“Rhumba the Lindstrom Way” – Our Run-in with Russian Security

Today Bill Brenner, Senior Editor at CSO Online, had a run-in with the Secret Service after taking some pictures of Marine One and enjoying his passion for history while down in DC to cover Metricon5. If you haven’t read his coverage of the incident he posted an opinion piece on CSO Online: What it’s Like to be Grilled by the Secret Service, and also a personal piece, How to Test Your Recovery, Secret Service Style, in his OCD Diaries.

This reminded us of an incident that happened last summer in Saint Petersburg. We were at Pulkovo International Airport waiting for a flight down to Moscow.

We were on an early flight and the security scanners weren’t open yet. So while we were shuffling around the entrance waiting for it to open we noticed that there was a rug in front of one of the scanners that had some zany footsteps and the tagline “Rhumba the Lindstrom Way” on it. We’re friends and colleagues with Pete Lindstrom, Research Director of Spire Security, and thought to ourselves, “hey, wouldn’t it be cool to take a photo of that rug to show to Pete?”

Ed took out our camera and snapped a couple of nice shots of the rug and we were feeling pretty pleased when a very large and serious man came over from the security area, leaned into Ed, and said something stern sounding.

Ed, feeling friendly, said: “We have a friend named Lindstrom, we think he’ll get a kick out of this photo!” and showed the snap on the camera to the large, imposing security person.

Security person: {unintelligible but stern sounding command}

Ed: “It’s a photo for our friend.”

Security person: {unintelligible but stern sounding command}

Ed (getting nervous): “Umm, it’s a photo?”

Security person: {unintelligible but stern sounding command}

Diana (starting to shake, as realization dawned): “Ed, I think he said ‘delete.’”

Ed: “Delete?”

Security person (leaning in closer and getting angry): {unintelligible but getting louder stern sounding command}

Diana: “Aigh! He’s saying ‘delete’ – Ed – Delete! Delete!! DELETE!!”

At this point we both had visions of being thrown into a Russian jail in Siberia and never heard from again as we realized that they thought we’d been taking recon photos of the airport security system.

Ed: “Delete?” (Hands shaking – he tries to delete – admittedly I was also trying to delete the photo and really, it’s a job best accomplished by one person. Finally, the photo was deleted.)

Ed (showing camera to security person): “Deleted!”

Security person (no longer angry): {unintelligible grumph}

International incident averted we boarded the plane to Moscow.

Though we didn’t see another “Rhumba” floor rug, we did find another Lindstrom rug at an airport in Sweden, nowhere near security, where were able to snap a shot for posterity.