Friday, September 5, 2014

Secret Service close-call

Yesterday, oddly, I was at the White House for a convening on educational games.  Of course, it was very cool to be there.  We were a group of about 40 people in a conference room.

The previous night, dinner had started at 9pm, so I was dazed and confused...

At our meeting, after an initial intro, they split us up into two different groups.  My group went to a conference room on the other side of the building.  We worked there for a while, and after we were done, we came back to the larger initial conference room.  We had a little break so we had informal chats, and then we got started again as a bigger group.

About 5 minutes into that session, I realized that I didn't have my backpack.  I guessed I had left it in the conference room on the other side of the building.

I had to choose between being rude and walking out of the meeting in progress to go get my backpack, or staying there and risking triggering a security concern when someone found a backpack left by itself in a room in the White House...

After a little deliberation, I decided to be rude and go get my backpack.  As I was walked down the hallway, I saw the most senior person who was hosting us that day walking back to the bigger conference room with my backpack.  He was very kind and laughed, but said that about once a week they get notified by security that they're closing down a section of the building because someone has left a bag somewhere...  Luckily this week it wasn't me.  Saved by the host.

My backpack at the Indian Treaty Room
(not where I left it.  Here it is just posing)

  
 

This is the National Security Staff office, where I may have
ended up had they not rescued my backpack...
  :)

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