9/11

I'm not patriotic.

There were always two words of the Pledge of Allegiance I could never bring myself to utter.

Had I been in a voting state, I would have never voted for Bush, regardless of my 'Texan' background.

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Where was I on the dreaded nine/eleven? I remember I was eating breakfast before going to work at HPCf. I had the news on (CNN) and remember seeing a video clip of Dubya at a Florida elementary school while hearing something about the Twin Towers ... reporters were waiting for an announced press conference by Bush ... I wasn't sure what was going on yet. As I was driving to work, I was listening to an AM news radio station and heard more information about an attack that was going underway. By the time I made it to the lab, both towers had fallen. Not much work was done that day -- I think we just tried to access any news webpage. Thanks to our Internet2 connection, we occasionally made it to CNN, and it was usually just text (for quicker upload). Being the computer geek I thought I was back then, while browsing /., that was the first time I had heard about (or read, for that matter) Bin Laden!

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I watched Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 this evening. Nostalgic? No. Reflecting? I guess. I had forgotten about the content of the film. The clip at the beginning of the film of members of the Congressional Black Caucus venting about the election's outcome and not having a Senator's signature is still very moving.