Chinese CatFish, Terminal Birds and IPhones

I’m fond of islands. I like Hawaii. I’m waiting for my plane to leave and I’m clearly on island time. If you are truly on island time are flights ever truly delayed? In Indonesia they call this waiting around “Jam Karet” or rubber time. They’ve got something similar on many islands. Not on Brittan or Japan but on other islands, hot islands; Caribbean islands, Greek islands, and of course the 11,000+ islands of the Indonesian archipelago. There as here, time is stretchy, unpredictable, can scrunch and elongate. Time is fluid like waves or weather systems. Buses (or planes) arrive when they arrive and depart sometime after. Appointments happen around the time they are scheduled…or not.

Of course, rubber time has its consequences. This morning I long-board surfed on small waves. Little rollers frothed in one after another and I caught them using my last opportunity to practice tippy-toeing up and down the board. At that time in the morning the beach and break is quiet. All the good surfers are on the beach, shaka reclining and renting boards to us tourists. They are drinking coffee and nodding super cool nods like only true surfer dudes living on island time are capable of for extended periods of time. I did my best short-term “I’m a cool dude from California” and rented my board with as much nonchalance and surfer-ness as possible. Thankfully they were cool, or perhaps it was just too early, to even make me feel not cool. This was cool.

I ended my session out off “the wall” at 7:30 sharp so I could pack my bags, shower, and meet my pre-arranged taxi to get me to the airport precisely on time to make my plane home. The surf wasn’t really up yet but it was getting better and I would have loved to have stayed longer. I made my taxi but my flight is now in the liquid jaws of island time. Making this plane has changed from an event recognizable as a point on the clock to a process characterized by an as of yet undefined period of time. So I shifted my gears as tempers started getting hot around me. I’m embracing island time, rubber time and just waiting it out, grooving on the process...bra.

I’ve found myself a hunker-spot at a nearly empty gate nearby. Two huge flat-panel TV’s are ensconced on the walls and tuned to CNN. Occasional announcements echo though the bright cathedral like glass hull of the terminal. Sparrows wheel and knife through thin air-conditioned air of the terminal sky. Hawaiian music floats through the air just out of reach. It is nearly rainy season here in Hawaii and outside the air drips with heat. Sliding doors breathe open and shut as passengers inhale and exhale through them. Heading in one direction people visibly wilt, readjust their heavy carry-on's and slow as the heat covers them. Those who are inhaled jerk erect as if they’ve been resuscitated after a light afternoon nap on a couch via the touch of a cool hand.

Through the glass and frames I can see my fellow passengers at the adjacent gate impatiently settled in and shuffling. They are waiting for the departure event. Many are reading, listening to music or eating. A couple treks into the terminal area near me, drop their backpacks and spread out their fast food. Three birds land near them and begin hopping excitedly around the periphery waiting for scraps.

On the television I learn there is a problem with Chinese fish. Chinese fish? I love Chinese Fish! I ate fish everyday here in Hawaii. I feel fine. Am I? I listen more intently.

Turns out the television is doing its usual rhythmic teasing. Sound-bite mythmaking. The truth is squeezed in between the alarmist editorializing. Some Chinese farms use medication keep the fish healthy, but the FDA is concerned about “possible harmful effects” on humans after “years of consumption”. Possible effects? Years of consumption? Who eats catfish anyway!

This is a ridiculous story. It is non-news. Fast on facts slow on truth. It is why I can’t watch the news. Our country is racked by obesity, heart disease, ADHD, diabetes and a host of other dietary controllable ailments but catfish get the headlines, feed the fear, and fan the worry flame. If we swapped out potentially tainted catfish for McDonalds, hormone-laced beef, and super-sized drinks, I’d bet, after years of consumption, we would be a thinner, healthier, smarter, funnier AND even a better looking America.

The story finally ends with a tease of their next story, the IPhone. Now here is a story I can sink my teeth into and wave the red, white and blue about. The IPhone is something to celebrate. We need products and devices to drive back the tyranny and dangers lurking out there in the world. Besides I love gadgets and especially cool techie gadgets. But before I can get on to the revelry I learn during one of the commercials about a heretofore unbeknownst to me medical ailment called RLS, Restless Leg Syndrome. Hummm…I think there might be a remedy called EXERCISE that might cure that one but I’m not sure. I feel fine. Am I?

Finally the commentators are back and I learn all about the IPhone. Honestly, I’ve already heard all about it. I’ve read everything, the blogs, forums, articles, reviews, previews and advertisement…I covet this device. I want to be the first in my family to own one but I know my brother Steve and my nephew Taylor are going to beat me to it. I’ve got a sinking, hollow, jealous anxiety seeping into my island time attitude. My treo is flashing that I have a new text message. I couldn’t care less.

By tomorrow my phone will be a dinosaur, not a single person will be sick from tainted Chinese catfish, I’ll no longer be on island time and these birds will still be darting around the terminal sky.

Who’s got your back?

**The Anita Borg Institute sent me to Hawaii to be part of the HP diversity booth at the ASEE annual conference. Below is the feed from the ABI blog (www.anitaborg.org) published under the same title**

HP and the America Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) are once again hosting a diversity booth at the Annual ASEE conference and exposition June 24-27 at the Hawaii Convention Center. The Anita Borg Institute is pleased to be representing on the floor of the exposition hall along side leading organizations that provide programs, services, research and support for a variety of underserved communities within engineering and technology fields.

When I stand along side these sister and brother organizations I’m encouraged. Often times in a small non-profit you feel like you have to do it all. When I stand shoulder to shoulder with each an every one of these people, hear about their work, understand their depth of knowledge and convictions I know conclusively…we don’t.

The Anita Borg Institute does have some of the answers. We don’t have them all. But by coming together with supporters, constituency and other organizations like those here at ASEE we expand our expertise, reach and impact. We are called to be the best in our particular sector, maintain the integrity of our mission and excel in our programs. When we do our job well we support the entire community. Increasingly we need to understand the landscape and our friends well enough to know who, in essence, who has our back.

Effectively solving the engineering, science and technology issues of the 21st century will require a depth and breadth of participation from every population. No single organization has all the answers. No country will have the luxury to leave behind or leave unheard large swaths of its own population or to ignore its partners and competitors across national borders. Everyone here seems to agree that the Engineer of the 21st century will not look like the engineer of the 20th. The 21st century challenges are going to be great and the rewards and possibilities consummate with those challenges.

The diversity booth is one example but you see and hear it everywhere here at ASEE. The opening keynotes by Philippe Forestier, executive vice president at Dassault Systems and Leah Jamieson, dean of engineering at Purdue University & CEO and president of IEEE had at their core, though in very different ways, the new engineers, environments, perceptions and innovations of the 21st century. Forestier spoke about three-dimensional and multi-national engineering. Jamieson followed and spoke forcefully about Forestier’s points and the interplay between those things and the liberally educated, creative, artistic, technically skilled, nimble, connected, reflective, contextualized and diverse, “multi-dimensional” engineer of 2020.

From workshops and sessions to a stroll through the booth spaces on the exposition floor you see organizations addressing these issues at one level or another. Everyone appears to be grappling with at least one aspect; many (like HP and ASEE) are addressing multiple levels and bringing to the surface the conversations necessary for change.

• Together we make a strong statement about the critical importance of diversity in engineering.
• Together we demonstrate the importance of the work each does within a larger framework.
• Together we highlight the complexity of the issues faced in changing a culture, increasing diversity and indeed, changing the world.

So, with that, here is a quick look at the other organizations who this week at ASEE “have our back”

MentorNet

Society of Women Engineers (SWE)

American Indian Science & Engineering Society (AISES)

NAE Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education (CASEE)

HENAAC, Promoting Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

National Association of Multicultural Engineering (NAMEPA)

National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)

Society of Hispanic Professional Engineering (SHPE)

Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS)

Women in Engineering Program Advocates Network (WEPAN)

All good things,
Wig

In the event of a water landing

I scored and exit row and a window seat. I’m willing and able in 25a. I get myself settled and construct my tiny private space between the window, bulk head and armrest. My fellow passengers jostle and wiggle themselves into their private spaces. I twist off my shoes without untying them and tuck them under my seat. I feel the guy behind me shuffle his disapproval as this little cubby, technically, is his. It is a full flight and lines are drawn; arm rests, mini-pillows, blue-blankets, palm sized bags of peanuts. A policy of containment cold war style, person to person, seat by seat, row by row. We push private spaces, we protect ours against strangers.

The doors close and we push back from the gate. The aisle seat next to me remains empty. Sweet! I’ve scored the entire two-seat exit row. I’m willing and able in 25a and 25b! I move into the reclining aisle b-seat and spread out my reading, journals, ipod, and computer into the window a-seat next to me. The flight is nearly full but this twist of fortune makes me, for the next five hours, the king of coach.

The flight attendant comes by and asks me if I’m “willing and able” to assist with the emergency door and to help other passengers in the event of an emergency. Almost by reflex I reply that I am. He reaches across and takes out the tri-fold, laminated “For Your Safety” Boeing 767 emergency door and evacuation procedure brochure and information card. He delicately opens and displays it for me.

He gently talks me through the operation of the emergency exit door. With each piece of information he refers me to an image on the laminated brochure. I nod and smile. The door has two handles, one above and one below the little porthole window. They are marked in red. The door has no hinges. This is single-use door. It is not meant to be opened and closed. It is meant to be opened and removed. If I do have to dislocate the door he tells me to first check outside the window for fire or obstructions.

This flight is unique for a domestic American flight; it happens almost entirely over water. Of course many international flights are like this but only flights to Hawaii and Alaska have large chucks over open water. We spend the next three or four minutes talking about what to do in the event of a water landing.

“In the event of a water landing” he points to an illuminated exit sign at my feet. Matter of factly he adds “be sure to check on the water level. If it is above that exit sign you may have trouble removing the door.” He tells not to toss the door outside (I think he has just read my mind) but place the door my seat and then assist passengers onto the wing directly outside my door.

This plane has six life rafts. One of them is directly above me, the king of coach. I saw it when I was the last person on the plane and was searching the overhead compartments for a place for my bag. The life raft is big, bulky, heavy and self-inflating. The flight attendant points out a picture of the raft floating in the water. The plane is in one piece, wings, tail, engines, and fuselage. There is one person in the raft and another person at the end of the wing stepping into the raft. I can see the drawing that represents me in one of the doorways helping a woman and her child out onto the wing. A giant green arrow is super-imposed on the wing directing her to the raft.

I look at the picture.
I look at the wing.
I look at the picture.
I look at the wing.
I look at the flight attendant.
He smiles.
I smile.
“So I need to get the raft out this door too?”
He smiles and nods.

The bulkhead in front of me is carpeted with soothing Hawaiian airlines colors, blue and lavender. Directly in the middle there is a similarly colored round medallion with two footprints, and a slash crossing them. Below them is says, Mahalo! I am the king of coach but I’ve got some responsibilities too. I’ve got to look out for this door, and the passengers and the life raft. And I’ve got to keep my feet off the wall.

I’m not drawn to scale in the saftey brochure. I point this out. He continues to smile. None of us are drawn to scale. We are too big and there are far too few of us in the pictures. They are so spacious. We’ve ample personal space and apparently plenty of time. The water is calm and there is no fire or obstructions. I appear to be doing a great job helping the four people who have come through my 2 foot by 4 foot one-use door. Of course, I’m happy the raft didn’t inflate early while still in the cabin and that the nice man who helped me is now helping others out on the raft. The rendering of me in the picture has no emotions (and dark hair too) but I image I’m happy. I know I’m delighted the other 300 or so passengers have apparently evacuated out the other exits. I’m happy it is all so orderly and the plane is floating so sweetly. I wonder what sort of passed appetizers they are serving on the life rafts.

The flight attendant and I finish our conversation. Captain Scott and first officer Lee report over the intercom from the flight deck. We are first for take-off. A short taxi later and I sink deeper into my seat as the turbines jet into action below me. The nose points off the ground the plane teeters into the air and we are wheels-up headed to Hawaii. I feel the vibrations of the engine in my inner ear as San Bruno, South City, and then Pacifica appear out the window as we climb quickly out over the Pacific ocean and then level off.

I’m aware of the guy behind me, the line to the lavatory, the flight attendants clunking the drink cart from the back of the plane to the front. I look out the window to see the wing and the idling engine divide two blue worlds that meet along a hazy smudge at the horizon.

Mahalo!