Das Tagebuch Murnaus

Well, last week was certainly an experience. Not a waste of time, but certainly not what I expected, for hardly anything went to plan.

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Conference in Monterey: well, I went, and they made a big fuss over me!

I started by flying into Los Angeles on Saturday. I was met by my friend Joe, who was also going to the conference. We went out to Bar Sinister in Hollywood, a nice Goth club with different rooms zand very good music. Sunday we went to Amoeba Records, where I bought far too much music and too many movies. Monday we spent driving the 350 or so miles up to Monterey, arriving while it was still daylight. We wandered around the Cannery Row area at the waterfront, quite tourist-trappy and they wanted $25 to get into the Aquarium so we passed. We stayed in a hotel just a block or so from the Naval Postgraduate School.

The group putting this on, the Military Operations Research Society, is a civilian think-tank funded by the US Departments of Defence, a lot of heavy math and computer science types. My social science background made me unusual I suppose. Many people there were civilians working for the military, but a lot of professional military officers too, since Operations Research is an actual service MOS. In fact, on the first day when I walked into the room for the plenary address I thought I had walked into a cornfield!*

I made a presentation there (on my game about the Tupamaros) to the "Counterterrorism" working group, and participated in a wargame being run by the "Counterinsurgency" working group. I found out, three days before leaving, that the wargame is a very slightly modified version of my Algeria game!

My presentation to the counterterrorism working group, on how I designed Tupamaro from history and adapted it to a game system, seemed to go down pretty well. One colonel from the Israeli Army was not that impressed and asked, "What kind of people play these games?" But in contrast, a colonel from the Saudi Arabian Army asked if I had done on Al Qaeda, and where he could obtain copies of my games!

They had constructed a civil-war type scenario that took place in a fictional island group in the South Pacific, with the southern group of islands trying to secede from the government through a guerrilla movement - it was too funny, because everything was written with Gilligan's Island references (e.g. the two main cities were named Howell and Maryanne, the guerrilla movement was called the Minnows, commanded by a shadowy figure knonw only as "The Skipper", etc.)!

They picked Algeria as the game system for the scenario, and had used Visual BASIC to make a version playable on the computer with a moderator. It was not a great match because Algeria models an "occupation" or colonial war type of conflict. My Shining Path game would have been much better to model the civil war scenario they had going. However, it probably made for better discussions among the participants, which were in fact many and heated. But very collegial and respectful, very different from a war-game convention!

They gave me a nice coin/medal/paperweight (not sure what it is, ironically it was made in China) in appreciation, and took my picture lots of times. I met a lot of people and might have a chance to work on some other projects with various people I met, hope so. I met some people from DRDC in DND, the people in Canada who do this sort of analysis for the Canadian military - they seemed mildly interested in what I was doing but I don't think I am going to book any flights to Ottawa just yet.

On Friday we drove back down to Los Angeles, and that night went out to Das Bunker, an interesting Goth-industrial club. An upstairs room for more dancy stuff, two lower rooms for power-noise and "retro 80s industrial", whatever that was. As at Bar Sinister, I tried handing out a few of my metal thingies but no one seemed to know how to take them. A lot of nice-looking people with interesting outfits but everyone seemed so po-faced, unless they were with their friends. I suppose that is how people learn to get along in Los Angeles.

Saturday we went back to Amoeba Records again, and looked around at the UCLA campus. The flight to Seattle was almost empty, and I got to Victoria about midnight.

At this conference, I was just bowled over by the respect and interest shown my ideas, and the collegiality I saw there. This was the first time I thought there was some real professional worth or serious intellectual content in what I've been doing for so long. It was a good experience and I'm glad I went.

Next June there is a big symposium in Connecticut and perhaps I might be able to do something then. At least now I've got my number from the JCO declaring me a "consultant".


*Why a cornfield? Because of all the kernels I saw there! Hyuck hyuck hyuck hyuck...