The book is completely fascinating from multiple perspectives and I suggest anyone who wants to get a feel for the era read it. It's quite enjoyable, as well. The Internet, today, feels very metropolitan in some ways, but then this was something of a wild frontier.

Reading The Cuckoo's Egg gave me a frisson of recognition, as I was similarly torn between the abstract world of physics and the (comparatively) more concrete world of computing, as well as running into people mucking about where they had no business being during a time period when law enforcement had yet to develop a solid framework for responding to those sorts of issues.

I have considered contacting him purely for some hourglass work, or at least tips as to what to look for.