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• I track all my money using Where's George?
• I also use my computer's spare cycles to search for extraterrestrial life.

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It's been nearly a week since the attack on the WTC. By now, my story feels trite and
banal since I've told it so many times, and similar stories have been told everywhere. But I'm going to go ahead and post it.

I trade at the American Stock Exchange which is half a block from the WTC. When the first plane hit, lots of people ran outside to look. I looked out the window, and there were papers everywhere, like a ticker tape parade. I decided to stay inside. If papers were flying outside of our building, there was nothing good about going outside to see more. We were watching the burning tower on TV, when the second plane came flying in from off screen and as it hit, the entire Amex shuddered and power flickered. I knew right away that it was a terrorist attack. I called Andrea -- she wasn't home, so I had to leave a message -- saying I was ok, but that something was happening. I then called my Dad who was also watching to say I was ok, and so that someone outside of NYC would have had contact with me in case people worried.

As a firm, we headed to the basement to see wait it out. We then saw
the Pentagon get hit, and decided that maybe the Exchanges could be
next. So we gathered everyone in our firm and headed south to avoid
the New York Stock Exchange, then were planning on heading east and
north. As soon as we exited the AMEX, we could feel the heat from the
the WTC on the sidewalk, a half block away and hundreds of feet down.
As we got south of the NYSE, there was a roar. At the time we
thought another jet was coming in. We huddled against the wall of a building,
then from the NYSE a wall of smoke and debris came rolling toward us.
We turned to the south, and a wall of debris came from that direction.
At the time we were convinced multiple bombs had gone off. It was
actually the first tower falling.

Half the group ran, the rest of us worked our way the FDR through the
smoke and dust, picking up a few other people who didn't have anywhere
to go and headed north. Someone said the tower had collapsed. I didn't
believe it, until we got a bit farther north and could only see one tower.
I was stunned. I'd been telling people that it was built to sustain a hit from
a large jet, and yet, apparently, this huge, quarter of a mile high structure
had just disintegrated.

Partway to my co-worker's apartment in the Village, the second tower
collapsed.

We watched in shock on TV for a bit, then headed out to do something, anything.
There were already too many blood donors, so we just sat in Central
Park. It was surreal. Beautiful day. People jogging, babies playing.
But the World Trade Center, the place I'd walked through twice a day,
five days a week for three+ years was gone.

The Exchange lost 5 people, three of which I knew. They were all at a
breakfast meeting at Windows on the World. Our church lost one person.
I've had to explain to Ellie that the father of one of her friends is
gone, and explain to Sammy why a bad person would ram a plane into
those buildings. We could see them from our neighborhood here in Jersey;
it was the landmark the kids used to know where I was. Other neighborhoods
are hit far worse. I have friends who have lost several people from their blocks
or from social groups they are in.

I don't think the full effects have really hit everyone yet. It's
a huge gap torn from the fabric of life out here. The people, the
landmarks, travel, and the economy. I'm sure we can't even predict
the changes that will hit the country. I talk to family and friends in the
midwest, and some of them talk about the rousing songs on the radio,
and the urge for revenge. I really haven't heard anyone here talk about
that too much. We're all just tired. Exhausted.
posted by David Wren-Hardin at 7:57 PM

We went to the American Museum of Natural History today and went to the planetarium. Tom Hanks narrated the show, which basically told us that the universe is really, really big.
posted by David Wren-Hardin at 6:15 PM

Has our society become too irresponsible for the second amendment?

I've long believed that the right to bear arms is a fundamental underpinning of our society. The final responsibility for defending the country or overthrowing a despotic government rests with the people.

But tonight at dinner, I found it hard to defend a society that has become so careless with this responsibility and a gun lobby that cannot get behind something so simple as child safety locks. In the past, the fear was that a government would subvert a society by first confiscating its weapons, rendering it powerless. I feel to a large extent we've already abdicated that right in exchange for a placid acceptance of the status quo and a false sense of security.

posted by David Wren-Hardin at 8:40 PM

It's New Years Eve, 2000, and I'm snowed in.

Well, not really snowed in; the roads are sorta plowed, but it certainly is an effort to get out and around. I was supposed to fly to Indianapolis yesterday to meet Andrea and the kids, but New Jersey, or my little corner of it, got almost two feet of snow. So after a fun filled day of hanging out at the Newark Airport, I dug my car out of long term parking and headed home.

Now it's the next day, and I've surfed the net, drank coffee, set up the Tivo, drank coffee, played some computer games (Shogun, Asheron's Call), drank coffee, logged into TIM, read email, and finally, finished a pot of coffee.

After all this productive work, it became apparent that I needed something else to do, and that thought collided with the realization that my basic homepage was woefully out of date. So I've decided to turn it into a log. Pare it down a bit. We'll see how it works out.
posted by David Wren-Hardin at 10:49 AM