When I was at the Department of Transportation …

It occurs to me that a lot of my writing starts with that phrase. I haven’t yet decided if I use it because I learned a lot there or because I think people will be more likely to listen if I start a discussion with it.

Regardless, when I was at the Department of Transportation we would do emergency training. What if there was another 9/11 attack, what if there was a cybersecurity attack, and so forth. Some of us got to go to semi-secret locations and stay underground, walk down long corridors with lights along the top casting shadows, lots of clacking of shoes on the floor, eating together in the cafeteria, periodically getting messages of incident updates, doing reports, watching the pretend (or real) Secretary, talking to the (always) pretend President, and so on. It was pretty cool, like getting to go back to camp for a day. Some of the exercises were pretty extensive involving multiple Government agencies including in some cases State and Local governments.Earthquakes, Emergency Training, and COOP