Little-known museum 

focused on electronics 

reopens in new home

Howard Griffin, sitting by the lunar camera he helped develop.

A geek-friendly museum that seems to fly under the radar held its grand reopening over the weekend in Baltimore County, a year after moving from its former home in Linthicum.

It's been around for four decades, and radar itself has always been a key part of the attraction for the National Electronics Museum. The brainchild of two employees of the former Westinghouse Defense and Electronic Systems Center, the nonprofit museum was created and operated with substantial support from the company that continued under eventual buyer Northrop Grumman. Many of the high-tech electronic devices on display were developed at Westinghouse.

Radar gizmos galore

Personally, I'm not much of a geek. But there was plenty that I found fascinating -- some of it seeming like grist for Jeopardy buffs. Like what does radar mean? (Answer: Radio Detection and Ranging).

The museum shares space with the nonprofit System Source Computer Museum created by System Source IT services company owner Bob Roswell at its Hunt Valley headquarters. His collection runs the gamut of computing devices from times well before the days of microchips... or any kind of chips, for that matter... and includes one of the first computers put together in the garage where corporate giant Apple was born.

It's hard to separate one museum from the other, as electronics and computers seem so intertwined. (There's also a video game museum housed in the building.)

In a back room during the opening, members of the museum-based Amateur Radio Club were busy on the airwaves operating its ham radio station (K3NEM) chatting with radio buffs across the planet and spreading word of the museum's reopening. A long work table was lined with vintage broadcasting and modern computer equipment now part of the station's operations. 

Ham radio operators at work.

My personal favorite part of the opening party was chatting with its most senior guest -- 90-year-old Howard Griffin, a Baltimorean who helped develop the Apollo 11 camera that beamed home to earth live television images of the first steps on the moon. One of several backup lunar cameras produced for the mission is displayed at the museum in a case alongside the special Emmy statuette awarded to Westinghouse for the technical achievement that enabled people across our planet to witness history. (Another backup lunar camera is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum.)

Howard, a Johns Hopkins-educated electrical engineer, said his role was in devising the thermal coating protecting the camera that was mounted on the lunar lander.

I asked about his view during the project of the likelihood the 1969 moon landing would entirely succeed -- especially setting down on the lunar surface, and the crew returning safety to earth.

"Very slim," he said.

The museum at 338 Clubhouse Road is operated by an executive director and volunteers, and for now open to visitors by appointment most Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Group tours also are available for scheduling. Admission is $15 for adults and $10 for students. And not a bad deal as a two-fer, since you get to see the computer museum on the same visit.

 

Post-election mysteries

Kamala Harris in Reno, Nev., a few days before the election. (Photo by Brycia James)

Questions for America
 that I cannot answer

Four years ago, in the weeks leading up to Election Day, my wife Bonnie Schupp was deeply worried. "I don't want Trump to be the last president in my lifetime," she told me.

 Election night was tense, the result too close for comfort -- and the accelerant for Donald Trump's "Big Lie" alleging rigging.

 We had for weeks watched Bill Maher's HBO show, "Real Time," in which the comedian/social critic repeatedly warned that Trump would not leave office willingly. Then, like prophecy, came the January 6 insurrection -- a riot and invasion of the Capitol which Bonnie and I watched, transfixed and horrified. 

I assured her that the attack would not change the result, that Joe Biden would be inaugurated as scheduled two weeks hence. Days before the inauguration, Bonnie found out she had aggressive pancreatic cancer. 

We watched the inauguration together. Though she knew her own time remaining was limited, Bonnie was relieved for the future of others and the nation she loved that Biden was president. She died two months later. 

Four years down the road, it is my turn to worry. No, I'm not on the edge of death. But I'm anfew months older than Trump. His health status (both physical and mental) has always been a mystery couched in vague assurances, but I've had some challenges of late. Like a brush with mortality just two months ago. And I had hopes, as Bonnie did, that Trump would not be the last president in my lifetime.

 Now it seems he might be, assuming Trump has four years without an intervention of fate and I don't. And I fear for the future of the nation that I love, but now have a harder time understanding.

 I've read numerous stories and heard TV pundits in the election aftermath assessing reasons for the failed Kamala Harris campaign. 

The economy? She offered proposals to help families and vowed to take on companies for price-gouging. Trump blamed her for not fixing the economy during her four years as vice president. Not that she had the power to fix the inflation of higher consumer prices, mostly the result of initial shortages during the pandemic and the simply relationship of supply and demand.

 He harped on America as a failing nation, claimed only he could fix it, and tariffs were the answer -- despite the warnings of experts that tariffs amount to a tax on consumers through higher prices and would fuel a new inflationary spiral. All this nonsense when unemployment was at a record low, wages higher, interest rates finally dropping and the stock market at a record high. America is hardly failing economically.

 Illegal immigration as an invasion of criminals was a constant theme, and inevitably the few recent cases of undocumented aliens linked to murders -- including one if Maryland -- served Trump's purposes for political exploitation. And even when the House and Senate had reached a bipartisan agreement on legislation to deal with uncontrolled border crossings, Trump got his legislative sycophants to kill it. He needed the issue to remain as uncontrolled as the border. 

Trump as the problem-solver? How many times has he been asked for his promised plan to "fix healthcare" to replace the Affordable Care Act? In four years as president, there was none -- only a Republican attempt to scuttle the ACA that was foiled by the late Sen. John McCain.

 Or for many voters, was it simply the fact that Trump's opponent was a woman of color? They were just looking for excuses to vote for him? 

More than a dozen former key aides in his presidency urged Americans to vote for Harris, saying Trump was a danger to the nation. A fascist, even. Others in his administration or took part in schemes to subvert the Constitution were convicted of crimes, imprisoned, disbarred. But Trump himself, the crime boss, despite his New York state conviction on fraud charges, will not lose a day of his freedom and doubtless as president will scuttle all federal cases against him.

 How could more than half of the participating electorate vote for him? I cannot fathom it. President-elect yet again, four years after his defeat by Biden, despite his innumerable faults and failures as a human being and from 2017 to 2021 in office. What voters chose to ignore, forgive or forget is astonishing, but inevitably offers a clue to their psyche.

 I am left to ask how anyone who lost a family member to Covid could ignore, forgive or forget Trump's lies and ignorance in his public response to the pandemic and undermining of public health science. More than a million Americans died. He at one point voiced the idea of people injecting bleach as a cure, among other preposterous suggestions, as he undermined the work of experts studying the virus and their push for wide acceptance of the quickly-developed vaccines to help contain it.

 I am left to ask how any military veteran could ignore, forgive or forget President Trump deriding the courage and sacrifice of the nation's defenders. among other insults. "Suckers and losers," he said in minimizing visits to the American cemeteries in France where many lost in World War II are buried. Or his stated suggestion of using the nation's military to deal with Americans exercising their free speech right of protest. (All this from an obvious draft dodger in the Vietnam war era whose alleged bone spurs must have been miraculously cured.)

My neighbor's lawn

 I am left to ask how any police officer could ignore, forgive or forget President Trump inciting the crowd he summoned to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally and failing to intervene as a mob's ensuing attack on the Capitol injured 140 police officers and contributed to the deaths of several. Close to a thousand people eventually were convicted on criminal charges related to the attack. Trump has called them patriots and vowed to pardon the many who are now serving prison terms. (In my own neighborhood in Pasadena, Maryland, a police officer who brings home his county patrol car after work flies a Trump "no more bullshit" flag outside his house and has a line of lawn signs adjacent to his driveway declaring he was voting for law and order, and for "felon and hillbilly.")

 I am left to ask how any good union member could ignore, forgive or forget Trump's blatant contempt for organized labor (and forget, by comparison, the incumbent Democratic president joining auto workers on their picket line during their strike in battling for a fair contract).

 I am left to ask how so many American voters could ignore, forgive or forget the incessant lies of Trump, his obvious lack of empathy for anyone other than himself and his family, his personal greed, his theft from charity, his con-man frauds, his racism and xenophobia, his abuse of women, and his crimes -- indicted by grand juries in multiple states, convicted in New York, and proving through millions spent on lawyers to delay justice that laws and the Constitution at the bedrock of America for more than two centuries do not apply to all.

 And I am left to wonder how those voters will perceive the results of their choice four years hence. I might not last that long, but suspect they will find themselves paying the piper. To say nothing of the likely global damage that may never be undone.

 

Nightside in the ER (photo by FL Ettlin)

A bloody story:

My big and scary (hemoglobin) adventure

Not to overstate the situation (keep in mind that I am back home, writing this), but my body has tried to kill me -- again. In 2019-2020 it was MRSA/sepsis, this time a more subtle attack in what appeared to be gradually diminished red blood cells.

More than a month of incessant headaches prompted a brain MRI a week ago... the results negative. Not even sawdust. Then things got weird. Dizziness, loud thumping sounds in my left ear in tandem with my pulse, blurry vision, an almost comedic spin and fall on Monday amid a cascade of bathroom cleaning products (no head impact), and then nearly flying backwards down the living room stairs on Tuesday morning.

Barely able to stand, I called my primary care doc,  and she told me to call 911. What ensued was two days at University of Maryland BWI Medical Center, where I arrived with a hemoglobin level of 4. (Normal for men is a range of 13 to 17.5, women slightly lower.)

Hemoglobin is a protein in red blood cells that whizzes oxygen throughout the body and to such innocuous places as my brain. I was nearly running on empty. When I moved, I could feel my heartbeat and the thumping speed up as my brain demanded more oxygen. The hospital hematologist told me of a patient she had with a level of 2, who had arrived still conscious and talking... but that case was a rarity.

I'm sharing my story because, from this experience, it might help folks pay closer attention to persistent headaches and worsening neurological symptoms -- but also in a wider view to offer a sense of the wonderful people whose daily work is saving lives, including (cue the dramatic background music) mine.

 The headaches behind my left eye and near the sinus cavity had seemed at first possibly from an infection, but 10 days of amoxicillin did nothing to help. I began to worry about the next most obvious act of hypochondria -- brain cancer! Thence my doc's order for the MRI, which took a week to schedule. Evidently they're very popular.

Friday MRI fashion selfie

The MRI  was last Friday. I was still quite functional. Went to the 210th birthday celebration of Baltimore's Peale Museum that Saturday afternoon, and a house concert Saturday night. On Sunday, the annoying thumping began.  I thought a neighbor might be doing some work, even drove around looking for its source. There was none. It was, so to speak, all in my very own head.

On Monday I took that spin onto the bathroom floor, reaching to the countertop for balance too late. Items there landed on the near side of the toilet as I spun around the bowl, knocking a line of cleaning product containers down like a row of dominoes and landing between the toilet and wall in a cascade of plastic... stunned but barely hurt. Just a bruise on the back of my left hand.

 I stood, tried to put objects back in their place, and used walls to steady myself in heading for the living room couch. I'd had lunch, but couldn't stand to fix dinner, and just headed to bed to sleep it off that evening.

Then came Tuesday morning. I awakened hungry, but dizzy. The thumping was incessant. As I turned from the hallway into the kitchen doorway, I sensed I was tilting backwards with the stairway behind me and grabbed the top railing for balance just in time to avoid a header crash landing.

My wonderful doc had messaged me on Monday that the MRI was negative and ordered other tests. Now I called her office with urgency, and within minutes she called back. I told her there was no way I could go anywhere for testing -- that I could barely stand. And she said to call for help.

I was hungry, though. The Lake Shore Volunteer Fire Co. is across a patch of woods less than a block away from my backyard, and just two blocks and barely one minute from the house by road. I was hungry, dammit. I worried about my blood-sugar levels. So I steadied myself to fix up a bowl of fruit, a slice of toast, and a quickee scrambled egg that I managed to overcook. I sat on the couch with my phone and food and dialed 911.

"I'm OK," I told the dispatcher. "The firehouse is just around the corner. They don't need to panic anyone with the siren." I didn't want to alarm the whole neighborhood. And I started eating to the sound of the ambulance siren ... a piercing wail that only seemed long enough for the crew to turn onto the main road from the firehouse driveway.

Two young men -- paid Anne Arundel County paramedics based at the volunteer station -- arrived and made a quick assessment. I told them they didn't have to carry in the cumbersome stretcher, just to keep me steady as I held the iron rail on the way down my nine curving front steps. (Was it stupid male pride, or emotions channeling the last time anyone was carried down the steps... the morning my wife died in 2021?) They lowered the stretcher by the curb, helped me recline, lifted me up and in, and off we went. The hospital is nine miles away, and I relaxed as best I could amid the thumping in my head.

I was checked in quickly, had blood taken and given an immediate CT scan. The ER was crowded, and I was conscious and lucid, so I was rolled in a wheelchair out to the waiting room -- requesting a spot as far as possible from the roughly 18 other people waiting for treatment room space. I sat there for close to 90 minutes of thumps, head down, trying not to think.

Hospitals are busy places these days, especially in emergency services. Beds for admitted patients were full. I spent the next approximately 22 hours in an ER treatment cubicle, on a narrow and uncomfortable bed never intended for lengthy stays. And over the course of the ensuing night, I was given a transfusion of two "units" of packed red blood cells and closely monitored by its caring team of nurses, physicians  and aides.

Not rock concert bracelets

My older daughter, FL, who is a nurse at another hospital, joined the party. She took a few pictures with her cell phone to record how pale I had become -- about as white as Casper the Friendly Ghost but not ready or able to float through walls.

Nearly at noon on Wednesday, patient escorts arrived simultaneously to take me to a cozy private room -- and to an MRI of my brain, head, neck and vascular system, in search of leaks that might account for blood loss or a carotid artery problem. The MRI escort got first dibs.

And I noticed something remarkable as I was wheeled on a gurney through the bright corridors: The thumping in my head had stopped. The transfusion had upped my hemoglobin level to 7.8, close to a targeted stabilizing measure of 8.

The MRI took 23 minutes. In case you've never experienced it, you are most often moved into a circular chamber... in my case, with my head padded snugly in place and earplugs to temper the sounds of this amazing machine: clangs, clicks, and -- what else? -- thumps.

 Twenty-three minutes of thumps, the last 22 of which featured an itch on my rose and chin that I could not touch. I focused on the sounds, counting sequences of the noises, with a woman's voice occasionally piped into the chamber that was as inaudible as a bad day in a crowded subway car.  I think it was offering updates on the timing for me, but could just have well have been saying, "Approaching Ritchie Highway Station," or "Next stop, BWI Medical Center."

I've told friends that I hope my sense of humor is the last function I lose. I did my best to be kind and funny to the hospital staff, even an aide who came by to check my blood sugar with totally no expression on her face. I gave her a hard time, sort of  -- elicting a tiny smile, maybe even a twinkle in her eyes, and as she departed wished her a great rest of her day.

I am in awe of hospitals. But I don't like being in them. I've had more than a few long stays over the course of my life -- longest among them a time in 1971 when I nearly bled to death from an intestinal rupture, and at this particular hospital for a week of body repairs after a nearly deadly head-on car crash in 1983, and the five weeks I stayed there between two visits for the life-threatening infection in the autumn of 2019 and February 2020.

Each situation was unique. Four of them featured ambulance rides. Through all of them, people who I mostly did not and likely will never know kept me among the living.

I am grateful to them way beyond these words.