Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Whistler / Blackcomb

Well, I had nothing planned for last weekend, until, at the last moment, a trip to Whistler/Blackcomb was scrapped together and I jumped on it, hoping and praying that I wouldn't be called in for anything. Luckily, I wasn't.

It was about a five hour drive to W/B, and we arrived there after dark, and checked into the chalet-type place we were staying in. Because of the way that the rooms were set up, I ended up stuck with this dude Earl who I had met only once or twice, but he ended being pretty cool. Sandra stayed with her sister, which quite honestly was for the best, because she was annoying the entire weekend and the less time we spent together, the better. On Sunday she said she was sore, and didn't want to ski. That was fine, except that she tried to get me to stay in the lodge with her, and I wasn't about to give up probably the only remaining ski day I had all season to sit around the fire and talk about my feelings. That meant that at dinner, she ignored me except to make snide remarks, and hardly spoke at all on the drive home.

Whatever. I wasn't about to let her get me down.

Now, you might wonder, what kind of skier is American Jones? Does he ski with the grace and power of James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service? Alas, no. I don't ski downhill so much as a tumble. I am used to the mountains in the east, where the hill consists of ice and rocks. I could barely hold my own there, so powder is unfamiliar territory. People say powder is easier, but I don't know.... you lose a ski on ice, and you just slide down the hill to where it is. You lose one in powder and it's gone for good.

But I did all right. Didn't slam into anyone else and didn't fall off any of the lifts. That's a victory as far as I'm concerned.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Broken Promise

I was planning to post once a day for a week, but plans have just sprung up for a weekend away, so I'm doing that instead. No offense to you non-reading, non-commenting phantom readers, but I have deemed this more important.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Torture

There has been a lot of talk in the past few months about our government's use of torture to extract information vital to protecting our nation's security. I won't make any sort of political statements with regard to this particular administration or things that particular people have said with respect to this. But I will tell you some things about torture.

It's an effective means of finding out what you need to know fast. Those in academia who sit in leather-backed chairs on 60 Minutes and talk about how ineffective torture is have clearly never had their genitals exposed to an open flame before. This is not something I've done, or condone, but I've unfortunately seen it done, and I don't know of a quicker way to get a man to talk.

The problem arises when a large governing body makes torture a part of their policy, because large government bodies are very bad at making sensible policies. I don't know any of the people down at Guantanamo, nor do I know how many of them have information that would be pertinent to national security, but I do know that there's at least a few of them who were caught up in something larger than they understood, and don't have Thing One to offer the government in the way of information. And from the sound of it, these folks are being waterboarded.

As an agent, I am basically given carte blanche to complete my objectives, and if that includes blowing out a man's kneecap to do so, that's what I'm going to do. But my employers don't say things like "Torture everyone until you get what you need." I don't look forward to doing it, I don't enjoy doing it, I'm not sadistic about it (like some people who I won't talk about for now), and I expect to hear about it in the afterlife, but whoever ends up judging me will know that I did it as a last resort and did so to save more lives than I ruined.

But people that tell you it doesn't work? Naïve.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Office Shuffle

As promised, although starting late, one post a day for a week. Promise is void if I get called away on duty.

Well, the move to the new building is complete, and luckily, I'm still in the old building. The reassignments actually made logical sense, which surprised me. I had assumed that they would devise some asinine scheme for moving offices, alphabetical perhaps, or based on seniority. But they decided on geographical location, which means that the people who normally work together are co-located. Makes sense!

Because the other building is smaller, it handles the Americas and the "upper management". That's a decent-sized crowd, but nothing compared to the Eurasia and Africa gang. They're taking down the "Big Board", opting for an online version that's not nearly as cool or Dr. Strangeloveish. That's a tragedy. And there are a bunch of empty offices right now, because they haven't starting filling the positions yet. So imagine an office that was full... then remove 30% of the people in it... then remove a ton of furniture. It's a little bit spooky.

Despite my own protests, I've been moved a short way down the hall. It isn't a big deal... I just didn't understand why I had to move what amounts to six or seven offices down the hall. Right now I overlook an empty bank of cubicles. If not for the conference room, I could probably see straight across to the other side of the building.

The claim is that the new people will start arriving in bunches next week.