OK. Got it. You were born on 9/11/1969 Red wouldn't have got that one. You're mot famous so it's probably not googleable.
By the way, Happy Birthday. It's still September 11 on the west coast so have one of the state drinks of California on me. Either a Napa Valley Chardonnay with a woody taste and a delicate fruity bouquet or a shot of Mexican tequila
My wife's company lost 87 people that day. World Trade Center 2 and the plane hit 1 floor below their offices. When the San Fran Giants went to play the Mets and Yankees end of season a few years back we went and spent the week in Manhattan. Museum was finished but not open But the pools were done .Those fire fighters and police knew going into that building could be their last breath and went in anyway. Her company moved to Rockefeller Plaza and they have a memorial to those people in the entrance to their offices. How you can go there and not be changed. In such a tragic event people helped each other. No greater love is when someone gives their life to help another. I got a 911 flag when I was there. It is in my LSU room. I will never forget that day.
I had tickets to see the Astros play the Giants that day. Barry Bonds was chasing the HR record and we had seats in the right field bleachers with the hope that maybe we could catch a homerun ball from that historic, as-we-now-know steroid induced, pursuit. I woke up and got in the shower as we were planning to leave several hours early to eat and have some drinks before we entered the stadium. When I got out of the shower I passed by the TV, which was still on CNN from the night before, and that is when I saw the footage of the first plane crashing into the WTC. I watched the second one hit live and remember thinking, "we ain't going to watch baseball today!" A buddy of mine who was supposed to go to the game with me that day, showed up just second after the second plane hit and we spent the rest of the day watching all of the footage along with other friends. Stunned. I will never forget that day. God bless those who lost their lives and those they left behind.
I have always wondered about the length of time between when the hero passengers of Flight 93 overcame the terrorists and when the plane crashed. Was it just a couple of minutes or longer? If they had had even 15 0r 20 minutes maybe somebody could have gotten on the radio and with as many passengers as there were on the plane maybe at least one of them had some kind of flight training and could have been talked into a safe landing. Maybe that time interval information was on the black box flight recorder.
I was flying to Las Vegas about 3 weeks after for my birthday and in San Jose Airport a woman about 12 people in line ahead of me set off a can of pepper spray preparing to go through security. Military people with machine guns came from everywhere and we were all overcome coughing from the pepper spray. It was crazy people were screaming and laying on the ground. They locked down airport for about 45 minutes and then resumed flights. People were nervous flying and rightly so I guess. Planes high in the air are definitely at risk and every person that steps on one has to be aware even today. TSA is just a smoke screen to me. I went through security with a box knife that I use for work in my briefcase one time.
A little jackass at my daughter's high school thought it would be fun to play a 9/11 "prank" and made a call to 911 saying there was a gun in the building. Everyone was on lockdown for over two hours in the middle of the day while the police scoured the building (and it's enormous, by the way) for said weapon. Ultimately, nothing was found and it was determined to be a hoax, but my daughter said it was really scary with it being 9/11, especially. The police did go in with guns blazing into the classroom of the jackass (since he'd placed the 911 call from his cell phone) and arrested him right there. Turns out, we knew who the kid was because my daughter went to preschool with him. And he was a little badass back then, too.
A couple of weeks ago I saw about 20 police cars headed the opposite direction as me. Found out the next day somebody working in the hospital had heard a door slam and thought it wals a gunshot and called 911. SWAT team and cops surrounded the entrance to the emergency room
