I was awakened up by my father saying something about my car being broken into. I didn’t get what he was talking about as I was in a fairly deep sleep. The reality finally hit me and I got some clothes on and went outside. Sure enough, my radio was gone, and the dome light had been removed as to make sure no one saw what they were doing. The car, a 1991 Dodge Shadow convertible, was unlocked - you’d think that after 3yrs of owning it I would remember to lock it everytime I park it - nope.

The police came and gave their standard speech about finding and returning it blah blah blah. I took my mother’s truck into work that morning. Now, work at the time came in the form of a co-op at Harris RF Communications - possibly the best job I’ve had. It was my second day of work and I was not having a good day. I went in and took my seat in the test lab and began reading documentation.

I really had no idea what my boss was talking about when he said a plane hit the twin towers - he thought it may be a prank as he heard it from someone else. We all tried to get to our favorite news sites but millions of Americans were doing the same thing. Even the Internet was attacked that day - by people simply trying to figure out what the hell was happening in the city that never sleeps. Finally someone brought a TV to a foyer area. The reception was bad, as we were 1/2 underground in a sort of raised basement. We turned the TV on, adjusted the rabbit ears and we all saw the tower smoking. Before we could absorb the images we were seeing, the second plane came.

It was ridiculously quiet. I had just met half these people a day ago. The other half, I didn’t know. Still, it didn’t matter. We were all in our own world trying to figure out the events that day.

The week following, the TV remained in the foyer area. We would watch it when there was some downtime. Getting updates. All the news sites came back online about a day later and it seemed the editors could not update their sites fast enough - there was just too much to tell in this attack.

So that’s where I was on September 11th, 2001 - where were you?

I knew leaving work and heading toward the lovable and huggable I-490 at 5:10pm was not the best idea. I didn’t think it would be the WORST idea, however. Firstly, the entire traffic ordeal yesterday was partly my fault as I abandoned 490E for city streets - I at least thought that would be a good idea - uh..no.

I discovered that upon my entrance to 490, it greeted me with taillights almost immediately. Not a fan, I stayed in the exit only lane for Goodman, where I typically get my little car far beyond the speed limit in an attempt to…speed…? I see no sign of movement on 490 so I get off at Goodman - and so begins the chaos. I wanted to turn left onto Clinton and I did, but not before being called a “Stupid Ass” buy a guy walking his children through traffic - uh I believe you are the one who’s ass is below an intelligent level, my friend. There’s a crosswalk - I’m sure you kids would have much preferred that than meandering through cars about ten feet away from said crosswalk. Granted, I was squeeling the ole tires a bit - comes with the fun of owning a manual. Tire noise > car horn, too.

Clinton is relatively empty for about 200ft, then MORE cars (seriously, did everyone leave work at once?) I am still coming down from the whole “stupid ass” comment…slowly realizing the irony I explained above. Clinton begins to move from the dead stop and I finally get to Westfall - hey, lookit that - MORE traffic. Westfall is pretty much a cattle drive - slow moving and no one has any idea why. I suspect someone needed to turn left and the rest had no where to go.

I typically leave work at the usual 5:00pm and luckily my commute is not nearly as long as the drive I just described - I was heading to a The Fidurko’s house to see how construction was coming (that place stank of the American Dream ;)).  Anyway, I’ve never seen so much traffic so widespread throughout Rochester.  Maybe I’ve been out of the loop on traffic, given my short commute, but my god - it was insane.  There were small parking lots littering the streets.  The fact that it was inescapable was kinda weird too - never really happened to me before.

Copyright Dan B (aka jedipherous).

This is primarily a test of my flickr photostream/wordpress integration - seeing how it works.

That, and I wanted to comment on how I thought the scores on this weren’t the greatest - you never know with the Score Me! group - four 9’s followed by a 5 isn’t too surprising…

Well, after days of speculation, I made the leap to Word Press. Thus far, I find it much faster than Serendipity - very good stuff. I hope to incorporate some flickr stuff into here as well, but I plan on having a separate portfolio soon (maybe?). I’ll keep the Gallery up, but it won’t be updated, only my flickr photostream will be (easier = good)

So yes, I’m a happy wordpress’r now - below you will notice that my prior posts didn’t show up very well at all…soo..yea, not sure what I’m going to do about that - may just ditch em, start anew!

Well, NIN rocked the Blue Cross Arena last night.  We met up with Jim and others at their friend’s place in Corn Hill.  Gave us a preview of the townhouses there.  Not sure they’d suit our needs so I think we’ll pass (though their place was really nice - they certainly made it a very nice home!).  We got there in time to have a beer and crack open a bottle of 99 Apples.  Quite the tasty beverage. 

The Blue Cross Arena is a really nice place to have a concert.  NIN put on a great show.  It was my first time seeing them, as I’ve never really listened to a ton of their stuff…and I have no idea why.  I liked pretty much every song they played.  

Met up with Neeti and Dan at Nathaniel’s for a drink and a few NIN songs on the stereo at the bar.  One guy when nuts (looked like a spastic 5yr old with a beard) when a NIN song came on…at second glance I realized he was an idiot, so it was okay.   

Now for something completely different…

I’ve been trying to keep up-to-date with a blog that I stumbled across recently.  View from the Sidewalk is a blog of a guy who was recently evicted and decided to share his story.  I really appreciate him telling his story and all of his posts are a good read.  He goes against nearly all the stereotypes that society and other homeless people help to create and feed.  I know, I know, society never makes up stereotypes…society is perfect.  Anyway, the blog has gotten some positive attention (as it should).

Ah…lost my train of thought, so I’ll qoute one of my idols, Mr. Maury Povich :  "Till next time America!"