, it would be shortsighted to regard karōshi as a uniquely Japanese problem. Inheriting the Protestant work ethic and laconic demeanor Garrison Keillor might associate with Norwegians, Border collie immigrants from Scotland and England have demonstrated a peculiar affinity for working themselves into the grave. Mather (1996) noted that collies consistently faced higher risks for common stress-related ailments: 26% for ulcers, 20% for heart attacks, 40% for hypertension [1]. A Newsweek article following Enron executive Terry McCormack’s suicide, pithily titled “Black and White and Dead All Over,” pointed to a 30% higher suicide rate among collies, particularly among recent immigrants, and speculated that “insurance companies of tomorrow… might consider breed a factor among canine applicants” [2].

Gene Mather suggests that Border collies are not uniquely at risk, but nonetheless coined the term “collie work ethic” to describe individuals so single-mindedly focused on their work that they neglect their own health. His 1996 paper in the American Journal of Medical Policy pointedly suggested that, on average, this work ethic is responsible for shaving between 5 and 10 years of life off the lifespan of afflicted people. Adjusting for the tendency among some immigrants to work in high-risk occupations–as policemen, firefighters, or soldiers, for instance–Mather’s follow-up 2003 meta-analysis, also published in AJMP, concluded that “across the board, the 5-10% increase in risk is statistically significant” [3].

Working Stiff, 2008, Richard D. Baumgartner. pages. 91-92.

My first thought as I read this was of course “bullshit”. I think of myself as being pretty healthy for someone who spends half of every day in an office, and I don’t like all this touchy-feely crap about slacking off to get in touch with our inner hippie and go biking while munching on some organic granola. This is also in part because if I went biking, things wouldn’t get done at work. Being an entrepreneur, lest anyone tell you otherwise, isn’t easy. There are times when it’s definitely worth it, but there’s never a time when it’s easy. So, fuck the hippie stuff.

Then I got to thinking harder. My father died of a heart attack when I was 18, having primed me for life as a doctor–a discipline where, particularly during residency years, 20-hour days aren’t unheard of and stress levels are outrageous (Baumgartner addresses this as well). And of course, when he died what did I do? I joined the Coast Guard and spent a couple of years on revenue cutters chasing down angry drug-runners. Then I became a cop.

How do you stop working, though? I ain’t gonna say I think work is the only meaningful thing in life, because it obviously isn’t. But on the other hand, it does have some value, doesn’t it? Otherwise we wouldn’t do it. Anymore, Americans don’t do things we can be proud of, maybe. Like, nobody’s building their own furniture or fixing their own cars, because people are convinced they can’t. If you want a sense of accomplishment, work is as good a place as any to get it.

But when you’re done carving your own chair, you have something to sit in. When you’re done with a PowerPoint presentation, what do you have? A hard drive with less space for pirated music or pornography? What’s a chair worth? Ten PowerPoint presentations? Twenty? How much does a succesful business negotiation count for? A home-cooked meal? An oil change? A completed model ship? Fuck if I know.

I wrote this instead of taking lunch today, which now that I think of it might be the symptom of a problem. I’m looking at my schedule. From 2-3:30 I’m meeting with a colonel drawing up the specifications for a new weather-resistant headset, which is exactly the kind of thrilling stuff I got into aerospace for. From 4-6 I meet with some people who are supposed to make me sound smarter when I try to explain to a Congressional budgetary subcommittee why shafting the Department of Defense on funding is suicidal, even though I know they’re just going to cut DARPA’s budget to give the money to national health care or designating September as Songbird Appreciation Month or whatever the fuck they want to do.

But I have actual work to do, too. When do I do it? I need to make sure that R&D has money, and I need to make sure three different teams are close enough to their benchmarks for an investor meeting Monday. They won’t be, and if it’s something I can pitch in on, I’m going to do that. Where does the time come from? After 6, that’s for sure. Saturdays. Sundays.

Well, whatever.

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The desert dog pleads for halp

Monday, July 13, 2009

As I’ve about said before, I’m not from Washington. My dad ran a sheep station outside of Tucumcari, New Mexico, which is practically Texas but in any sense is far cry from this place.

Fortunately (in the sense that if it wasn’t, I woulda shanked someone by now) my office is air conditioned which also makes it dehumidified. Otherwise, according to the thermometer outside my window  it’s 85 degrees, with about 600% humidity.

Career people in DC, I’m finding, tend to have short fur. Perhaps they’re cutting it? I look very ridiculous with my fur cut (mom used to do it in the summer and I felt like such a damned dork. Since I left for the coast I’ve never had it trimmed on account of not wanting that anymore).

I wish I’d gotten a picture of this tiger I saw yesterday, with a striped suit… it was at that weird line between “tacky” and “almost somewhat fashionable”. For me, I like black suits, which is alright except that by about 2 o’clock my fur looks like I 1) just got up and 2) rolled around in the gutters for awhile instead of showering. As you may have figured out, appearing like a stoner who just rolled out of bed for their first job interview ever defeats the purpose of trying to be formal.

And, in any case, 2 o’clock is about when most people out here get done with their mistresses and get ready to start their work day, so my meetings aren’t until 3 or 4 sometimes. It’s even worse by then, plus I feel gross.

Someone reading this has to know what to do with your fur to avoid this.

Please?

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I’ll make sure you get a copy of that memo :D

Friday, July 10, 2009

I got a call from McMinnville this morning about a new request that came in on a project BAS is working on. As the documents are unclassified–I ain’t intending to get sent upriver for not reading the damned print, don’t worry–I can tell you that the project is for someting useful but not very sexy. In this case, it’s a hardened GPS unit. Provisional TOE has it allocated at one per squad.

In the project spec sheet is the following gem:

“III.9.15: HOSTILE FIRE: If hostile fire is encountered, user should disengage unit monitoring system (UMS) and concentrate on confronting enemy forces rather than attempting to employ unit as a weapon (c//6//use/saf/osc)”

For those of you playing the home game, this is a joke, since the GPS is just a screen with some buttons around the edges and the unit cannot be “employed as a weapon”. It’s a screen. You look at it. The Unit Monitoring System is your goddamned eyes. The section essentially says “if you get shot at, stop paying attention to the fucking GPS and start shooting back”.

There’s a nice chain of FUBARness here, wherein:

1) Somebody thought it would be a good idea to put a joke into a project spec sheet;
2) Nobody caught it until the document was finalized;
3) A full-bird colonel deep in the bowels of the Pentagon looked at it;
4) Also failed to think of it as a joke and then;
5) Dispatched some other projectwallah to call BAS and ask if this could be “automated”.

Well, no. No, it can’t. This is why I live in DC, so that I can go have meetings with people face to face. Then I can have conversations like:

Colonel: “Well, what I want to know is whether the process outlined in threeninefifteen can be made automatic.”
Me: “No.”
C: “Are you saying you can’t do it at all, or you can’t do it under budget, or are you just trying to get some more money out of us, or what?”
M: “It’s not a question of budgeting, it’s–”
C: “Now you listen here. I’ve been overseeing this project since 2004 and I’m not going to be sold a pile of horseshit dressed up in contractor talk. You get me?”
M: “Five by, sir.”
C: “So now you tell me straight: why can’t you do this?”
M: “Well, for starters it’s a joke.”
C: “You think this is funny?”
M: “Not especially. But it’s basically saying that the user should stop looking at the unit and return fire. That’s common sense. You can’t automate common sense.”
C: “It’s flagged with three of our lead project goals. Useability, operator safety and OPSEC. We think this would be a nice thing to have.”
M: “… Automatically telling people to stop looking at a GPS and start pulling a trigger when they’re being shot at?”
C: “Are you talking down to me?”
M: “No, I’m just saying that when I was in the service, I wouldn’t need to be told. Besides, how would you even do that, sir?”
C: “Well that’s your problem, now, isn’t it?”

I hate this answer. I would say that, as a defense contractor, I probably here “well that’s your problem, not ours” or some variation of it about eight billion times a day. Technically the statement is accurate, at least insofar as yes, it is my job to figure out these solutions. Fucking Christ, though. “It would really help the committee chair get on board with this if you could do it 30% cheaper and it had 50% longer range”. I point out that this violates several laws of physics and economics. “That’s not our problem.” No. No, I suppose it isn’t. The trick is to not rise to the bait (essentially they’re saying “why are you too incompetent to do your job?”).

M: “The specification is listed as having the lowest possible priority.” (6 on a scale where 1 is “do it or the project is canned and you are tried for attempted treason against our armed forces” and 6 is “if you’re bored of computer solitaire and have a moment or two”)
C: “I’m telling you it’s a high priority for me. Can you understand that?”
M: “Of course, sir. Let me get back to you on this.”

Now, my personal suspicion is that the person I was talking to realised it wasn’t a serious specification about halfway through the conversation and was just trying to save face (right about the point where he says “are you talking down to me?”). That’s all anybody cares about in DC. Eventually I call back, having decided on a different tactic.

M: “Well, there’s a problem. The specification is listed as “recommended,” not “required”. Our contract instructs us to address only required software issues. I’m sorry, but we can’t work on this. You’ll have to find someone with a broader scope.”
C: “Oh, well, alright. Thanks for your time, son.”

Oh, Washington. How would the president maintain control without the bureaucracy?

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Conflict of Disinterest

Thursday, July 9, 2009

I’m sure most of you have been in a situation where you’re in a hot tub and don’t exactly know how to react. Being as I am from the country and unfamiliar with your city folk ways, I always feel that way, so I’ll create a step by step guide based on my own experiences at a party in Falls Church (which is otherwise rather out of my price range–Virginia being a place where you step into a McDonald’s and the guy at the register asks if you want to see the wine list).

So you will be in the hot tub, enjoying a glass of something at least mildly alcoholic and trying to figure out why, despite the incessant heat and rising humidity, you (and your fur, which will suddenly weigh twenty pounds more) are currently immersed in 150-degree water with occasional jets aimed at parts of your body you’d rather not have explored by high-pressure steam. The conversation will drift, as it frequently does, to money, and how ridiculous it is to try to make a living in the District (in these conversations it’s generally poor form to admit to living in a third-floor walkup where the neighbors are apparently subletting to rats).

And then they’ll talk about lobbyists. Everyone in DC is either lobbying or being lobbied; it’s just how it goes. I ain’t complaining, of course, as I’m one of them myself, after my own fashion. Eventually one of the other people in the hot tub will say, “so, what do you do?”

“Oh,” you’ll say. “I run a small business.”

“That right? American dream, huh?” they’ll say. “What kinda business?”

Then you’ll admit that it’s a small defense contractor, mostly programming integrated systems, and that you’re out in DC because it makes it easier to meet with all the Pentagon types. They’ll nod politely, and there’ll be a moment of silence. “So,” you’ll eventually be compelled to ask. “What about you?”

“Ah, well.” He’ll hem and haw for a moment. “I’m the third district representative from Washington State.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Fancy that.”

“Mm-hmm.”

There are some improprieties involved with being seen kibbitzing with a defense contractor, but damnit nobody wears name tags in a hot tub. How are you supposed to tell? It mars the whole tone of the conversation. At the same time, lengthy silences in a hot tub are even worse. Eventually you’ll have to try speaking again. “You know,” you’ll say. “I know somebody from Washington.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, they work for Microsoft. Issaquah,” you’ll say, pronouncing it “eye-SAY-kwuh”.

“ISS-uh-KWAH,” your partner will correct you, and by the look in his eyes you can tell he is thinking how do I get out of this? When did this become so awkward? Why can’t this yokel pronounce a simple fucking name right?

“Oh, ok.”

“Not me.” Like you’d know. Or care.

“Right.”

Silence ensues again. “Uh, how about you? Where’re you from?”

“New Mexico, originally.”

“Albuquerque?” That’s all anybody thinks of when they think of New Mexico, you are now thinking. What about… uh… what about…

“Tucumcari, actually. East New Mexico–almost Texas, really.”

“Tucumcaria?” You must’ve slurred the ‘a’ of ‘actually’ into the town, but it’s not worth correcting. “New Mexico’s a beautiful place.” What? It is?

“Mm,” you’ll say.

“We honeymooned in Taos, you know?” Oh, Christ. Of course you did.

“Ah. Yes, Taos,” and you will smile distantly, as though you cared about that goddamned tourist trap. Did she enjoy the overpriced turquoise with the zias on it? Sold by an honest-to-god silversmithing Injun, I’m sure.

“Taos,” he’ll repeat, as though if he said it in just the right tone he’d be transported there, away from this little place where the both of you are slowly wilting under the heat of the water (they say a frog placed in cool water that is slowly boiled won’t notice until it’s cooked), unable to escape or to prevent your own, increasingly imminent, demise.

Hot tubs are the tar pits of the modern era.

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How many kids did you kill today?!

Monday, July 6, 2009

I was talking to an intern who works in Hollywood a few weeks ago at a convention, and he said the thing that makes all of it (the long hours, the low pay, all that good stuff) worthwhile is when a movie goes to the big screen and he can see his work up there–or know that something he wrote or tweaked made it to the screens that millions of people will view.

Being a defense contractor is kind of like that, except instead of coming out on DVD it comes out on CNN, and instead of being a metaphorical blockbuster it’s the kind that actually takes down houses. So, you know, it’s kind of the same. People have asked me before how I can sleep at night, knowing I’m behind that. Generally, it goes like this:

1. Lie down on bed

2. Put covers over self

3. Sleep.

So you see, it’s not that different from most other people. At least, I tend not to think so. If I was interested in rationalization I’d think about how I’m not really building bombs, just fuzes and guidance systems and embedded computers. But then, I don’t really actually think that way. I think: “good”.

Most people don’t know it, but I used to work for the US gov’t before I got into the business of being a death merchant (which pays fairly steadily, another reason I’m able to sleep at night). I served in the US Coast Guard in drug interdiction for a while (more exciting; less informative), and then I worked for Justice sitting at a desk (less exciting; more informative). Pops always said he wanted me to be a Marine like him. Well, guess I’m sorry to disappoint, but I got the basic idea down.

I trust the men and women who serve the United States of America (can you tell I’m still drunk on Americanism from the 4th? ha ha). I trust the decisions they make, and I trust that 99.9999% of the time, when they pull the trigger it’s for a good reason. I trust that the bombs land in the right places, and I accept that it’s my job to make sure that, as often as possible, they do.

I’m not saying I’d do it for free, because I do have employees to pay and rent on a DC apartment (which ain’t cheap, let me tell you). But I’m not a profiteer, either. There’s an element of civil service in working for the Military Industrial Complex, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. There’s an element of taking pride in your work and knowing that you’re doing your part to make the country a little bit more secure, the sword we use to defend freedom a little bit sharper.

I want that sword to be as sharp as possible.

Now some of you are probably reading this thinking I’m some “USA! USA!”-chanting hick. I don’t think that’s fair. ‘Cause you know, ok, sure we don’t always make the right decisions. But most of the time, we do. The United States ain’t a bunch of beer-drunk yahoos throwing rocks from the back of a pickup truck, and it’s a damned shame so many people seem to think we are.  We’re a democracy. I cast my vote, and even when I don’t agree with the outcomes I agree the system works. We’re a bastion of freedom in a world that can seem very, very dark sometimes, and I have faith in the basic principles on which this country was founded.

Not religious faith, mind. I don’t think we got a mandate from god or whatever to beat the shit out of people. That ain’t it. It’s a human faith–faith in basic human rights, freedoms and dignity. The belief that even when we take a step back, there’s two steps forward coming right up. I believe that the United States is a force of good in the world, and I believe that I am helping this. I believe, in a clear, logical way, that when you fuck with us you deserved to get fucked up right back, because you are on the wrong side.

And if the missile that hits you has a little stamp from BAS somewhere on it, well then. Just take it as a “howdy” from me. Feel free to give a shout-out back. But, uh, just a word of caution to ya, what with time zones and all:

I’ll probably be sleeping.

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Undocumented worker

Sunday, June 28, 2009

I guess this is what the bot was referring to when he said he was going to “document you organics”. I wonder if he got a grant? I also wonder what the pitch was like.

“Basically, it’ll be like StoryCorps, except in real time, through the Internet and I (”we”) will watch over them  like a hawk for evidence of their organic nature.”

I was informed about this in a phone call at 2 in the morning that said it was from an unlisted number. Silly me, I thought it might’ve been something down at the office. No, no. Instead I was told I would now “provide an ongoing report on your carbon-based existence”.

We’ll see.

I should go down to the Tavern and have words with the bot, but 1) he doesn’t ever listen to me and 2)  I’m worried about the tentacles. Also 3) it’s 10:30 on a Sunday and maybe it’s best if I don’t make a point of making that bar time. Oh well. I hope he likes my documentation.

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