This won’t be one of those maudlin 9/11 remembrance journal entries. Those that know me know that I don’t give in to those sorts of things. Instead, I want to show you all a journal entry I wrote in a blank book the day it all happened.

I was living in Texas, working for Dell. I got a bit of a lazy start to my day, and booted up my computer to see what was going on, making sure my late-start wasn’t going to ruffle any feathers. Immediately, a coworker grabbed me on IM.

Tony: Are you watching TV?
Fraize: No. What’s going on?
Tony: Turn on CNN. A plane just hit the World Trade Center.

I turned on the TV, and what I saw was incredible. The building was obviously on fire, and smoke was pouring out of the blackened windows. Moments after I turned the set on, fire blossomed from the second tower in what I thought at the time was a secondary explosion. It turned out to be the second plane.

I sat transfixed by what was going on. I remember my first thought was “Idiots probably tried to inspect the first tower with a fly-by and hit the second.” It wasn’t until later that the news anchors began to filter out the details. I documented what I saw and heard for the rest of the day in my handwritten journal.

—-

Tuesday, Sept 11, 2001

Unbelievable. I was about to take a shower when a co-worker contacted me this morning to tell me to turn on CNN. I did, and the world trade center in New York City was burning. Supposedly, a 757 was hijacked and purposefully crashed into one tower. 18 minutes later, another plane crashed into the other tower. There is smoke pouring out of both buildings. They have footage from a couple of angles of the second plane hitting the building.
Just in, the Pentagon is burning! The heliport at the ‘Gon was bombed just moments ago! I am in absolute shock! Some reports say it was a plane that crashed into the Pentagon. What’s next, the Washington Monument?

The FAA has stopped all take offs in the entire US.

A major piece of one of the buildings just peeled away¹. There is smoke everywhere. It looks like the second building is gone! Tom Brokaw thinks that the World Trade Center buildings will have to come down.

The one building collapsed! I’m numb. Pat works in one of the buildings². She wasn’t there, but we don’t know how far she was when the building collapsed.

A car-bomb has exploded at the state department³. Another plane has been hijacked and is about 20 miles from DC. The entire area has been evacuated.

Scenes from the Pentagon are horrific. Black shattered walls… The death-toll, at the end oft his will be in the hundreds. Thousands!

“Any pedestrians near the Pentagon, take cover immediately.”

The second tower just collapsed! Absolutely unreal. I wonder if George Bush feels at all responsible.

F-16’s are flying over Washington D.C. Fighters over Manhattan.

Reports of a plane down in Pittsburgh. No confirmation.

The Pentagon is burning out of control. The Military is at it’s highest alert status “Delta.”

The Pitsburgh plane appears to have crashed in a field. It seems the only ones lost were on the plane.

Estimated Death toll, 10,000.

People will ask, “Where were you when…?” I was at home, about to take a shower.

—
1 – I watched the 2nd tower fall, though there was so much smoke, it looked like the sides of the building were peeling away in sheets. It wasn’t until the smoke and dust began to settle that I realized I could see the sky behind where the building used to be.

2 – My mother-in-law, Pat, worked at the World Trade. We were worried about her, and had a hard time reaching her. Finally, she was able to call in and say she was fine. Later, we discovered that, completely uncharacteristically, she overslept and never made it to the tower that morning.

3 – One of the reports that turned out to be entirely wrong. This story freaked me out because my mother and father worked not far from the state department and Executive building. I finally did hear from them that they were ok, but getting hold of them was challenging.

—
What’s interesting is how the news was the only way anybody could get information. There was no twitter feed, and no Facebook status updates to get on-the-scene reports. The news anchors did their best, though, talking over each other, interrupting each other, and parroting what they were hearing – even the uncorroborated stories.

Ten years later, I still remember the addiction to information. Any new story I could hear, I’d hunt it down – sharing with coworkers over instant messenger. Now I realize the kind of panic that can create, but the helpless feeling I got from not feeling like I knew everything was unnerving.

I also recall how clear and quiet the skies were the week after the attacks. With all flights grounded, I can’t recall ever seeing the skies so blue, bright and sparkling clear of contrails. An odd counterpoint to the unease felt on the ground.

Heather pointed me towards an article the other day. According to a Harvard study, the older people get, the harder it is to remember things. This should come as no surprise to anybody, however the reason given for this particular study was that the older test-subjects were distracted by the noisiness of the testing equipment.

This study gives me a great deal of pause. I have noticed that my own memory just isn’t what it used to be. I have trouble remembering names with faces – even somebody I’ve known for years or worked side-by-side with in my office. Last week I struggled to recall the last name of my office roommate! I chalked it up to fatigue (I was pulling a very late night at the time).

I’ve compensated as things have gotten worse – writing things down I need to remember. Relying on lists and tools to help me keep track of work, etc. Still, these are crutches, and I need to really work on my brain. Pushups and crunches for the cerebellum. It worries me because I’m watching my grandfather – a man who fought at the Battle of the Bulge – slowly forget everybody around him. It’s hard to watch this proud man smile, shake your hand and say “nice to meet you” to his grandson.

So, I’m working on it. I’m trying to turn off my twitter feed at work, read my email not as it arrives, but at scheduled polled intervals. I try to keep my instant messaging off. Other studies have shown how distractions and interruptions prevent “chunks” of memory from being transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory, and it’s that study that give me the most hope.

I’m an information junkie. I get a rush knowing that I’m among the first people to know something has happened, so I keep news feeds constantly beeping at me – twitters, email dings, RSS feeds, live facebook updates… I don’t always read every blip that goes by, but I look at them all. It’s that constant distraction, I think, that makes my memory full of swiss-cheese holes, and by eliminating, or at least minimizing them, will only help.

It’ll be tough weaning myself from distraction. That rush I get from learning something new, as it happens and before anybody else, is difficult to fight, but I’ll do my best.

The Arizona legislature has come up with an interesting bit of political gamesmanship. There are those that think it’s just good policy, but when you break it down, it’s just politics. Damn good politics, if you ask me.

If you’re not reading the news, Arizona recently passed a law that gives state police a new ability to demand to see the immigration paperwork of anybody they think might be illegal. Their stated belief is that, since the Federal government is either unwilling or unable to take care of the problem of illegal immigration, the state of Arizona would have to step up and do the dirty work.

There are other statutes in the law that seem perfectly reasonable, but it’s the stopping-and-demanding-your-papers thing that is the real sticking point.

See, that flies directly in the face of the 4th Amendment. You know the 4th Amendment, right?

No? Well, let me spell it out for you.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but on probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The distilled version, applicable here, is cops can’t stop you and demand to see your ID for any reason unless you’re presenting them with specific evidence that a crime has been committed. And, before you ask – no, “looking illegal” isn’t a good enough reason.

There was a specific challenge to the 4th regarding illegals. In USA vs. Martinez-Fuerte, the Supreme Court of 1976 ruled that Federal Immigration Officers in Southern California could operate a permanent immigration checkpoint. The majority said, however, that the ruling was in favor for only permanent immigration checkpoints, and nothing arbitrary or mobile.

Bottom line is, if this law comes to a supreme court challenge, which it will, it will get overturned instantly. A victory for civil libertarians, right?

Wrong. See, right or wrong, the American Right, currently typified by the Tea Party activists, is organizing, and they hate illegal immigration almost as much as they hate Obama. When they hear that the Supreme Court overruled Arizona’s righteous anti-immigration law, their reaction will be fast and sure.

They will absolutely lose their fucking shit.

So, what’s wrong with immigration checkpoints, anyway? Why is this such a big deal? Maybe you’re wondering why it’s such a terrible thing to just show your proof of citizenship should a police officer ask for one?

Let me paint a picture for you. Let’s say hi to Rich Weston, one of the greatest Americans I know. He was born in the UK, but worked hard and got his citizenship. Now, let’s say hi to Carlos Acosta. He’s dark skinned, English is his second language and speaks it with an accent, and was born in the Caribbean.

Rich won’t be stopped. Why? He’s white, affluent, and English. Carlos might though. Under this new law, a cop could stop him on the sidewalk and demand to see his papers. Oops, he left his wallet on his desk in the datacenter where he’s a highly paid consultant. The cop can then bring him in until his immigration status can be determined. They keep him in jail, but it’s Saturday night, and the judge doesn’t bang the gavel until Monday morning.

And we all know jail is an awesome place to spend the weekend.

Here’s the thing: Rich, while a citizen, was an immigrant. Carlos is latino, but was born in the Caribbean so… Oh, did I forget to mention? The Caribbean island he was born in was Puerto Rico, making him a natural born American citizen. So, oops. He gets to spend the weekend in jail because he looks like trouble.

If you like the Bill of Rights, you have to hate this law. It’s a totally reasonable thing to want this law rescinded, but we all have short attention spans and can’t be bothered to even be curious about Constitutional law. So, the mobilized and angry Tea Party will instead get figuratively up in arms about “activist judges” killing a perfectly reasonable law, and will only cement their view that the government doesn’t represent their views at all.

Failing to realize, of course, that they really do love the 4th amendment, and didn’t really want it marginalized. But by the time they elect the President they want, and he appoints the Supreme Court they want, it’ll be too late.

The elected Arizona legislature have to know that this law is unconstitutional. So, why bother making it law in the first place? Because they know the act of killing the law in the courts only improve their positions with conservatives. They’re either very clever political players, maneuvering the Obama administration into a difficult position, or they’re outrageously ignorant of our Constitution, and that scares me even more.

So, it’s a pickle! How to rightly kill this law without riling up the Teabaggers? Do we have the patience to teach them basic civics? Do they have the desire to learn it? Can this bell be un-rung?

Probably not.

It’s September 12th, and all sorts of Americans have converged on our nation’s capital to protest. Looking at their signs and shirt slogans, you’d believe they question the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s citizenship, their disagreement with the direction the health-care debate is going and the country’s perceived inexorable march towards socialism.

So, I became curious – it’s what intelligent people do when presented with information that they don’t understand. I started to research other countries. See what they do with their governments, their taxes, see what health-care systems they model, and what sort of consequences those choices have on their overall prosperity.

I chose Norway to compare against the United States, and what I discovered was very interesting.

First, let’s compare the political systems of Norway to the USA. We here in the US enjoy a representative democracy, currently run by the Democratic party. Norway is a constitutional monarchy with a parliament mostly run by the Socialist Left party. Gasp! Socialists! No doubt they’ve got a universal health-care system!

In fact, they do! Their health care system is 100% covered and paid for from tax revenue. There are waiting lists for some services – a hip-replacement, for example, can take 3 months before surgery. Certainly, they must have people dying left and right in Norway, right?

Wrong! Despite our short lines for health coverage, the quality is lower. Norway enjoys the 24th highest life expectancy in the world. USA rests comfortably at 50th place – just above Albania, though not as good as Bosnia.

To pay for universal health care, Norway’s highest individual income tax rate is upwards of 48%. Well, one might argue, because of all of this socialism and these expensive entitlement programs, Norway must have no incentive to work. They must have the laziest populace out there, right?

Wrong again. Norway’s GDP per capita is third highest in the world. USA with its highest rate at 38% sites sadly at sixth place.

Okay, so Norway beats us in productivity, health coverage and life expectancy, so surely their quality of life must be lower – bland and flattened due to this redistribution of wealth, right? Where’s the drive to achieve if there’s no chance to be rich?

To be a millionaire is surely every American’s dream! Unfortunately, you’d be better off in Norway. They have more millionaires per capita than the USA. Norway beats us with 1 millionaire per every 86 people while the US has 1 per 125.

Let’s sum up – Norway’s a Socialist country with universal health care, but they live longer, are more productive and have greater opportunities to be rich than here. So I’m left puzzled exactly why the right is so up in arms?

They say that the definition of insanity is yadda yadda blah blah you’ve heard it all before, but the final quarter of this year has been the most stressful time for me ever since I started working at ThinkGeek.

We are a retail store after all, and the Christmas shopping season requires an insane level of effort. We’re still trying to find more and more cool product, write copy for it, edit videos, all while maintaining inventory for all the products we already buy. Sales explode during this time, so extra attention is required to make sure we don’t run out of hot product.

This all translates into ten to fourteen hour days, barely leaving enough time to do my own holiday shopping. It’s no accident that many ThinkGeek employees give ThinkGeek product as Christmas gifts – it’s the easiest way to save time.

So why, when I’m already tearing my hair out with business, would I dare try and do NaNoWriMo again?

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is a shortening of “National Novel Writing Month,” where crazy people try to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Not impossible, but very very difficult. Last year, I was so buried in work that it was a fantastic relief to quit my NaNoWriMo attempt after 13,000 words. The year before, I successfully wrote over my 50k, but the resulting “novel” was so awful, I wouldn’t dare share it with anyone. This year, I have a killer idea and can’t wait to start writing.

I think that’s why people keep trying. My friend and coworker, Jamie, told me that when he envisions a character, they demand to be written. Once my idea formed in my head, the protagonist snapped nearly fully formed in my head, and I could see him tapping the glass between my imagination and my consciousness – “hey, buddy. Why aren’t you writing? It’s kinda bleak in here and I could use some toys to play with.”

So, yes – here’s my formal announcement. NaNoWriMo ’09 will be attempted again this year. God help me.

It was a good weekend, populated by two parts productivity, two parts slack, and one part food. Pour into a cocktail shaker with ice chips, shake vigorously, and pour into straight-sided glasses. Serve with a twist.

Saturday, we shocked ourselves by waking up at nearly 11:30am. This honestly never happens to me anymore!  I don’t think I’ve slept that late since I was in my twenties. I felt unbelievably lazy, and all the more fired up to get something useful accomplished.

Luckily, Heather was also in the mood for focus, so we went  to where our heads would be clear, the caffeine bottomless, and enough food to keep us there all day. Behold, the miracle of Panera!

We both brought our laptops. Heather organized her hundreds of photos from our recent Hawaii trip, and I went through a week’s worth of lectures and homework for my iPhone programming class. Having gotten through all my homework, I felt completely justified spending half the day Sunday playing Fallout 3.

Buffalo Mozzarella with Fresh Pineapple

Dinner tonight was pizza! My sister bought Heather and me a pizza-making kit, including a pizza stone, peel, and a dough-mix. It was quite a mess, but so totally worth it! Buffalo mozzarella, sauce, garlic, oregano, basil, and pineapple. Oh yeah, you just gotta have pineapple.

ZOMG, Star Trek. Star freaking Trek!

No, I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m super excited. My crazy – let me show you it.

Normally, I search out as many spoiler reviews as I can, even going so far as reading the novelization the day it comes out, from cover to cover, in a single sitting. I love knowing things before anybody else does. Makes me feel important, I guess. I’ll also watch every single trailer and commercial, frame by frame, looking for clues. I read the comic-book prequel, and came up with the best construct of a story I could from all the clues. Welcome to my insanity.

Last week, the soundtrack to the movie was released, and I’ve listened to it perhaps a half dozen times from beginning to end, and a few select tracks a half dozen more. I thought that, based on the track titles, and musical clues, I could get more clues about the story line. I thought I was right – I found a musical phrase in one of the later tracks that was eerily reminiscent to themes in other Trek movies. I thought that I heard a phrase from the scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan where Spock dies. Turns out I was totally wrong – the theme was similar to “Ilia’s Theme” from The Motion Picture. Still, I thought I was predicting the death of Spock. Again.

Now, I haven’t seen it yet. ThinkGeek is shutting down operations Friday to take the whole company out to see the movie. We’re even going to be wearing the same shirts! How wonderfully nerdy! I’ll be sure to post pictures. The theater has huge leather recliners, stadium seating, and seat-side service, which will make me feel like some Hollywood douchebag, but still more awesome than you.

If you know where that quote came from, you win +1 Rob Reiner points.

Hai, Intarwebs! It’s me, Fraize – though you may hardly recognize me since I’ve been so absent from the blogosphere. I blame Twitter. No, really – I do! I’ve found I get my blogging yayas out by hitting my Twitter page and microblogging there, so I don’t visit the old Fraize Dotcom very often at all.

I could write several incredibly long posts about the recent goings on, but instead, I’ll just keep to a modified Twitter theme, and post some bullet-point versions of my last few weeks.

• After Sarah’s wedding, Heather and I decided to use the same place, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Centreville, as the backdrop for our wedding and reception. It’s pretty, close by everybody, and very easy going and nice people there.
• I headed up to New York City for a few days for the New York Gift Fair – a convention of people showing off their stuff in hopes the mighty ThinkGeek will buy some of it.
• While I was there, I met with the supercool and hipster-thick Buglabs. Their outreach manager took me on a tour and showed me where the magic happens.
• After that meet and greet, I headed off to NYC Resistor, a colony of hackers, and got introduced into a fascinating world of art hacks and fun mechanical and electronic projects. It was inspirational! Now I want to join the DC area version, HacDC, and make my own Reprap!
• I was supposed to stay until Wednesday, but crappy weather forced me to sneak home a day early. I avoided the ice storm with about a half hour to spare.
• I’ve been playing with Windows 7 lately, and I really really like it.
• Our gas furnace, which had been leaking gas lately, got a brand new solenoid valve. Of course, being brand new didn’t make it free from defects, so that unit also leaks gas. No heat in the house but that which glows from our collection of electronics. Ambient house temp: 69 degrees.

My aunt Nadene surprised me last week with an Evite. “Mr. and Mrs. Michael Zuidema request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Sarah Elizabeth to James Garrett Whitt on Saturday the 17th of January 2009.”

I was quite surprised, needless to say! One week? How can they put together a wedding in just one week? What surprised me more was how well the wedding and reception came together with practically no notice. All credit goes to Nadene and her sister – my other aunt – Cheryl. It was Cheryl’s church, and her American Express card, I’m told, that threw the whole thing together.

Watching James and Sarah get married was so sweet – he’s in the Army, and wore his dress uniform, and Sarah’s dress was beautiful. James was very cool, and more goofy than I expected in a soldier. Meaning, of course, that he’ll get along great with the rest of my family. Goofballs, every last one of them.

Probably the funniest moment of the night was what I heard sotto from the grandparents’ table on the groom’s side. “Q: What was her name, again? A: Sarah.” Ah, the wondrous pitfalls of fastrack weddings!

You can go and check out all the photos from the wedding here, if you’re so inclined.

This is mostly for me, so I can watch the inaugural on Hulu, live, from work. You can enjoy it yourself on Tuesday January 20, of course.