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What were you doing September 11, 2001?

September 11, 2001. It’s one of those infamous days in human history where just about everyone can tell you exactly what they were doing when it happened or when they heard the news. Just like the Challenger disaster (January 28, 1986), or Columbia (February 1, 2003), or JFK (November 22, 1963). I wasn’t around for JFK though.

I remember vividly what I was doing that day. It started off as a normal routine day, as it probably would have for anyone else. I had a couple of bone density units to survey that morning. I recall walking around the department, making my daily rounds. As I was finishing up, I happened to walk by one of the waiting rooms where for some reason everyone was clustered around the TV. It was a news report about how a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. My first thoughts were “Holy crap. Bad bad accident”.

It wasn’t a terrorist event yet. Just a tragic accident, a plane gone out of control and hitting the WTC. Went back down to my office to grab my equipment to start my surveys. Sent my wife a text message to her cell phone saying a plane had crashed into the WTC. She was in class at the time, but being from NYC I knew she’d want to hear about it. Then headed back up to Ultrasound where the bone density unit was.

There were even more people clustered around the TV now, and more events had unfolded. I remember telling the bone density tech asking me what was going on. Told her about the plane crashing into the WTC. Everyone was glued to the TV, but I had work to get done, so I set up the scanner. While I was waiting for it to start up, the news came that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. It was certainly shaping up to be a very odd day. What are the chances that two planes would crash into buildings on the same day…the same morning even.

Then, while I was testing, reports of the second plane hitting the other WTC tower were broadcast, and I started thinking that these were no accidents. After I finished, I went back down to my office, unloaded my stuff and went back upstairs to the TV. Watched the news for a little while longer and then headed off to see what other people were saying.

I didn’t see the towers collapse until I saw the news after I got home. Everyone was buzzing that day. I don’t remember what happened with the rest of my afternoon. I think I spent it talking with other people about what happened. All the news sites on the web were slow, or not responding, so there wasn’t any info there.

My wife took the rest of the day off after she received my message. The rest of our evening was spent glued to various news stations watching the aftermath of the disaster. For several days after, the news was about all we watched. There was much speculation about who was behind the attack and why. The rest I guess is history.

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Productive day

After being busy with other things the past couple of months, time for me to start whittling down the list of x-ray equipment I need to get tested by the end of the year. Spend a couple of months doing pretty much nothing except testing, then take the next couple of months to work on other projects. I do this maybe 4 or 5 times throughout the year to break up the monotony of doing all the annual surveys. With all the side projects I keep coming up for me to do, I find this works out better for me instead of spacing out all the testing evenly through the year. The breaks between equipment testing give me some time to work on projects and research. Makes getting back to testing easier too, after taking a break.

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Stick figures

Go check out the Stick Figure Death Theatre site. There are some hilariously funny animations of stick figures getting disposed of in all sorts of ways. Some are Flash movies, others are animated GIFs. Some are a riot to watch, others are rather cheesy. But all in all, it’s an amusing place to check out if you have time to kill.

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How Old is Your Inner Child?

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I’m off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don’t understand.

How Old is Your Inner Child? brought to you by Quizilla

My wife is always complaining that I do silly things and never act my age. 🙂

Found at geekgrrl.com

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Observations of drivers

Ok, show of hands, who really likes driving?

Me, I hate driving. Especially city driving. Well, at the very least, it’s not very high on my list of preferred activities.

Why is it that some people turn into ignorant inconsiderate boobs when the seal themselves into their cars/SUVs/trucks?

After driving around here for a while, I’ve decided that while the roads are decidedly better than they were in Detroit, the drivers are not.

A few things I’ve observed in my four years of driving around here. Some of these are probably not unique to here, but I’ve noticed them more than other places.

  1. Most people don’t use turn signals. Apparently, this area has a large population of people who become telepathic once they get into their cars. So instead of using turn signals, they just transmit their thoughts to other drivers around them. Or else they think everyone else becomes telepathic in their cars, and should be able to read their mind to find out when they’re turning.
  2. When you use your turn signal, the person behind you in the lane you’re changing into seems to take it as a personal offense and speeds up so you can’t change lanes. They seem to think you’re trying to move in on their territory, or that you’re trying to get ahead of them in a race.
  3. The minimum speed is usually around 5-15 mph over the posted speed limit. A lot of times, this usually ends up in the speeders making it to the red light a couple of seconds before I do. It’s not like they’re getting to their destination any faster.
  4. Tailgaters. Plenty of those around here. Even though I might be cruising down the interstate at 70 (10 mph over the posted limit), it’s still not fast enough for a lot of people around here. So they run up behind you and stay there until you have to slow down for the traffic ahead, or move over. Then they zoom ahead at 80, only to have to slow down for the slower traffic ahead. Sometimes I think people around here all think they’re NASCAR drivers or something.
  5. People around here always seem to be in a rush. Once they get into their car, it’s like they have to get to their destination yesterday. So they weave in and out of traffic, flip back and forth between lanes so that they’re closest to the light.
  6. Accidents. Every day, there’s always an accident. And usually they happen in the same place or the same area. Pay attention people!
  7. The mistaken belief that other drivers are telepathic also leads to the problem that very few people do shoulder checks before changing lanes. More than a few times I’ve almost been broadsided by someone who didn’t bother to check if anyone was beside them before changing lanes. Oh, but I forgot…I’m supposed to be telepathic, so I should have read the other person’s mind to know that he was going to change lanes.
  8. There are a lot of on and off-ramps on the interstate here where people are merging. People already on the interstate apparently think that those trying to merge on don’t deserve to be there, so they don’t let anybody merge, forcing prospective highway drivers to slow down or stop and wait for a long enough break to get on. Of course this causes traffic to back up behind the prospective highway driver. The new highway driver, once on the interstate, takes a while to accelerate to highway speeds, so the person barreling down behind him is forced to slow down, causing the rest of highway traffic to slow down.
  9. Usually when it rains here, it really rains. Sheets of rain. Buckets and buckets. Plenty of roads flood, and there are plenty of areas where water pools pretty deep. I frequently get passed by people going way over the speed limit, while I’ve slowed down because rain has reduced visibility to less than 2 car lengths. Apparently in the world they live in it’s not raining like it is in my world.

Ok, I guess that’s enough ranting for now.