Splinter Cell Researchers: Collision of Video Games and Real Life

How often does a job come around where you get to live out a video game experience? Not often. Which is why I had to accept an offer as a research assistant for the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute where we would be using Night Vision Goggles and PDA’s to collect traffic survey data in the middle of the night. When the field supervisor first described this position it sounded eerily similar to the game Splinter Cell, where the main character, garbed in all black, NVG’s and often uses a PDA, sneaks around in the dark.

One area of this study that, a little too closely, mirrored Splinter Cell was the amount of gunplay that we encountered on the road (see previous posts entitled Crazies, Cops and Gunshots and It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp). Since this study was state-wide, we were required to visit some pretty dangerous areas of the larger cities in order to get statistically accurate sampling. Never would I have imagined that I’d see more action as a research assistant for U of M than during the first Gulf War serving in the Army.

Beyond the game similarities, something that really appealed to me was just the sheer amount of tech that we ended up using in this job compared to most; laptops, cell phones, GPS, digital stopwatches, MP3 players (ipod Shuffle, Creative Zen Nano), WIFI boosters, portable TV band tuners, digital cameras, Treo 650 PDA’s using HanDBase, Infrared spotlights, and of course the very sexy military ANPVS-7B Night Vision Goggles (chicks totally dig night vision) – the exact model that I used back in my Army days as a sniper. Though, I’m sad to admit that the goggles don’t make that cool sound you often hear in movies and the game when turned on.

The purpose of this study was to look at nighttime seatbelt use of motorists in the state of Indiana using two waves of data collection surrounding the Memorial Day holiday. I’m sure everyone has seen or heard of those “Click it or Ticket” campaigns, well this research is basically to see how effective those commercials are, as well as general seatbelt use statistics. We concluded the first wave a few weeks before Memorial Day, and we are now finishing up the second wave of data collection.

The use of PDA’s is a pretty revolutionary step forward in data collection methodologies as compared to the tried and true, yet outdated paper and pencil approach. While a lot of this technology has been around for years, often it takes much coercion and forethought in order to convince academia to incorporate new tech. We were able to reliably increase the number of records collected by a good deal, as well as save time transferring the data into Access for later statistical analysis.

Another area where we were cutting-edge was with the use of the NVG’s. This was the first state-wide nighttime study of seat belt use utilizing night vision and infrared in the United States, though I’m sure this study will pave the way for future direct observation nighttime research. Since Indiana is pretty lax on their window tinting enforcement, we found using the goggles was the only way to determine seatbelt use even on well lit roadways. Not to mention that it's extremely cool for star gazing when there's a lull in the action. For anyone interested in learning more check out the Social and Behavioral Analysis Department at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute: http://www.umtri.umich.edu/index.html

Middle Of The Road Enlightenment



Sometimes a quiet place, far from the glitz and mach speeds of society, allows the mind to drift from what should be to simply what is. A job that entails standing at the crossroads of a farm and an empty sky for long periods of time waiting for nonexistent traffic to cruise by grants such time for reflection. During these lulls in the action I find myself with a hushed serenity, able to truly enjoy my surroundings that reside far from the cubicles and stress of white-collar doldrums. An uncomplicated sunset. A fox prowling the cornfields with mouth agape. The rhythmic chanting of insects as the moon advances across the skyline. How often are these elementary, yet beautiful moments missed, or more commonly, ignored due to more pressing matters of state? The sheer effort of life's upkeep demands that these banal pennies be thrown asunder in the name of more productive fruits. Taking time to smell the roses. Perhaps the calamity of cliche' prevents such treasures from being more en vogue, though that seems so superficial as to be absurd. Without trying to sound all "Scientology" try spending an hour in the middle of nowhere with your ipod full of favorite music and you might just find the need for those big-billed therapy sessions somewhat lessened.

Never, Ever, get out of the boat...


I believe that line is from Apocolypse Now, when the guy goes searching for mangos and runs into the tiger. Sometimes life is just like that. Sometimes more than not my life is like that. Like when recently, I inadvertantly locked myself out of a hotel room in my underwear setting the room service tray outside the door. Or the time I swam off from the group and found myself surrounded by a dozen or so maneating sharks in Fiji. Possibly even the times I've been just lost in thought and somehow managed to wander into some of the worst parts of New York, Detroit, South Central Los Angeles and Miami. I really should learn to pay more attention to my surroundings. Many moons ago, when I was way too young to know any better, I even found myself in the middle of an anti-American, pro-Communist rally in Italy during the Cold War. A week after that somehow managed to pick the worst camping spot of all time - between Italian troops and the Red Brigade when they attempted a coup. No wonder my mother always worries about me. I don't think I'm really naive, more just oblivious to the consequences of not paying attention. My guardian angel must suffer migraines of immese proportions. Perhaps by writing this down it will act as a memory aid, kinda like saying something 3 times in a row. Never get out of the boat, never get out of the boat, never get...

It's hard out here for a pim...um, researcher


Crazies, cops and gunshots. So for the past week we've been collecting nighttime traffic data for a survey throughout Indiana and I must say that it's been a little more eventful than anticipated when I took the job. On our first night we were stopped by an old man in a pickup who aggressively questioned us as to what we were doing along side the road in the middle of the night. The second we said we were doing a traffic survey all hell broke loose and something in his mind just snapped. Never in my life have I seen an adult go from zero to psycho in such a short period of time, let alone unprovoked. He began screaming at us about how this was BS and that we should've advertised that we were going to be doing this along with some other incoherent claims. I believe I saw froth around his mouth and his eyes turn red, though that remains debatable. My boss and I just sat there in shocked silence while he continued to berate us, until he just slammed his truck into drive and peeled out causing a rooster-tail of dust and gravel to shoot into the air. We just kind of laughed it off proclaiming that it's going to be a long two weeks on the road at this rate. A few minutes later the police showed up and interrogated us like we were enemy combatants at Gitmo. Luckily we had come armed with official letters from all the states' police departments stating what we were doing was legitimate and he let us go.

Over the next few nights we were continually stopped by various local police departments and sheriffs at almost every area that we visited. Most times the police were called on us by "concerned citizens" thinking that something nefarious was afoot by two suspicious looking, fairly cleancut whiteboys in Class 3 road safety vests and traffic cones. Perhaps I'm just out of touch with the criminal mentality, but you'd think that if we were up to no good that we probably wouldn't be wearing highly visible road worker vests and setting up traffic cones and signs announcing our presence. 90% of the problems we've encountered have been in pretty small rural towns, often by various yokels acting as the town vigilante thinking that we were Al Qaeda incarnate. It only takes a couple of these incidents until that classic scene from Deliverance pops into your mind. And I actually hail from a small village in Michigan, though perhaps that's were the vision of shotgun toting "Do-Gooders" comes from. At one town last night, we actually had a posse of locals in pickups follow us around and watch us until the cops came and checked us out. Though I do have to say, that for the most part, the police have been very friendly, courteous and kind, though they frighten the hell out of us when they say, "Just give us a call if you run into any problems, we're kind of worried about your guys' safety."

Friday night. Full moon. Gary, Indiana - 2 am. That alone should be enough to describe the kind of night we had, but I'll continue anyway. When I first took this job, my boss was describing some of the pros and cons of what they do, and some of the hazards that are inherent, like the dangers of working along speeding traffic, working long hours away from home for weeks on end and some of the bad sections of town that they frequent to collect data. He mentioned that the worst for this survey would be Gary, Indiana. I just kind of laughed it off, for all I had ever heard of Gary was that old song from the Music Man musical and that it was Michael Jackson's hometown. How bad could it be? Well, when we were there a month ago, there was a driveby shooting about two blocks from where we were collecting data. The other team collecting data had shots fired on their block as they were packing up, and several genuinely concerned residents stopped by and told us to keep our heads down and get the hell out of Dodge if we ran into any problems.

So we arrive in Gary with tons of nervous energy and a wee bit of trepidation. For the first half of our stay things were pretty slow, if not boring, until we hear a gunbattle raging on a little way from our location. Not long after that we hear sirens and soon the police helicopter begins to circle the area. I look at my boss and say, "Isn't that where we're going to next?" He just looks at me and nods a confirmation. Perhaps he was busy collecting data, perhaps he was lost in thought, or maybe he was wondering if his life insurance was up to date, either way, we kept working until it was time to move onto the next sight - the area of the street battle. By this time the police had moved on to more pressing matters and the sense of security of the helicopter circling overhead was no longer there. As soon as we arrive, we see a young man in a pimped out Chevy, showing off his handgun to his buddies behind us, as well as a drug deal being conducted across the street. This is definately the area for two "crackers" to be eyeballing people as they drive by to collect our data. Though rather anticlimatically, the only thing of note beyond that was an erractic driver almost killing us with her car and some young guys stopping by to ask us where they could get some...um, female companionship on this lonely, rainy night. Fortunately, the only thing we were hit by that night was the drops of rain being let loose from the sky. I never would have guessed that being a research assistant for the University of Michigan could be so thrilling. Give me the safety and comfort of the streets of Detriot anyday.

As Seen On TV





So I'm sitting in a hotel in some forgettably small town watching TV when all of a sudden I see myself in a commercial. A few years back I did this show for the Discovery channel with Phil Keoghan from The Amazing Race, where we try to get my friend over his fear of sharks. Considering the show was shot back in 2004, I'd almost forgotten about it

Being SCUBA divers, the world is our ocean, well except for my friend who refused to ever leave the comforts of diving in the Great Lakes and venture out into the wonderful world of salt water due to his irrational dread of those pelagic predators. Essentially, we were to fly down to the Bahamas and spend a day or so observing and learning about the different species, their feeding habits as well as their distaste for human flesh. Then spend a few days diving in the ocean, slowly warming up to a shark dive where I was to hand feed the creatures, thus showing my friend that these fish were not the mindless killers so often portrayed by Hollywood. Everything went fine until the feeding dive. Best laid plans I guess. To his horror I was surrounded by 40 or 50 ten foot long sharks that decided to use me as a play toy, knocking me around like a hackysack, and biting me on both arms as well as my head. Thankfully I had chainmail on my arms and a hockey helmet to protect my noggin.

In all my manliness, I managed to only scream like a little girl to an audience of just myself, since the underwater mics only transmitted when the talk button was depressed, which at that moment would have been rather difficult to do since both my arms were inside the sharks' mouth. The horrified sound of my friends' voice over the intercom asking me if I was ok assured me that the brutal scene looked as bad as it felt. Remembering that I was the one who convinced him to do this show in the first place, I felt I had to downplay the whole thing, lest we lose all the progress we had made in actually getting him into the water with the sharks. "Yeah, I'm fine. They're just a bit frisky is all." Though from the picture above, signs of the attack are appearent in the half-hearted smile and vacent gaze I gave the TV cameras immediately after the dive.

Despite everything, we managed to get him to dive with sharks in the ocean, mostly removed his fear of those things that lurk below the waves and got some awesome footage for the viewers, so no permenant harm, no permenant foul. And I have to say that I'd still jump at the chance to do another shark dive. It's just kind of funny how something so seemingly momentous can slide into the background of memory until sitting in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere a commercial comes on TV. For anyone actually interested in seeing the shark episode of No Opportunity Wasted, it will be on Discovery HD channel on June 28th.

Sometimes just a friendly smile and a kind word works to our own benefit.

Right now I'm sitting in a hotel in the midwest for a research study for the University of Michigan, actually I'm sitting in a jacuzzi IN my hotel room. The guy I'm working with and I have been on the road for the last four days, and this is our third hotel in as many days, and already have about forty hours of work under our belts and very little sleep. So when it comes to the tedium of packing up, checking out, driving, and checking in and unpacking we are a little less than enthusiastic and usually our moods reflect this. But today our spirits were unusually high and when we get to the new hotel I was uber friendly, possibly boarding on flirtacious with the woman checking us in. We were about an hour or two early from normal check-in time, so I figured the friendly approach was best. Our rooms were not ready yet, but I think our positive mood rubbed off on the lady at the front desk and she kind of looked around and looked at us and said, "I'll tell you what, let's just upgrade your rooms since those are ready now and you guys should be all set." My friend looks at me, gives me a half-hearted "that's cool" kinda look and we begin to lug our baggage towards the rooms. When I first entered the room it looked like your basic room that we've had many times before, but what the hell we're checked in at least, I thought. Just as I'm rounding the corner to throw my bags on the bed the phone rings to my left on the desk, but my eye is drawn to the right where, low and behold I see this ginormas jacuzzi. Sweetness. I throw my bags down and answer the phone where my friend is sounding like an excited kid in a candy store, "I've got this hot-tub in my room, how about you?"
The next two nights of working out in the cold and rain will be much more bearable now. So sometimes karma pays off when you are friendly to a stranger.