Field Trip to the CIA

Can you believe it?  We were able to go to Langley and visit the CIA.  Fifteen of us meet at an empty building and boarded a white bus with no markings of any kind and darkened windows.  Security is very tight and we could not take any cameras or cell phones.

It is a very large campus on 540 acres.  They would not tell us how many people work there (it was classified) but it is a lot.  Not everyone is a spy.  They hire linguists, artists, cosmetologists, scientists, business people, cooks, seamstresses, machinists, and many more.

Many of our questions were answered with, "that's classified".  Even their business cards do not have any last names on them to protect the identity of the employees.  They showed us lots spy gadgets used in the past, cameras in tie pins, messages hidden in the period at the end of a sentence.  We looked through the "spy museum".

Snow in DC

Last Wednesday it started to snow about 2 p.m.   All government offices closed two hours early so that employees could get home before the storm got going.  I have a lot of work to do and was going to stay late, hoping to get caught up a little, but my supervisor insisted that I go home.  By the time I got on the Metro it was about 3:30 p.m. and was snowing very hard.  The snow in DC is very wet and heavy.  Because I don't have to drive, I was not very concerned.

When I got home, I had no electricity.  I found a candle, had cold cereal and milk for supper.  Then I crawled into bed with an extra blanket, flashlight, and a good book.  Sometime in the night the electricity came back on.  Several thousand others were not so lucky.

Because there was no electricity, the traffic lights in front of my house were not working.  All of the people in downtown DC were trying to get home before the storm really hit.  Think about a few hundred thousand cars all trying to leave the city, add heavy snowfall, no traffic lights, and a few accidents and you have a major traffic jam.  Stories are that many cars were stuck on the beltway four to seven hours.  Boy am I glad I ride the Metro and don't have to drive to get to work each day.

The next day I went to work as usual.  I was the only person on my floor.  A few others drifted in later, but mostly the office was empty.  Schools were all closed.  The funny thing is, all of this chaos and it only snowed a few inches.  It does not take much to shut down a city when you have so many people living in one place.

NOVA "Making Stuff"

Today at NSF we had a lunchtime speaker, David Pogue from NOVA's new Making Stuff series.

He is the host for a great new four part series on Making Stuff - Smaller - Stronger - Cleaner - Smarter, airing on PBS, Wed. nights at 9 pm.  (Check out the video link in blue above.)

Sunday at Home

This afternoon I wandered around my neighborhood and took a few pictures to practice with my camera.  It was too cold to stay out too long.

I love looking at trees in the winter, so I decided to use that for my theme.

Busy at the office

This week has been very busy for me at NSF.  I have some big project to get done, so I have been spending long days in the office.  This is a picture out of the window (not my office, because I don't have a window) of my supervisor.

This is my office.

Visit to Monticello

This weekend Terrie Rust and I took a trip to Charlottesville, VA.  The main purpose was to visit Thomas Jefferson's home which he called Monticello ("little mountain" in Italian).  It was about a three hour drive so we left early on Saturday.  The weather was great.

I was not very impressed with what I saw of Charlottesville, but the University of Virginia was very interesting.  Thomas Jefferson designed and established UVa when he was 75 years old.  The architecture was strongly influenced by his time in Europe.Jefferson drew detailed plans for each building.

We paid for a guided tour of Monticello.  The estate consists of the house, ornamental landscape, and a diverse community that included as many as 140 slaves and 5000 acre plantation.  Jefferson spent 40 years building and remodeling Monticello.  

We also toured the home of John Adams,  Ashlawn-Highland which is close enough to see from Jefferson's home.  Adams' home and estate are not nearly as large as Monticello.  Both men furnished the inside of their homes with imported French furniture and other expensive materials.  We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the houses.

New Camera

I have not posted much lately because I have been having camera problems.  My phone camera does not want to download to my computer and my batteries died on my other camera.  Since neither one took very good quality pictures, I decided it was time to get a new one.  So here it is.

Cannon SX 130 IS

Thomas Jefferson School of Science and Technology

Went on a field trip to the Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Arlington, VA.  This school is considered the top Science and Technology school in the country.  It is a public Governor's school, this is similar to a magnet school.  It is very competitive to get into, students take a test and complete essays and a lengthy application.  Only about 15% of those that apply get accepted.

Students must take four years of math past algebra 2.  Courses could include linear algebra, multivariable calculus, complex variables, discrete mathematics, or AP statistics.  

They also must take 

4 years of English

4 years of social studies

3 years of foreign language

2 years of P.E.

1 year of arts

and a minimum of 7 courses of science which includes a senior research tech lab!!

They have 13 different science tech labs to choose from.  

Very impressive.