I have seen many posts about USA Network’s new original series called Burn Notice. The show is about Michael Westen who was working int he CIA but got fired. Now when they fire you from the CIA you don’t get a box with your personal items and are walked tot he door by security, nope you are stripped of all things that were you. You are dropped somewhere and unable to leave, you are then on every watch list possible. You can then constantly watched.

So how is a spy going to be able to make a living in the civilian world and try not to run afoul of those who are watching. He has to be smart. I think I am smart and could probably get myself in and out of situations, keeping a low profile and keeping one step ahead of my watchers.

I think I learned some of these skills while I was a residence hall director. I saw many examples of stupid behavior and that reinforced what I would have done in a particular situation. One thing that I was accused of was spying on my students because I ended up catching them doing these stupid behaviors. For one thing, if your windows are wide open the sound of a quarter bouncing off a hardwood table echoes off a set of brick buildings like a shotgun. Hmm, that would be going on up there. Another thing that people would do would be try and sneak into buildings. Since we had inter visitation rules members of the opposite sex needed to be out of the building by 1:00am each weekend night. Around 12:30 there would be tons of people coming in to the building, they were trying to sneak in, right in front of us. I always found this amusing and would usually catch many a guy bringing his girlfriend in through a window. There had to be a better way to get by me.

I used to deliver pizza on campus and pizza delivery guys and girls could come and go as they pleased in many buildings. So all I would have needed to do was appropriate a pizza bag, give it to a girlfriend and boom she would be in my room without any hassle. And if I wanted to sneak in beer I could have certainly filled a pizza box and pizza bag with beer and would have never had a problem. What I saw were perfectly square backpacks from my brain dead students. It was laughable.

so if I was a spy I would try and figure out what was mundane and overlooked in daily life, use that as my disguise and go to it. Delivery people can be easy to ape so I would probably study the delivery routines of certain routes and if I had to get into some place I would have to get a disguise that replicated the delivery person, then I would use a tiny video camera to record any surveillance. And of course I would pop a piece of electrical tape over the little blinking red light, never overlook the smallest details.

Maybe I could be a spy, maybe not. However I know that Michael Westen was trained to do these things and you can learn more about him and his exploits on USA Network’s Burn Notice. Maybe you will pick up some spy tips and tricks that you could use.

Also I want to say that I can’t wait for this show because there doesn’t seem to be anything very good on TV this summer and I do not want to watch reality shows. Burn Notice looks new and original and it also looks fun. Plus Bruce Campbell is in it. Anything that returns Bruce back to TV is great in my book.

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