Blogus Maximus

Recon: Abandoned WWII Munitions Facility

Debrief:
While at work on Friday, I had that itch to go do some exploring. It had been a long week and I wanted to put my brain in a different gear for a while. Shortly after that I got a text message that read "I'm thinking about checking out this old WWII munitions site." Sounds like just what the doctor ordered.

The plan, as with any recon, is to locate and identify. So we figured on rolling out there in the daylight, looking around and then grabbing a beer or three afterwards. Unfortunately, we both ended up working later than expected so we didn't get out of the office until well after 6.

If there's one thing you can count on up here, it's that when the sun starts to set it doesn't waste  any time. By the time we got there, there was just a little light left, so I snapped this as the sun went down. It's on my camera phone, which isn't the best, but it's a cool shot.

After finding a suitable place to park, we walked around a bit and took some more shots of the various columns and stuff. We're not really sure what the purpose of this place was, but it was too cool to pass up.

We walked around for a while, snapping shots from various directions and trying to make the best of the little bit of light we had left.

Grabbing some flashlights out of the jeep, we decided to head down to the main place. One of the cool things about really really old (WW-II era) sites is that they relied pretty heavily on natural terrain to hide them. What better place for a munitions facility than in the middle of the woods, right? Of course, this was in an era before satellite recon and Google Maps.

I should probably point out, my buddy has a cool Jeep. I know that seems random, but when you see it, you'll understand. We can go just about anywhere in it and look like we belong there. Nice and generic white, but slightly official looking especially with the yellow lights on top. (That's it, next to the warning sign.)

After we were done here, we left the jeep and set out on foot down a dirt road for about 1/4 mile. Along the way, we spotted something resembling an empty arena, split in half by a wall. On further consideration, it was probably some sort of blasting or testing area. The really cool part about this area was that it was totally covered in some pretty excellent graffiti.

By now, it was pretty damn dark and the camera on my phone doesn't do so well in the dark, even with a flash, but fortunately we had another camera with us and snapped a lot of pics which you can see below.

The "Silk" tag is especially interesting because of the "United Crushers" reference hidden inside it. You can see it in the "dot" of the letter "i". We ended up spotting a couple of their tags Friday night. If you look close enough you can spot their tag in the orange and yellow art (middle picture) as well. In the last one, as you can see, the tag was a little more obvious.

We took a lot of pics in here. So many, in fact, that the batteries in my phone died (which also meant no more GPS... oops.) I posted the rest of the graffiti pics on Facebook including a couple that are NSFW.

{Some Pictures Have Been Removed Temporarily. If We're Friends On Facebook, Go There.}

After we were done here, we continued down the road to the next structure we saw. One of the things we were looking for was a set of 5 towers and an entrance to some underground tunnels. We found a number of interesting structures along the way... all completely gutted to the point where nothing was left but cement and stone.

Eventually we did find a set of towers, although not the right ones. These were completely  gutted as well and there weren't enough of them... only three. It was really dark, and a lot foliage but we did manage to snap a few shots.

Here is one of the towers we checked out. You can tell there were multiple levels to it, but there was no visible way inside or outside that allowed access to the top. The second picture (on the right) is a shot of the ceiling from below and shows some of the only wood we found.

{Some Pictures Have Been Removed Temporarily. If We're Friends On Facebook, Go There.}

Aside from that, and some trash, they were completely empty on the inside.

We spent a fair amount of time poking around these towers and looking for an ground level entrances to tunnels, but unfortunately came up empty. The woods were fairly dense in this area and every step with my light caused shadows to jump and move. More than once, I could have sworn I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. A couple times I got startled pretty good only to find there was nothing there.

 Eventually, we decided to head back to the Jeep. On our way back, we came to a fork in the road that we didn't notice before (probably because we had deviated from the road before getting to it on the way in.) We had a pretty good idea which way to go, so naturally we decided to go the other way and see what else was out there.

Following the new road for a bit revealed another interesting structure. This was the first intact building we had spotted, and in addition to being posted with DANGER signs, it was also surrounded by chain link fence with barbed wire around the top. The fence was chained and padlocked, so whatever was in there was probably pretty interesting. We don't break anything, and I'm damn sure not climbing through barbed wire, so that building will remain a mystery.

We kept following the road and eventually made our way around to a paved road. Following this seemed like a pretty good bet to getting back to the Jeep. Along this road was a cornfield, and believe me, there isn't much that's creepier than a cornfield late at night in the middle of nowhere.

It's especially interesting that there were growing crops here since the ground is (supposedly) heavily contaminated with Mercury. Maybe they were growing it to test the levels, or to leech the Mercury out of the soil. I have no idea.

At one point we saw another multilevel structure of interest, also completely gutted. We poked around for a bit there and then headed back toward where we thought the road was (although we did manage to get turned around at one point and head further away from the road, we eventually found it.)

We walked for a while and eventually made it back to our starting point. Unfortunately, we never found the entrance to the tunnels, but we did see some cool stuff while we were out. Maybe we'll have better luck next time.

The Heartland Developers Conference has come to Minneapolis and things start kicking off tonight with the pre-conference party, down at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis.

I attended the HDC last year in Omaha as a representative of Magenic and enjoyed it so much I decided to speak at the event this year (both in Minneapolis and Omaha.)

I'm speaking on Monday and my time slot has some pretty tough competition with Andrew Troelson discussing LINQ Query Internals and Amanda Laucher discussing Real World F#. If I wasn't speaking at the same time, I would definitely be sitting in Amanda's session. She's a good friend of mine and an excellent presenter (and F# is pretty neat stuff too.)

In addition to these sessions, Monday also features a keynote on the present and future of development (Rocky Lhotka, Magenic) and talks throughout the day on Silverlight 2.0, Reflection (Jason Bock, Magenic), the Managed Extensibility Framework & lots more... really compelling stuff.

Monday evening is the Developer Jam Party which I don't know much about but it sounds pretty interesting.

Tuesday looks equally promising, with a couple of really interesting topics from Ted Neward (customizing your .net app with scripts & pragmatic xml services) and a really useful session on open source .net tools from Javier Lozano. There's also a talk on ASP.NET MVC (Javier Lozano, again) which I'm looking forward to checking out.

It's going to be a great time. See you there!

Mission: Abandoned Mill

Debrief:
We've been here before, but haven't come close to exploring all of it.

We met up after dark and drove out to the site. Getting there was fairly quick and uneventful, and aside from passing a couple of bicyclists, it looked like we weren't going to run into anyone on the way in.

Just before we got to the entrance though, a car full of guys (looked like teenagers or early twenties) pulled up and tried going down a road that was (clearly) marked "do not enter." Confused, they turned around, and drove a few feet then stopped. From the pieces of their conversation I could overhear (their windows were down) it was apparent they were interested in the same place we were. Judging by their obvious confusion on how to access it though, I'd say it was their first time there.

On one hand, it was kind of cool that we were running into other explorers (if in fact, that's who they were) but it also concerned me since we had no idea of how these guys would handle themselves. Would they be reckless and stupid? Were they drunk? Were they just looking to vandalize stuff? It may sound hypocritical, but there's a certain code we go by on these missions. We're there to observe cool and interesting stuff, whether it's graffiti, urban decay or old & interesting architecture and equipment. We aren't there to get drunk and act stupid, or to vandalize property, or to get high or hurt ourselves or others. (I'll get off my soapbox now.)

So, we were faced with a dilemma. Do we engage these guys early on, or take a wait and see attitude? Since we didn't really want to be hanging around the entrance to this place for very long and didn't know how they would respond to us, we decided to break line of sight on these guys and slip in through the entrance while nobody else was coming up the road.

Once past the main entrance, we walked fairly quickly along the fence line towards the back of the property, looking back occasionally to see if we had any company heading our way. So far so good.

We went around the side of the building and found our usual point of entrance. The door was locked up from the inside, but the hole was still there so getting in wasn't a problem. At first glance, not much had changed since the last time we were there. Then I noticed there was a door open that I'd never seen open before. It led outside to a scaffold and I'm surprised we missed it since we walked right past it on the way in.

I know it sounds preachy (again) but we try not to leave any obvious entrances that weren't already there. If it's obvious someone has been there, then the police are more likely to check out the rest of the building, and we would probably lose our entrance as well as the one that attracted their attention in the first place.

Anyway, after a quick glance at the scaffold and a look around to see if anyone was out there, we decided to close the door, lock it down and continue upward. Since we'd been here before, our main goals were to check out the bridge and get to the roof.

A couple floors up, we were looking around and I heard "lights out." That's never good, since it means there's potentially trouble nearby. Waiting for a few minutes and looking out the windows, I never saw anyone, but one of the others saw someone walking around with a flashlight outside. The fact that it was just one guy meant it was most likely a security guy or possibly even a cop, and not the group of guys we saw earlier. (Considering the abandoned state of the building, my money wasn't on security guy either... there was a third option, he might be a scrapper. Those guys are generally bad news.)

Eventually, we started working our way back up again, being extra careful not to let our flashlights hit any windows on the way up. The open staircase is always a bit creepy, since its all metal and a little rickety. If you trip or slip, its a long fall, and when you're trying to prevent light pollution, it can make for a tricky climb. It's already showing quite a bit of rust and I'm not sure how much longer it has, but I'd guess a few more years... as long as we don't over tax it.

Next stop was the 6th floor, which had an exit to an adjacent rooftop and a ladder leading to the roof. After a quick look around, and some more time looking outside to see if anyone was out there, we continued up.

Access to the "bridge" is actually between two floors, and that was our next stop. We didn't have all the equipment we needed to go across the bridge, but we did want to investigate it further, so we went in a few feet and checked the floor, which appears to be fairly stable. Even though its made of wood, it's pretty thick and is probably (hopefully?) reinforced by beams underneath. (From the outside, looking up you can see one support structure, about midpoint, that goes from the ground to the bridge.) I really want to get across that bridge, to get to the stacks on the other side. We need to do it fairly soon, since it gets REALLY windy in the winter here and I don't want to be standing on top of a silo 200 feet up in the air with 30-40 mph winds at my back.

So after checking out the bridge a little better, we continued up a couple more floors to the top floor. Last time we were here, I didn't see the top floor so this was something new. It was pretty interesting, with some elevated structures and ladders leading to platforms. We didn't see any kind of roof access though, so I'm pretty sure the only way to get up there is going to be via the ladder outside the 6th floor.

The view from the top floor is pretty incredible, and it gave us a good opportunity to see just how big (and damned high) this place really is. It also provided a good view of the adjacent facility which is also believed to be abandoned (and that place is even bigger than this one!!)

The descent back down the stairs was pretty quick (as usual) and fortunately uneventful. We were still running relatively low light just in case there was someone outside interested in our activities, so the stairs were a little tricky. Once we got down the bottom, and back outside, we closed up our door and started the walk back to the car.

We never saw the guy or the group, and figuring it was enough fun for one night, we decided to call it a successful mission and head out.

Rocky Lhotka has just released Beta 1 of CSLA .NET for Silverlight framework (and a corresponding version for Windows).

If you are unfamiliar with CSLA .NET, it is one of the most widely used business application development frameworks for the .NET platform. I expect it will be extremely widely used in Silverlight as well, since it provides even more direct benefits to Silverlight developers! CSLA .NET for Silverlight abstracts many of the complex issues faced when building business applications in Silverlight, and helps provide the same level of productivity and power developers are accustomed to on the .NET platform.

You can read an overview here:
http://www.lhotka.net/weblog/OverviewOfCSLANET36ForWindowsAndSilverlight.aspx

And you can find download links here: http://www.lhotka.net/weblog/CSLANET36ForWindowsAndForSilverlightBeta1Released.aspx

To my knowledge, CSLA .NET for Silverlight is the first major framework targeting Silverlight 2.0 to enter the beta phase, and Rocky expects to release the final version of CSLA .NET for Silverlight as Silverlight 2.0 itself is released.

And best of all, all the sample apps are in VB (as well as C#). And he's been primarily using VB in the demos when speaking about the framework, and the various issues he’s had to address in building such an ambitious project on Silverlight 2.0.  (so all you folks wondering about the future of VB w/ CSLA can rest easy.)

The Charity Fragathon was last night, and I'm happy to say it was a huge success.

We had 90 people sign up and 78 in attendance.

I'm still crunching the financial numbers, but it looks like I'll be handing a check for around $6000 to Children's Hospital.

Lots of pictures were taken, fun was had, pizza was eaten, sodas consumed, G33K B33R was chugged, prizes were won, n00bs were pwned.

Last night was truly made of pure awesome.

The Charity Fragathon was a humongous success, and it totally kicked my butt. I'm swamped and exhausted.

NINE Questions will be back next week with interviews featuring George Clingerman and Lindsay Rutter.

Thanks,
Chris

The Charity Fragathon (http://www.charityfragathon.com) is only THREE days away.

We're hosting a HUGE HALO 3 tournament and a Rock Band 2 Room.

I am SO CLOSE to hitting the mark on this, and really need your help. Magenic (my awesome employer) has committed to matching 100% of the first $3000. I'm just a few hundred bucks short of maxing this out, and I need your help to make it happen.

If you've been thinking about attending, but haven't registered yet, please do so. We've got some great prizes lined up, including a custom airbrushed guitar controller & custom airbrushed XBOX 360 controller, an XBOX 360, Guitar Hero Aerosmith w/ Guitar, Halo 3 Strategy Guides, Best Buy Gift Cards, Zunes, XNA Books, Software, Tshirts and more...

In addition to the prizes, BAWLS Energy Drink will be there and we'll be having a G33K B33R chugging contest and the winner takes home a case of G33K B33R from BAWLS! There will also be free pizza, sodas and BAWLS Energy Drinks!  ALL THIS for a $10 minimum donation. (More is always ok.)

Even if you can't make it, please consider donating to the event. I'd really love to max out Magenic's match on this. All proceeds go to Children's Hospital and are 100% Tax Deductible!

There's only a little time left, so please don't wait!  While you're at it, consider a little bling for your blog:


http://www.charityfragathon.com


(edit: as of 9/23/08 we are less than $50 away from hitting our goal!! Please conisder making a donation if you haven't already!)

Recon: Storm Drain near Mississippi River

Debrief:
We all have reserves of strength and endurance that most of us have never tapped. I found mine tonight.

It started off simple enough. We had heard about a nice sized storm drain right on the Mississippi that would take a little climbing to get to. As with any recon, the plan was just to find it. Exploring it would come later.

We met up in a nearby parking lot and took one car from there to the starting point. We knew roughly where it was, but needed to poke around to find it. Once we got close, we parked in a nearby residential area and crossed the highway.

The first challenge I ran into was a metal fence a little above waist high for me. I hate climbing fences and this one was just slightly too high to just step over... plus there was a fairly steep dropoff on the other side that made jumping over it problematic. So, rather clumsily (since I also had my gear bag and new bigass flashlight) I managed to get over the fence, while also looking out for oncoming traffic in either direction.

Once I was over the fence, I jumped down off the ledge and slowly/carefully worked my way down the bank. This sucker was fairly steep and I went a few dozen yards before coming to another wall. Fortunately, we could go around the edge of this wall, but this is where it got incredibly steep. Looking down I could see the river, a lot of rocks and a very sheer cliff. One false step and I would have a very long fall, resulting in a crippling injury or possibly death.

I was able to hold on to a PVC drain pipe and swing my way around the edge of the wall and grab a tree. There was no way I could hold onto a flashlight and my bag and do this, so I had to put away the flashlight and hang the bag around my neck. Fortunately I had my red LED headlight, which gave me just enough light to see my footing, but little else.

Once I had a firm grip on the tree I was able to make some progress laterally down the slope toward the storm drain. Almost every step had to be tested and retested since many of the rocks were loose and didn't provide any real stability. Mostly I clung to roots and branches as I worked my way across and down.

I have to say at this point that between not being able to see, and knowing that I was one wrong step away from a very bad ending, I was pretty damn scared. I had gone too far at this point to just give up and turn around though, so my only choice was to keep going forward.

After several minutes of very slow progress (and slipping a few times) I finally made it to the lip of the storm drain. Here's where things got really scary. I was on the outside of the drain, over a very steep drop. I had to gradually lower myself even with the drain and then grab it and swing myself in... while there was water flowing through it (not a lot) and trying not to freak out about the rocks below it. If I missed my mark, lost my balance or slipped, I would be broken. A fall at that height would not have been pretty and my chances of getting back out on my own would be reduced to zero.

It took me a couple minutes to mentally force myself to do it. At one point I started slipping and I thought I was going to fall for sure, fortunately that gave me the incentive I needed to just go ahead and jump.

Once I was in the drain, I could stand up, which was nice... I wasn't sure how high it would be. The first 15-20 feet of the drain were pretty highly decorated with graffiti, but after that it was pretty bare. Since we had gone to all the trouble of trying to find it, we decided to check it out a little further. Funny how our recons often turn into missions of opportunity.

Sadly, the storm drain was a bust. The pipe went about 60 feet and connected to a small room with a much smaller pipe leading further in. There was no way we could have stood in that pipe, and could have barely crawled through it... so we didn't go any further. This wasn't the entrance we were looking for, since we knew that the right entrance would connect us to a large network of explorable tunnels.

Now it was time to get back out of the drain. There were two options and neither were very appealing. The first option was to lower myself off the lip of the drain and drop straight down (hoping for stable footing... and not breaking an ankle in the process) then walk along the shoreline and hope to find a way back up. The second option was to go back the way I came. At least that way, I knew what I was in for. I opted for Plan B.

The only downside to Plan B was swinging around the edge of the storm drain pipe and finding something to hold onto long enough to not fall (again, in the dark, rocks below, water, ow ow ow, etc...) It took some effort, but I managed.

As nerve wracking and scary coming down the slope was, it was significantly worse and a lot more strenuous going back up. It was very dark, and the red headlamp really only let me see what was immediately in front of me, so I couldn't really figure out where I was going half the time. I was getting really tired, couldn't see a damn thing and wasn't entirely sure I was going to be able to make it back up the slope, after all it was nearly vertical in spots and I mostly just jumped or slid from one tree to the next on the way down. Gravity served me well on the way down, but was working against me on the return trip.

Remember those reserves of strength and endurance I mentioned earlier? This is where those came in. Even though I was exhausted and nearly night-blind, I managed to fight my way back to the top of the slope with my heart pounding in my chest the entire way, grabbing branches, rocks, roots, vines and whatever else was in reach. It's probably the most scared I have ever been in my life.

By the time I reached the first wall, I was sweating like a pig and covered in dirt and bugs and god knows what else. I had also crawled through what I'm fairly certain was poison oak or poison ivy at least a couple times. (I guess we'll find out tomorrow about that.) Grabbing hold of the PVC pipe again, I climbed up past the first wall and made my way up the last bit of slope back to the metal fence by the road. Waiting for the highway to be clear of traffic, I sat down for a moment. This was a mistake. At that moment, my body figured out it was no longer in danger and all my reserves were pretty much spent. I could barely stand up again without falling over.

I also realized that packing my inhaler on missions from now on would be a very good idea. Unfortunately, it was at home in my laptop bag. Eventually traffic cleared and I made it over the fence and back across the highway to the car. The other guys in the group were frustrated and disappointed at the wasted mission, but honestly, I thought it was incredible. Even though the storm drain was a bust, the adrenalin boost of getting up that slope (or quite possibly dying) was intense and amazing.

When people ask me why I do this kind of stuff... this is why, and I'll keep doing it.

Sometimes I buy stuff on Tanga.com. When I do, it''s usually a good deal even if their shipping is slow.

Recently I bought a couple LED Flashlights. They were about $13 each but they were supposed to be incredibly bright. I usually carry around a small 24 LED light in my bag when I'm out exploring. This flashlight claimed to have 100 ultra bright LEDs. I hadn't seen one that big before, so I figured why not?

The package arrived yesterday and I ripped it open as soon as I got home from work. They had relatively short handles but the heads on them were huge (they did say 100 LEDs after all, and you know I counted them.) Each light took 4 AA batteries and of course I was out, so after a quick trip to Best Buy (any excuse will do, seriously) for batteries and some other stuff, I get back home and pop them in.

Well, sorta... I try to pop the batteries in, but it turns out the battery clip in one of them is missing the little metal piece I need to complete the circuit. So already, I'm down to one flashlight. I pop open the other one, stick in the batteries and turn it on.

Holy sh!t... it's the brightest f^cking flashlight I've ever seen. I'm not sure, but it just might cause skin cancer. I swung it around and caught the reflection in a mirror and couldn't see a damn thing for a few seconds. This thing is brutal.

Not wanting to incur any property or pet damage, or piss off any neighbors, I turned it off. After about 60 seconds my sense of disbelief (and mischief) kicked in and I turned it back on. and off. and on... I did this about 4 times and the button stuck. REALLY stuck. Now the damn thing won't turn on and I'm out TWO flashlights (and my $29.)

Not one to be hindered for long, I cannibalized the flashlights into one good one (which so far, the next day, still works) and contacted Tanga about a refund for the other one. I have a bad feeling that I'm probably screwed as far as getting a replacement, but hopefully I'll get my money back.

I'm also taking bets on how long the "good" one will last. 

For the record, my 24 LED light (that I paid $5 for at MicroCenter) is still doing just fine, months later. It's damn near too bright for exploring as it is, and I often have to mute it with my palm. This new 100 LED flashlight won't be much good for exploration anywhere other than underground tunnels and drains. It's way too bright for a building... seriously this thing is like a portable BatSignal.

http://creators.xna.com/en-us/3.0beta_mainpage



http://creators.xna.com/en-us/3.0beta_mainpage

I've known Jason pretty much since I moved up to Minneapolis, although I had heard of him long before that via his books and the Magenic tech lists. In addition to being a total languages geek, Jason's a pretty interesting guy with an eclectic background and a broad set of interests... it's probably why we get along so well. He's also a busy community guy, so I'm glad he was able to spare a few minutes to knock out this interview. So here it is, NINE Questions with Jason Bock:

1. Where are you from (if it's different than where you are now, mention that too)
I grew up in Oostburg, Wisconsin, a small town about 1 hour north of Milwaukee. I currently live in Shakopee, Minnesota.

2. Who do you work for / What do you do / What is your product?  Give me the 10 second pitch
I work for Magenic - a software development consulting firm that’s Microsoft gold-certified – as a Principal Consultant. I’ve been there for almost 8 years and there’s no end in sight.

3. How did you end up doing what you do now?
I wrote my first program when I was 12 on an Apple II-e, and I liked working with computers, but I really didn’t get into software development until I was in graduate school at Marquette University. That’s when I got hooked. I joined Magenic because I saw a post from Jeff Ferguson in a .NET mailing list and I thought, “hmmm…he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about”, so I looked at his e-mail address, went to Magenic.com, and the rest is history.

4. ok, so I know you're a C# MVP but you're also a hardcore languages geek. What's that all about?
To make a long story short, I learned right away that I wouldn’t be programming in one language for the rest of my life. So I decided to read and learn about different languages and how they were designed, how compilers worked, etc. I think it’s paid off because I’ve been able to use that knowledge and apply it in different areas. This interest in languages also spawned a site that I run called .NET Languages (http://www.dotnetlanguages.net).

I’ve started up a languages user group in the Twin Cities (http://www.twincitieslanguagesusergroup.com) in an effort to bring people together who have an interest in programming languages. I’ve also attended the two Lang.NET Symposiums (http://langnetsymposium.com) at Microsoft. They’ve been incredibly educational and I hope they keep running them in the future – if I can swing it, I’ll be at the next one.

5. As a consultant, you've had your share of good and bad projects, what's the most interesting (project/environment/client/whatever) you've run into so far?
The most interesting was probably my first consulting gig back in 1997. In terms of “learning on the job”, this project covered it all: lots of new technology to digest, the business analyst was running at breakneck speed (i.e. nailing down business rules was really hard), dealing with developers who talked a big talk but wrote abysmal code, learning how to relate to different individuals within a large organization, and so on. In retrospect it was a great first project to be on, because I learned early on that being a consultant is not just about being able to develop software.

6. So what are some of your non-technical interests?
Being with my family is high on the list. I love to golf, although I haven’t played as much since I had my two boys, Hayden (3 1/2) and Ryan (1 1/2). Bicycling is also an enjoyable endeavor. I try to read as much as I can – I have WAY too many books that I haven’t read yet. Music has also been a big part of my life – I play guitar, bass guitar, drums and keyboards.

7. Any thoughts on Twitter? Facebook? Social Networks in general?
I like them, although I feel weird getting follow or friend requests from people I really don’t know. Creating relationships has changed significantly from when I grew up in school. The best social network I was ever involved in was XBox Live – specifically, Project Gotham Racing 2. I met a lot of fun people in online games – I ended up with a core group of guys that would race for hours on end, and I really enjoyed that. I use Facebook more as a way to get in touch with people I haven’t seen in a while, and Twitter to do “spur-of-the-moment” blogging.

8. You're a fairly public guy...but what's something most people don't know about Jason Bock?
When I was younger (somewhere around 11 or 12 years old) my parents got me a go-kart. They had 5 acres of land and I spent hours in the summer driving around the yard. I loved it.

9. Any tattoos?
No. I’m not against them, I just haven’t thought of a design that would have a lot of meaning for me. I wear 4 rings, each of which has a story behind them, and if I’d get a tattoo I’d want it to have that same effect.

Mission: Abandoned Mill

Debrief:
About a month ago, we did some quick recon on a local mill. You can read about that right here. We went back last night, but before I get to that part of the story, there were a few other things that happened first.

I was sitting at home watching TV last night (around 8pm) and the phone rings. My buddy wants to do a mission and wants to know if I'm in. We agree to meet up around 10:30pm at our usual spot. Before I get off the phone, he asks if I would have a problem with him bringing along a woman he met on Craig's List.

His words to me were "She seems cool, she thinks the urban exploration thing sounds interesting, and she's not crazy like that other chick I brought that one time. Are you ok with it?"

Now, I'm not one to deny a friend in need, and I figure if he vouches for her, then she's probably cool. "Sure, why not?" I tell him.

I've picked up some new gear since the last mission. New boots, breathing masks, an extra flashlight (*with red LEDs even) and more batteries, so I pack my bag, grab my boots and a jacket.

*The red LEDS help preserve your night vision while still giving you enough light to see by. Red light also diffuses a lot sooner than white light, so there is less likelihood of getting spotted.

I show up and spot the other guys in the parking lot as I'm pulling in. A quick text message to the last guy lets him know we're there and waiting for him to come out. He comes out alone and it's pretty apparent that something is wrong. At this point I figured his pre-mission date didn't go too well and she bailed. Sadly, I couldn't have been more wrong.

He gets us all together and says "Guys, she's still here, but there's a problem. She doesn't look like her picture at all and she's a lot older than I expected... and I think she might be a prostitute! As soon as she got here, she started grabbing me and trying to get me to have sex with her. She also won't answer any personal questions at all."

After we all stopped laughing at him, the look on his face told us he was totally serious and totally freaked out. So we all went in and stood around for a few minutes, awkward introductions were made and a few of the guys decided to go smoke. I'm not sure what the plan was, if there was one. I guess we assumed she would get spooked and leave. She didn't.

Several half-hearted attempts at giving her an easy out were made, but she wasn't taking advantage of them so we said to hell with it and decided to gear up and go. This was the biggest group so far, with 6 people total, so we ended up taking two cars. Our buddy and the hooker ended up riding with me. I tossed anything important in the trunk and kept my bag with me. I don't know that she would steal anything, but didn't know she wouldn't either.

On the way there, we tried making some casual conversation (in between trying to scare her off with horror stories of giant raccoons, toxic gas, crazed scrappers, giant spiders and bad smells) in the car but she wasn't giving up any details about her life.

Eventually, we got to our first destination. We had explored about half of this place in depth a few weeks ago, as detailed here, but really wanted to check out the rest of it. Having learned our lesson from the first visit, we parked in a different spot and approached from the other end. This was a much better choice since there was less visibility from the road and an easier, more casual walk.

Unfortunately, upon reaching the entrance we used previously, we discovered it was sealed up pretty tight. We could have gotten it open eventually, but it would have been loud and hard work and we didn't have the necessary tools. After a quick discussion, we decided to leave it to the vandals or tagger gangs to pry open and we'd just keep an eye on it... checking back in a few weeks.

Up to this point, the hooker had done a pretty good job of keeping quiet, so other than being mildly weirded out by her presence, she wasn't causing us any problems. She also never strayed more than 4-5 feet from our buddy, so she was mostly just his problem to deal with. It was still relatively early (just before midnight) so this meant it was time for Plan B.

We still had that old mill we did recon on last month (see link at top) so we decided to head out there. After some more driving, we found a suitable place to park (same spot as before, actually) and grabbed our gear. This was a slightly longer walk with increased exposure, due to the bicyclists. As we approached the entrance on foot, we spotted a couple of people on bikes up ahead so we kept walking and waited for them to pass. Eventually we doubled back, keeping an eye out for anyone else, and stepped into the shadows.

The walk to the back of the property was uneventful and quick, and we found our original point of entry without any hassle. The door was shut and moderately stuck, but not sealed. We got it open pretty quickly and filed inside...

The first floor was pretty much exactly as I remembered it... covered in trash and bird crap and of course it smelled like hell. I was definitely glad I brought the breathing masks. Unfortunately I didn't have enough for everyone to have one. Since we'd seen everything on this floor already, we decided to head upstairs and check out the rest.

As we ascend the metal stairs, we get a feel for just how big this place really is, and how high up we're going to be. They were really rickety and open so we tried to distribute our weight across several flights. Like everything else, they were rusty and covered in bird crap, so you definitely wouldn't want to be the last person climbing these stairs, unless you're wearing a helmet and goggles.

From the second floor and up, the graffiti started getting progressively better. The floors were also a bit more hazardous, with scattered holes and the occasional weak sounding area covered in bird crap. Gradually, we scoped out each floor, photographing the graffiti and various abandoned machinery. There was some really cool stuff in here, including an open elevator shaft that was a quick trip to certain death if anyone were to fall or get pushed into it. We also found the occasional open door or window that would result in a nasty fall.

After several more floors, and open flights of stairs, we reached some interesting features...

One floor had a door that led to a partial roof, which aside from some graffiti also had a ladder on the side of the building reaching all the way up to the top roof. I would estimate that ladder went at least an additional 50 feet (possibly more) from the lower roof to the upper roof, with little more than circular bands to catch you if you slip or fall. Unfortunately, the door leading to the lower roof has stuck (or possibly sealed) shut.

On one of the landings, I found a door leading to a confined space. I slid the door open and let it air out some (in case there was a gas buildup) then peeked in. Turns out the door led to a very long "bridge" connecting this with the adjacent building. It was too far to see the end of it with our flashlights. Deciding to save this for another day (with better equipment and less people) we resumed our trek ever upward.

One of the top floors had some really huge pieces of equipment. There wasn't enough room to get decent photos of the equipment in a single shot. As I crossed this room, my light startled some pigeons and they made a hell of a racket trying to get out through the windows. They also managed to crap all over the place as they were leaving. I thought this was pretty funny, but it really freaked out some of the guys (and the hooker.)

Eventually, after spending a couple hours there, we decided that we had pushed our luck enough and it was time to go. One of the guys ascended the last 2 flights of stairs to the top floor for a very quick look around. He didn't spot anything resembling roof access so we didn't make it outside this time, unfortunately.

Heading down the rickety stair case was mostly easy, as long as you didn't look up (too much falling debris) or down (too damn scary.) We got down to the first floor without incident and made our way back to the cars.

The ride back to the meetup point was pretty quiet, and we all went inside to figure out what to do next. Usually we hit a bar after a mission, but it was nearly 2am and not much was open. We hung out for a bit, figuring she would eventually leave, since my buddy was obviously uncomfortable being alone with her at this point. After a while, it was apparent she was getting irritated at our continued presence so we opted to go hang out outside and wait for him to "tell her the deal." We had been waiting about half an hour when he came out (alone, again) and explained that she was really upset because he wasn't interested in her, and that "nobody ever rejected her" before. At this point, given the amount of (nonbillable) time she had wasted with us and the general absurdity of the situation, we were pretty sure she wasn't actually a hooker, just crazy. He stood outside and talked to us for a few minutes until he started getting scary text messages from her and went back inside.

Expecting to see the windows get blown out in a ball of flame any second, the rest of us hung out for a bit longer after he went back in. Unfortunately, our presence (even outside) was making her even more unhinged and she totally lost her shit... so he sent us a text message to go ahead and leave.

Judging from the email I got this morning, he did eventually get rid of her but not before she threw herself at him repeatedly and more or less pronounced them soulmates. I guess it's not a good mission night if there isn't a psycho involved.

Earlier this evening, I was working on another NINE Questions interview and the interviewee sent me two Flickr links of pictures to choose from.

Unfortunately, Flickr had some sort of weird protection that prevented me from dragging, copy & pasting or saving the photo I needed. I kept getting this 1x1 pixel transparent image named spaceball.gif.

I really needed this picture, and I had permission to use it from the interviewee, but she wasn't available at the time to just send me a copy, so I started looking for a way to get around spaceball.

Here is what I came up with:

1. Right-click on the page (not the photo) and select "View Page Source."
2. Search for "spaceball"
3. This reveals that Flickr is using some css to place the transparent image over the photo at the same height and width.
4. Looking all the way to the left (in the code) of this result reveals the original url of the photo you need. (It will probably start with "http://farm1.static.flickr.com" and end with the filename and extension of the photo.
5. Copy and paste that url (just the address, not the HTML around it) into the browser address bar. This gives you the unprotected photo.
6. Save, copy or drag this image as you see fit.


Disclaimer: This information is presented for information only.  Please don't use this to steal photos you don't have permission to use. Use at your own risk. Subject to change at any time. I'm not responsible for anything stupid you do.

I first met Liza and the Lullabot gang at the Iowa Code Camp and started following her on Twitter the same day. She's got a pretty interesting story, but I'll let her tell it. This is another one of those interviews I did a while back and then somehow misplaced. Obviously my filing system (gmail) needs some work.  Without further delay, I give you NINE Questions with Liza Kindred:

1. Where are you from?
Des Moines, most days. I travel a great deal for work, so sometimes I feel like I am "from" airports and hotel rooms, but my preferred place to lay my head is at home!

2. Who do you work for / What do you do?  Give me the 10 second pitch on why I want your "product".
I am the Business Director for Lullabot, a virtual open-source consulting & education company. (How's that for a mouthful?) We specialize in Drupal, and do high-level consultation for people who want to use Drupal, as well as teaching people all about it through workshops, on-site training, DVDs, best-selling books, and the top Drupal podcast in the world. Our clients include companies like Sony BMG, Harvard, Lifetime Television, MTV UK, and many more. We also work with a variety of really cool smaller clients. Drupal's popularity has certainly increased in the years that I've been working around it!

The 2-second pitch: "We make Drupal fun."  <http://www.lullabot.com/>

3. How did you end up there?
My background is in fashion, art, & business. I was working freelance for a number of local small businesses doing things like fashion styling, photoshoot production, and boutique consultation. I was really enjoying what I was doing, but at the same time I had also started working 5 hours a week for Lullabot (which at the time was a 2 person company - we're at 12 full time now). I realized that the fashion work, while highly rewarding for me, had grown stagnant. The number of exciting opportunities available in the world of technology is huge compared to what's going on in fashion.  I came to realize that there is a lot of creativity that one can have in working with technology - the ability to create *things* and not just *elements* of things (creating a community that didn't exist before vs. picking out fall fabrics, for example).

The other important thing that really drew me to this work is the concept of Open Source. I stumbled into OS, but I hold the tenants very dear. (For those of you who aren't sure what OS is, I wrote a non-technical analogy here: http://lizakindred.com/blog/this-is-how-we-roll) What I am the most fascinated about are the way that the tenants of Open Source relate to running businesses. There is a certain elements of openness, transparency, and being reliant on the success of the community as a whole that are lacking in most traditional business models. I love working for (and with) legitimate businesses that relies on hackers for survival.

4. Ok, so you work with Drupal a lot, but what other areas of technical expertise do you have?
I have zero technical expertise. Here's what I do: I turn free software into jobs.

Lullabot is an amazing company full of truly fantastic people. I am really proud that over the past few years, I've had a part in building a sustainable business model based on totally non-traditional elements (our team is totally virtual / distributed, we don't do development work, our people top out at 20 hours of client work & get to decide how to spend the rest of their time, etc.) 

I suppose it could be said that I have also developed some mad skills in running a virtual company. We have people in six states and in two countries, and are among the most closely knit teams of people that you will ever come across. I've helped to build this business from the ground-up, and now we have an awesome benefits package, real systems & procedures, and all that other stuff that feels legitimate.

5. So I know you mostly from your twitters, but that's just one part of the big picture. What's something the world at large doesn't know about Liza Kindred?
Well, since you know me from Twitter, you probably know that I have a wonderful 8 year old daughter... what many people might not realize is that I am a full-time single mom. I have a super-supportive family that helps me out a lot, and I also take my daughter with me for a lot of work travel. It's constant, and rewarding, juggling game.

6. Speaking of Twitter, what's your take on the whole social networking boom? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc...
Many people are early adopters; I am not. I really want to know that something will add value to my life before I will commit to using it. My time is so important to me; I need to f