prog | (no subject)

Laptop back in my hot little hands, after exactly one day, with a new video cable and no skin off my nose (or out of my wallet). May St. Steve thricely bless the Helping Friendly Grogs underneath Vanderbilt Hall.

Finished day one of a three-day training thing. Perq of working for a wicked big & famous institution: you can apparently suggest to some company that an annual training thing which normally happens in Sante Fe should occur in Boston instead, because there exists a shiny new conference center directly across the street from the building that has jmac's cubicle in it (not in so many words, mind), and they're like, "OK." Anyway, I learned some interesting new things about the cheminformatics software we spend giant gobs of money on, so that's good. It's less boring than I feared, and since I have my laptop back (and wireless signal is strong in the conference room, ho ho) I don't fear the remainder of this exercise.

T is going to start with the random bag checking. Wow. When city services start acting like Circuit City, there is a problem. But it's not like I can take my business elsewhere. ... Deedle-dee.

I echo what some friends of mine wonder: Why is Boston the first US city to do this to its subways? I mean, if I were asked which city would be most likely to crap its pants and go into we-must-defend-ourselves-against-our-customers lockdown mode as a result of 3-11 (Madrid), Boston would not be my first guess.

Of course I wonder what I will do if (when?) I'm asked to unzip my backpack for the kind folks. I wonder if saying no and immediately leaving the station would result in shadowing and surveillance, or a call to the neighboring stations to look out for a fellow of my description, in case I try to walk over and board a train there instead. Um... shit.