Work and DC

August 4, 2008

Really, not much going on right now other than work!

After getting half unpacked there was a UWH class in DC that I had to go and deliver.  Never been to DC before, so that was going to be good even though I didn’t like leaving the new apartment half full with boxes.  Class was an odd Tuesday to Thursday (it’s ususaly Mon-Wed, or Wed-Fri in my experience), so headed off to SeaTac for my first trip out of there.

SeaTac is a bigger and busier airport than John Wayne that I used to fly out of in SoCal, but there’s better facilities there and seemed to get through security quicker.  If the airport ever gets a Clear line I might consider getting one (don’t tell me about these – I know they don’t do anything for security and it’s even more info the govt can track you on, but if it means saving me time at the TSA queue in the morning all the better).  Depending on the route out and the side of the plane you are sitting on there’s a great view of Mt. Ranier.

Class went really well, and had some good engaged students.  Sometimes there’s the “wrong” level of people in the UWH class – programmers that find a lot of the material basic, which to be fair a lot of WebAppSec is and they only really start getting into the interesting stuff for them at the end of day 2/beginning of day 3.  This class was mostly network guys so it was meaningful from slide 1.

Had a few evenings to walk around the capitol.  The White House was obviously first stop (my hotel was only a few blocks from it) and I was somewhat surprised about the size of it – it was as tall as I was expecting, but I thought it was wider and a lot more rooms.  In any case, that was interesting and I walked all the way around.  From there it was a choice to either walk up the mall to the Lincoln memorial or to The Capitol.  Decided on The Capitol as I could pop into the air and space museum as it was open late that night.

Once again, though the air and space museum was small as far as museums go (been spoilt somewhat with the museums in London), but had some excellent pieces in there.  Got to see (in no particular order) the Apollo 11 capsule and door, a moon buggy, Moon lander, Space Ship One, an X15, and lots of other bits.

After class finished on Thursday, I went out to see an old friend Gary McGraw and stayed overnight at his gorgeous place.  I don’t think I could ever live as remote as that, but to have that much land, horses, peacocks and a river (which we spent ages sitting at talking about all sorts of things) must give him his inspiration to write all his books.

Got back for the weekend and then had to head back out on Monday to work in Torrance – SoCal can only miss me for so long it seems!  Nothing really to report there other than I went to see one of my work colleagues, Alex, and his Dad+Brother play in their band “The Flying Smolenskys“.  Usually this kind of thing is just going along for moral support, but these guys ROCKED!  It was such a good night.

So, that’s about it for me now.  Nothing all that interesting going on other than the usual work (which on a side note I’m getting a little fed up with having to keep fighting clients on if something is a finding or not).  Back in Seattle now for what looks on the schedule to be a few weeks of remote work, so going to try and catch up with a few people here and get out and explore the place.

Posted in Trip Report