sitting at the desk looking at the mountains (ok the hills) thinking I should be there. A Dad, a life, a windsurfer, a startup guy

From my cousin. Unedited, stream of consciousness from a California guy on his second full day working in the buildling next to WTC: "I went to the office because jim was there and he said that they were not evacuating...and at the time, the news didn’t really say what was going on....they said that they didn’t even stop subway service...so I didn’t want to just play hooky on my second day of real work. I actually could hear the first plane hit the building and it sounded at first like a whistling sound like a bomb was coming down and then an explosion. Then when I was walking down Broadway, there were nonstop ambulances and police cars and it was kind of chaotic. I could hear and FEEL the second plane that crashed into it. People were running around and screaming and I even stepped over a pile of blood on the street...more blood than I had ever seen. I was still trying to get to work because honestly, I didn’t know what was going on. I got to Merrill and by that time they had already evacuated and then I was trying to get home and started to walk and like 60 seconds later I looked up and even more smoke was billowing out and you could hear and smell the fire and creaking. So I started walking faster and faster until all of a sudden, I looked up and the first building was just beginning to look like it was going to fall. Merrill is RIGHT across the street from the world trade...they are connected. If it fell straight down towards me...it would have taken my life. I started sprinting away from it and towards the water. There was this white dust/debris and smoke everywhere...you could not really even see. It looked like it was snowing and really foggy and was hard to breathe. I was running and made it to the water. Then I was going to let things die down before I tried to make it back home because home is back towards the middle of the island and into the chaos. So I stood next to the railing on the water and waited for a few minutes and it was awful to see...I could literally SEE PEOPLE flying off and out of the top of the building and slowly floating down. Then it started to come down too. The debris started coming towards us and then they brought all of these ferries from the harbor over to us, because a bunch of people from Merrill that got out were stranded on this little nook and the debri kept coming towards us....the policemen started to help us all jump onto the ferry off the edge of the island to escape the smoke and debris. I jumped on this boat right before it left and then it took me across the river to Jersey...that is where I am right now. In this town called Hoboken....some really nice people just saw me and took me to their house here and that is what I am doing now. I don’t know how or when I can get back to Manhattan. But I am safe here definitely. I will try every so often to call out...but there really is no service, even with the fixed phone lines. Pretty traumatic though. I was frantic for a while...I could have died and so could of lot of other people that I know. I will try to call. Dave"
posted Monday, September 17, 2001

A city copes with a terrible absence
posted Friday, September 14, 2001

Funny how being a Dad makes you see things differently. I feel deeply protective of my son this week, and want to keep him away from all the horrific sights and sad words that have filled the ether. I gather, now, that what I did intuitively is the right thing to do. Amid all the articles I've been reading - devouring - to try to understand this weeks events, two stand out. One is from Mike Cassidy at the Merc and another is about the man of the moment, outgoing mayor Guiliani. This man has presence and he's got soul.
posted Friday, September 14, 2001

Happy birthday Van! They played Days Like This on kfog this morning on my way to work. Made my day! I want it on an endless loop, or better still a button on my Handspring that I can press to get instant good vibe. I remember the day Van sang that in Belfast on one of the many days we all thought peace would break out. It was a glorious, if short lived, triumph for the forces of compassion, compromise and reality. Gods bless you Van.
posted Friday, August 31, 2001

I bought a domain name yesterday. kilcrohane.org. Not much demand for it ;-} Actually I wanted kilcrohane.com, but it was taken by Eileen Spillane, who runs the rental cottages in Kilcrohane, Co. Cork. Kilcrohane is where my father was born, and is a very, very special place (although when the clouds are low and grey and it's been raining for 3 days straight it doesn't seem that way). My uncle, also Frank, wrote a book about Kilcrohane which I'm hoping to publish on my site when I get it online. The story of Kilcrohane will probably never make it to HBO, but it's typical. My uncle also wrote a book about the O'Mahonys, tracing their heritage back a couple of hundred years, and including the diaries of my grandfather, also Frank (!), who spent a harrowing year on a ranch in Wyoming. Great story. I hope to get it published in a few months.
posted Tuesday, August 28, 2001

Roar of disapproval for SFO runway expansion plans. "One of the things about throwing dirt in the bay is it's nonreversible," said Richard Zimmerman of the Sierra Club's Loma Prieta chapter. "Why not try to solve the problems quicker and smarter without doing anything destructive?"
posted Tuesday, July 31, 2001

This whole weblog writers referencing weblog writers thing is getting ridiculous. They thought Smart Tags was interruptive? This is insane! Can't you just finish a thought without snarfing somebody elses?
posted Monday, July 30, 2001

Apart from his urbanity and fine deportment, your scribe is also, according to Deborah Branscum's delicious weblog "a funny & smart Irish person and communications whiz who hasn't completely lost his accent" Honored! (I think)
posted Monday, July 30, 2001

psst! wanna buy my 2001 Limited Edition PT Cruiser? It's Acquamarine and LOADED! Just 6500 city miles. $24,000 or best closest offer. Send an email to mailto:frank@omahony.com or phone me at (650) 475 9304
posted Tuesday, July 03, 2001

And another thing. This is not San Francisco's Bay. It's OUR bay! I do not accept that the South Bay's recreation areas have to be ravaged just so San Francisco residents can get to LAX three times an hour...
posted Wednesday, June 13, 2001

Save The Bay: Threats: SFO Expansion Time to talk about what REALLY makes me mad. Filling in the Bay for another runway. As a windsurfer and water lover I find this appalling. There are lots of other ways to mediate the SFO problems - the most obvious is to make the every 20 minute shuttle to LAX happen once or twice an hour. That would save a ton of slots. Read on....
posted Wednesday, June 13, 2001

OJR J.D.'s Web Watch: Blogging as a Form of Journalism
posted Friday, May 25, 2001

So much to say about Douglas Adams, who died on Friday at 49. Apart from being almost frighteningly smart, engaging and erudite he was a nice guy. We worked together a little when I worked for Apple UK (he was an unreconstructed Mac bigot) and he helped me with the press launch of Jean Louis Gassee's 'portable' in London. He did a wonderful job and although at the height of his h2g2 fame, was gracious and accomodating. And a great guitar player to boot. And a collector of technology and gadgets par excellence. We bumped into each other at conferences several times since then, and we shared pictures of his little girl, who's around the same age as my son. He was so proud of her. What a loss. Michael Bywater, another Mac bigot and Douglas' neighbour and buddy, wrote a thoughtful piece in the Independent about Douglas. The BBC has put up a complete list of obits and tributes to Douglas. As a writer and flack, my favorite Douglas quote is "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by". An English friend of mine had this to say today: "I will always remember how amazing it was when I tuned in to World Service in 1970-something expecting the news and got the opening of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy instead. It quite blew me away. He's brought me more pleasure than probably any other writer." So long Douglas, as many have said today, and thanks for all the fish.
posted Monday, May 14, 2001

Sitting here listening to Janice Long playing great music on the BBC. Isn't life grand?
posted Monday, April 23, 2001

Yesterday I went to a warehouse in Mountain View full of old computers. No news there, but this building is the genesis of what I think will be the most visited destination in Silicon Valley in a few years. It's the Computer History Museum, currently housed in a couple of old warehouses on Moffett Field. They have stuff there that'd blow your mind. A valve-driven monstrosity designed to track Russian nuke bombers as they came over the US - 500 valves, specially designed for this machine to last 5000 hours instead of the 50 hours they previously lasted for. A late 1800's census machine, complete with dials and punchcards. A slew of original DEC Vax machines, which volunteers have spent countless hours to get working again. Original Macs, original Peanuts original Atari 800s, original Nomad touring bikes.... They're only showing about 5% of what they've got. It's going to be stunning when the building is completed as part of the NASA Ames research park in about 2005. Check it out, and if you're in the area, pay them a visit!
posted Thursday, April 19, 2001

First let me say I'm delighted about the Blogger/Trellix deal. I've never met Ev or Dan, but they seem like two of the few upstanding good guys left in this business, and it's great to see them together.
posted Thursday, April 19, 2001

Is it my imagination or has the traffic gone down on 101? This morning I heard several people mention it. Could this be the dotcom downturn dividend?
posted Monday, April 02, 2001

Whoah! I can't believe it's been so long since I wrote one of these! I was working for a public company for the past while, as their spokesperson in chief, so I just didn't feel right spillin' my guts out here while painting the lipstick on the pig over there. Now I'm working for a private company again, so nothing I say here will be of any consequence. Anyway, here I sit in Silicon Valley where the sun rises and sets just like it always has, but everything else is totally different. "Nuclear winter" is a bit strong, but there are certainly a lot of fried brains walking around, wondering what happened to the party, man? Tax time is harrowing this year for those dotcommers who didn't heed the fine 3 word advice of my financial planner - Same Day Sale. If you have to have that explained to you, don't worry about it. Just be glad you don't have the urge to tattoo it on your forehead.
posted Friday, March 30, 2001

No white knight for APBnews.com APBNEWS - oh yeah, that was when content was king - last year sometime, wasn't it? Great site: sorry to see it go. o tempora, o mores
posted Sunday, August 27, 2000

Just finished the story of the Lost Colony at Roanoke. Fascinating! Talk about turns of fate.
posted Sunday, August 27, 2000