Access Granted

The title is what it says on an entry ticket for the International Spy Museum.

Since we'd gone to see Get Smart, I suggested to Robert that this would be a good way to spend Saturday afternoon. Before going to museum, we had lunch at Kanlaya, a reasonably good Thai restaurant in the area. He liked the summer rolls a lot but wasn't crazy about a noodle dish with beef he ordered. My ka pow tofu was good, though not any better than I've had at other places. Still it was convenient and it is better than the other Thai restaurant I know of near there.

As for the museum, it's a bit pricy at 18 bucks a head. We didn't really have time to do their interactive Operation Spy, which Robert probably would have balked at anyway. I'm glad they control how many people get in at a time, because it would be uncomfortably crowded otherwise. When you go in, you're told to select a cover and memorize the details for it. Inside, you can go to a computer and test how well you'd remembered and see if you arouse the suspicions of border agents. At the end, there's another computer quiz (where you really have to guess some of the answers). I aroused the suspicions but not enough to be detained, while Robert was held for questioning. It's a bit silly, but still fun.

The exhibits are organized into several sections, primarily divided between tradecraft and history. The tradecraft area includes things like surveillance, lock picking, and bugging. There was a very interesting description of a bug that the U.S. placed in the Soviet embassy during its construction. It was put in a drainpipe and an explosive was used to open a parachute for initial placement. The water flowing through the drainpipe moved it into its final position. Very clever, in my opinion. By the way, a couple of bugs are placed in the museum so you can pick up headphones and listen to them.

There are lots of exhibits of hardware, from bugging devices and hidden cameras to weapons. The former had a transmitter that was placed by Russian agents in the shoe of an American diplomat. Not quite a shoe phone, but the idea is similar. The most interesting of the weapons was the notorious Bulgarian umbrella, used to inject ricin into a Bulgarian diplomat in London.

Overall, the museum is aimed at family entertainment, rather than education in depth. For example, I thought the treatment of codes and cyphers was rather superficial, but I guess if you wanted more details you could always go to the National Cryptographic Museum in Maryland. Similarly, I can't say I learned much in the history sections. Still, they covered a wide range of topics (from ninjas to Berlin during the cold war) at a good general level. They also had a fun set of film clips from movies and TV shows about spies.

The museum website claims most people take 2 hours to go through the exhibits, but it took us about 3. That meant we didn't have a lot of time to browse the museum shop before heading to the ballpark. We looked enough to see that there's a very comprehensive selection of books, as well as t-shirts, toys, and gadgets. I'd have bought a DVD or two of Get Smart, but they were sold out of the first two seasons.

Overall, I'd say we got our money's worth. I would recommend, however, that people go on a weekday if they could, since that would likely be far less crowded.

Battle of the Beltways

We made it to Nationals Park well before the game started. Our seats would have been fine, except for the large drunken lout sitting next to us. Fortunately, there were enough empty seats that we were able to move up a row and away from him.

The Nationals continued doing what they do best - namely, losing. Not that the Orioles are a great team either, but at least they managed to hit the ball (and not have their pitcher commit two errors). In the end, the Orioles won 9-1.

As for the new ballpark, the main positive is that it's a lot nicer than RFK. Maybe it looks better from other directions, but the approach from the metro is remarkably dull. They gave out a free program, which is a very nice touch. The concessions are not bad, either, including several local chains (Ben's Chili Bowl, Five Guys, Gifford's Ice Cream), though ballpark prices are, alas as inflated as anywhere. I had a fish taco and a margarita, which were both good, but Robert was disappointed in the chicken tenders he bought. (That strikes me as something that is inevitably going to be disappointing, but he's an adult and can make his own choices.) All in all, I'd describe the ballpark as intensely average - nothing wrong, but nothing special.

The most dramatic event of the game was the thunderstorm that came in during the 6th inning. We were under an overhang, but they still made us go up to the concourse to wait it out. That took about an hour. On the plus side, that thinned the crowd a lot, making the metro less crowded when the game did end.

In Other News

Another independent bookstore is in trouble. Olsson's has had to close their Penn Quarter store and is entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy, so the fate of their other 5 stores is in question.

Robert and I were talking about dreams and I asked him if he dreams in color or black and white. That led to a discussion of color in general. I commented that I always thought including "indigo" in the spectrum was dubious, done just to make the mnemonic "Roy G. Biv" work better. He had no idea what I was talking about! He made a bet with me that I wouldn't find more than a dozen google hits on that mnemonic - and there were over 13,000. The mind boggles.

Finally, he's working back in London now. This is good from my standpoint since it's a lot easier to get to than Stockholm and, more significantly, it's actually on the way to other places.