Saturday, September 15, 02001
Had dinner with some Cisco people last night, and then crashed at their house to watch a movie. It was a nice evening, but I was exhausted the entire night, having gotten up at 5:30AM that morning. I drank A LOT of black tea during dinner to stay awake.
Today Bing and I saw the Pacific ocean. We headed West from Santa Rosa until we hit the water, and then headed south until we hit San Francisco. Some of the views were incrediable, but the road is incrediably twisty with steep drops, and Bing is a fast driver, so I spent most of my time gripping the dashboard hoping we didn't get into an accident. One beach we stopped at was covered with some sort of washed up vegatation that looked like some sort of Lovecraftian squid monster. Unfortunately I didn't bring a camera with me to California.
Once we were in San Francisco, we drove around for a while until we found Fisherman's Warf, parked and walked around there for a while. I'm assuming this was a mistake, because the Warf was not really that interesting at all, and it was cold and windy and we weren't very hungry. Everything seemed run down and gloomy. We were tired and bored after that, so we came back to the hotel. I figured out how to get my Earthlink connection working from my laptop and room phone connection, so that's were I'm posting this from now.
There are a lot of people driving with flags on their antennas, and people posting flags in windows and draping them over fences and bridges over the highway. As a welcome change I have also seen two anti-violence banners as well. We have seen two candlelight vigils - one in Santa Rosa, the other in Petaluma.
I will be camping out in Santa Rosa tomorrow, while Bing goes in to San Jose to visit some famous Chinese resturant. I'll probably go to the Burbank House and Gardens for a while, if just to find out what it was, then probably try and go to the movies, and otherwise just hack in the hotel room. I'm playing around with Haskell again, trying to find something useful that it can do. (I'm thinking automatic test case generation)
I have also seen a number of 4X4's with big tires speeding around with full size flags, pole and all, set up in the bed of the truck. These scare me. I imagine the drivers are out "smoking out" any foreigners they can find.
Posted at 10:38 PM EST [Link]
Friday, September 14, 02001
We had rescheduled the Chicago to National flight into Baltimore last night after learning National was closed indefinitely. Troy at Cisco Travel sounded totally exhausted, having put in over a twelve hour shift, but he was very helpful. I should probably add that the flight to Baltimore wasn't leaving until the next morning, so we were gearing up for spending the night in the Chicago airport, assuming it was impossibile to find a hotel, and probably not worth leaving the airport and going through all the security again the next morning.
So today we got up at 5:30, got to the office around 6:45 so we could drop off our laptops at the shipping department, and checked the airline website one last time before heading out to the airport for our 1:50 flight. Found out our flight had been canceled, and that Chicago was closed, as was apparently San Francisco. Cisco had also cancelled all travel for nonstranded travallers until Monday. That didn't make much of a difference for us though - We ended up on a direct flight from Sanfran to Baltimore on Monday now.
Hopefully Bing and I will be able to see a little bit of the city and perhaps the Pacific ocean before we head back.
Here's an extra note for anyone considering anti-Arab violence that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere yet : Remember that the person you decide to egg or beat up or otherwise attack might very well be working with US intelligence, trying to infiltrate the groups responsible, so your actions will just be making their job tougher. And even if your victum isn't working towards finding out who's responsible, your actions will just give the people who are responsible something new to talk about instead of what the topics our spies would like them to be talking about.
It's not that I think your average American of middle-eastern descent is involved in any conspiracies, but you've got to come up with anti-violence arguments that somehow appeal to those people who could believe this.
Posted at 11:33 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, September 13, 02001
Today's the fourth day we are in Petaluma. We have given up on taking the train back after we learned it would take four days for us to get across the country. We are currently scheduled on a flight to go out tomorrow afternoon. We are planning on leaving at 8:00 in the morning, hopefully getting to the airport hours before the flight leaves. We don't know how much traffic will be on the Golden Gate Bridge, or what is going to be involved with dropping off the rental car. We have extended our stay at the hotel another four days, and won't be checking out until we are being seated on the plane.
We are leaving our laptops here, and having Cisco ship them back to Herndon later. I'm also going to have them ship back my bag, so I'll be traveling across country with my cellphone, a ragged copy of Omensetter's Luck, and the clothes on my back. I've got to remember to take my apartment keys out of my baggage before it ships. Hopefully I'll be able to do some laundry so I'll at least be wearing clean clothes for tomorrow.
I finally got in touch with Debby, and her family is all OK. Her brother was one of the people evacuated across the Brooklyn Bridge. Someone from Cisco was on one of the planes, and someone from our office in Herndon knew a family that has on the flight that left Dalles.
Posted at 03:10 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, September 12, 02001
Third day in Petaluma. We were supposed to be on our way home today, but Cisco has canceled all corporate travel until at least Thursday. We have a flight scheduled for Friday to come back to Virginia, but we are also looking into taking a train back.
I got in contact with my parents last night and they are fine. My brother was going to go into Manhattan yesterday and check out apartments in Battery Park, but he overslept.
It is still very shocking to see the area I spent 1990 through 1995 in ruins. It really hasn't sunk in that a plane going 600 mph buzzed my neighborhood yesterday before crashing into the Pentagon.
Debby called last night and thanked me for her birthday gift. She made no mention of the attacks. I do not think the Twin Oaks people know whats happened yet.
Posted at 12:44 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, September 11, 02001
World New York has excellent coverage.
This page looks good for Northern VA / DC information. I am surprised that the DC Indie Media has been as reserved as it is.
I finally got through on my cell to my parents. Got their answering machine.
Checked in with local Virginia area people - looks like they are all OK.
Cisco support for people out on travel has been excellent. Thanks Lisa.
Posted at 07:21 PM EST [Link]
-duplicate removed-
Posted at 11:30 AM EST [Link]
This post is for my family and friends.
I am OK. I'm in Petaluma, California getting some Corba training.
I'm far away from anything that could be considered a target.
I'm assuming its going to be a long time before I can get back to Arlington.
I'll call once the phones are working again.
Bing Wu's here too, and he's OK.
Posted at 11:29 AM EST [Link]
