I had my first demo call as a Sales Engineer at Oculan Friday. I flew solo and did a decent job, from the feedback I got.

The customer, a CEO of a small but busy company, derailed my plans for a scripted demo almost immediately. My pulse quickened when I heard the words “rather than sit through a PowerPoint presentation, just tell me what a network engineer would have to hear to want to buy this.” I proceeded to relate my experience as an IT manager to the product, being honest in explaining how much easier it makes network security. It must have made an impression, as I heard later that he wrote my explaination down.

Afterwards, I was a bundle of energy, having hours of pent-up nervousness to burn. I decided before the call that I would try a trick used by all-star athletes: visualization. I visualized being not only completely ready for the demo, but being completely confident, too. At the very least, it gave my mind something to hang onto when the demo veered wildly off course. When my rehearsed pitch got sidetracked, I held things together by remembering how I was simply going to kick ass. I think it worked.

Though my effort on Friday was passable, I am still rusty with the product. I’m tagging along for a sales visit on Thursday, so I get another chance to test my skillz. I can only get better…

Today is the 36th anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, an unarmed surveillance ship patrolling in international waters.

As a former spook, the attack on the Liberty hits close to home. Thirty four men died without the world knowing why. Thirty-six years later, both the governments of Israel and the United States refuse to admit what happened.

I won’t rehash things here, but I suggest you click on the above link for more information.

I’m writing this on highway 64 as we drive 70 MPH on our way to Virginia. I’m using PCS Vision to do it. Pretty impressive, in my book.

When I got in my car this morning, the tripometer showed “133.7” Man, everything’s going my way!

I might sneak in another post while we’re driving. In the meantime, I plan on hacking Asterisk PBX to work on the Zaurus. My goal is to turn my Zaurus into a WiFi phone. Uber geek points if I succeed.

I was hanging out with my Aussie friend Geoff Hibble last night at a local pool hall. In-between games, I notice the TV above the bar is airing a news story on a Garner man arrested for indecent liberties with a minor. It was the perfect story for the media’s favorite hobby of demonizing the Internet, since the girl’s father used a webcam to spy on his daughter.

While the story itself is disturbing, what really ticked me off was the way the TV news filmed it. The suspect lived in a very nice neighborhood in Garner, as some video shots proved. Lots of new homes on well-manicured lawns.

So who do they choose to interview? Some old tobacco-chewing Bubba who has a clothesline on his front porch! There it was, framed in the shot while the Garner bumpkin drawled on about how he doesn’t know nothin’ ’bout the dang ol’ Internet. At least someone thought to pull his tobacco-stained overalls off the damn clothesline before the camera started rolling.

I think Garner should assign a PR flack whose job it is to shadow any news trucks in town. That way the town might have a chance to polish its image. On the other hand, the station doing the story is based in Durham, which has no shortage of problems of its own.

Yet another way the news media can distort the truth.

Just searching through some links from the Drupal website, the home of some weblogging software I’m considering using. The Drupal Sites page has a long list of weblog links on it. So long I got lost.

If the Onion hasn’t written about the weblog craze yet, they could write a headline along the lines of “Millions of Weblogs Available On Web. All Suck.” My thinking is that the huge list on this page doesn’t give much context for the sites.

It makes me think that Google’s purchase of Blogger had some actual purpose. There are plenty of fantastic weblogs out there but no good indexes or search engines to find them. At least, few that I’m aware of.

So what’s the best way to fish the best blogs out of the sea of mediocrity? Does something like this exist?

CNN is now reporting that Martha Stewart has just been indicted for securities fraud. While she may indeed by guilty (I happen to think she is), I can’t help but feel like she’ll have the book thrown at her while the big boys – the Enron and MCI folks who bilked far more investors than Martha ever did – will get off scot-free.

I’m still waiting for the current administration to restore the public faith in the economy by cleaning up ALL Wall Street excesses, not just the small-fish-but-easy-targets like Stewart. Too bad our fearless leader is too busy chasing shadows in the Middle East to notice that the economy is in the toilet. Hey Mr. Bush: the unemployed have plenty of time to go vote. Don’t forget that.

I wrote the ACLU a message on their website recently. I had received another mailing from them asking me for money. Like all the others I’ve received, it didn’t list even one victory ACLU has had against the ever-increasing security paranoia in this country. I expected some hard answers as to just what the ACLU was doing nowadays, other than soaking up money. After four days, I finally got a response from them. No one even bothered to personally reply: it was a form email.

A form letter. After four days. Way to make your case, guys.

On the other hand, I wrote to Earthlink’s Unlimited Voice to inquire as to when they would be offering service in the area. Unlimited Voice, if you aren’t familiar, is a voice-over-IP service that’s available nearly nationwide, but not yet available here in the Triangle. Not only did I receive a personal email reply from a real, live person, it arrived less than an hour after I contacted them!

Needless to say, the contrast is eye-opening. I’m not sure Unlimited Voice is making any money yet, while the ACLU is enjoying record donations now that everyone’s scared silly. You’d think they could take the time to send me an actual hand-crafted email. I mean, it doesn’t take long.

When I joined the Navy I found myself at odds with my membership to Greenpeace. I felt I couldn’t fund an organization that was harrassing the Navy ships on which I was a crewmember. I wrote them a three-page letter telling them my reasons for quitting. Rather than insult me with a form letter response, the head of Greenpeace himself sent me a passionate, well-written rebuttal. He didn’t change my mind, but he did make a positive impression on me. He showed me they actually cared about their customers.

They listened to them.

I was reminded today that the Raleigh International Spy Conference is coming to town in August. It is a few days of conferences featuring spy luminaries from both sides of the Iron Curtain.

For a former Cryptologic Technician, this kind of stuff really appeals to me. It also makes me uncomfortable. Having once held a security clearance, I wonder what I’ll actually hear in this public forum that will be worth hearing. But what really concerns me is … what if I do hear something I know to be classified? It was never easy tap-dancing around those types of situations. The line “I can neither confirm nor deny … ” was drilled into our heads as the only response to nuclear weapons questions, even though any id10t with a geiger counter would know instantly if the weapons we had were hot. Sometimes open technology makes official doublespeak moot.

My job in the Navy was not a cloak-and-dagger one by any stretch, though it had its interesting moments. My ship’s battlegroup was constantly shadowed by a Soviet intelligence gathering (AGI) ships, soaking up all our electronic emissions. But they stayed miles away from us.

There was also this incident that occured during my second deployment, at a hotel bar while we were in port in Oman. A drunk man and woman were striking up conversations with my buddies, openly admitting they were KGB agents. Whether or not they knew my shipmates and I held clearances or not, I don’t know. I could never figure out what they had to gain by blatantly telling us they were spies. Perhaps they were looking for work or had nothing to lose, since the Soviet Union was crumbling at the time. Or maybe the KGB determined the direct approach worked better. Either way, we reported the contact to the government of Oman, which promptly kicked them out of the country.

I’ve heard before that the Triangle area is a favorite retirement spot of members of the “foreign service.” The former State Department minion and suspected spy Felix Bloch, who was allegedly photographed handing a suitcase to a known KGB agent in Paris, has seen his lifestyle change considerably since he retired. Once he lived the good life in Zurich, wining and dining with diplomats. Now drives a bus in Chapel Hill (I am not making this up). Allegedly, Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent turned double-agent, helped get Bloch the bus-driving gig. Hanssen reportedly tipped Bloch off about his investigation before the FBI could nail him.

There are others in the area, too. A friend of mine who has become a Linux luminary is rumored to have retired from the CIA. I wonder if he’ll be at the conference.

The price of the conference is steep, but it is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to rub elbows with the movers and shakers who’ve lived life in a shadowy world. The spook in me can’t pass it up.

I bought my new Sanyo SCP-4900 Sprint PCS phone yesterday and called Sprint today on my new phone to activate it.

When the Sprint rep began asking me for my “vitals” (SSN, birthdate, address), I was a little unnerved. It wasn’t that she needed them, but the way she asked for them.

“Your address, sir?”

(I read her my address. There is a long pause.)

“Can you spell your street for me, please?”

(I spell it and its on to the next question.)

“Your name, sir?”

“Mark Turner.”

(silence)

“Uh, sir, can you please spell that for me?”

At this point, I’m thinking. . . I am now signing up for what is allegedly the latest and greatest in cell phone technology: the “Free and Clear” plan or whatnot. The “so-clear-you-can-hear-a-dadgum-pin-drop-on-frickin-Mars” plan, right? So, uh, why isn’t the rep understanding what I’m telling her?

I’m hoping the problem is in her headset and not my shiny new cellphone service, or its going to be a long year, indeed.