One Week Later...

Wow. I looked at that last post and realized the date of it was 9/11. I was so wrapped up in my own life that I completely forgot the significance of the day. I acknowledged the anniversaries of the date in years past but there had been lead up stories on the radio or other reminders (such as the one year I was travelling in Asia on business and my travelling colleague didn't want to be flying on 9/11 so we scheduled our flight for 9/12 but due to the International Date Line it turned out we were flying on what was still 9/11 in the US). This year I think the stories and anger about Katrina just pushed it out of my mind.

On 'the' 9/11 I had just dropped my kids off at school. When I took them to school usually the radio was off or tuned to one of the kid's stations. I think it must have been off that morning because once I got out of the school parking lot I remember turning on to NPR and catching the announcer in the middle of saying something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. This turned out to be the first plane. I called home and my SO turned on the TV and said I might not want to go into the office right away, so I came home. When I got there we sat transfixed and stunned by the images. I eventually called into work where I was told I could come in or not depending on what I wanted to do. I decided to go in later in the day. There was an emergency call center being set up and I wanted to be there to help, which I did get to do. We had clients and sales people who could have been with those clients, at the Towers. I was one of the people making sure that any temps or contractors we had on assignment anywhere in the world were accounted for. It turned out that the temporary staffing company that runs our company temp staffing program lost people there that day although with other clients. It was heartbreaking nonetheless as that same company had been my former employer and I was still close to many of the people there.

I'm not going to try and compare responses to these two events or even say anything else about my feelings about 9/11, others have done much better. However, I will say that I had mixed feelings when I saw in the news that there are some who feel that New Orleans will start to see returning business and tourism around the New Year. I know that many of those who lost their homes and livelihoods were employed in the tourist and service industry and won't have jobs to come back to until tourism picks up but I have a nagging feeling that those insensitive idiots who likened Katrina to 'urban renewal' will end up as having been prophetic.

I'll be writing about my week in Anaheim over at ohdawno.org sometime soon. One thing I'll note is that as we left the Anaheim Convention Center Marriott we found ourselves surrounded by a large group of Republicans. Turns out Arnold was going to be there too, but we were headed to the airport. I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or relieved. I will say that some Orange County Republican women wear really scary outfits all covered in red white and blue stars and have big hair. I thought I was in Texas.

BTW, anyone who might be interested in getting an email notice when I update either blog, I think I can set that up. I know it's great that I can get them from a couple of blogs I frequent, so if you're like me and want that just let me know in comments or you can email me at ebil(dot)librarian(at)gmail(dot)com.