National Cryptologic Museum

We had an off-site at work today. We started off with a tour of The National Cryptologic Museum. The tour was organized a bit oddly from my standpoint, as the docent ignored chronology in where he led us. So we went from the Cold War to World War II to the Civil War to the Korean War. Still, he was informative and there are some interesting exhibits. The big attraction is the display on the Enigma machine. I have to admit I was as interested in some of the entirely non-technological displays, e.g. one on hobo signs. (We suggested we might use similar symbols to mark various doors at the Pentagon. But we all want to know whose door would be marked "these folks will give to get rid of you.") All in all, the museum was worth seeing, though I'd have liked them to have some explanation of the mathematics of cryptography.

After the tour and a bit of free time to look around on our own, we used one of the museum conference rooms to talk about our organization's priorities and how we might make our lives better and all the usual sort of stuff that one talks about at off-sites. After which we adjourned to a nearby Thai restaurant.

We're talking about future field trips, e.g. the Naval Observatory (which I have been to several times and which does, indeed, put on a good tour) and the newish Marine Corps Museum down at Quantico. My all-time favorite work field trip involved some launch facilities, but that would be a lot less local.