9/11 revisited

'Dissent is Patriotic" sign overlooking the World Trade Center site.

‘Dissent is Patriotic” sign overlooking the World Trade Center.

I took an eye-opening cab ride on a business trip to New York several years ago. It wasn’t the driving that raised my hair as much as the topic of conversation. My cabbie, a native English speaker, had a tale to tell about the 1996 attack on the World Trade Center. It was his opinion that someone higher up had allowed that bombing to happen, since a gigantic security rule was broken when the van that was detonated was allowed to enter the parking deck.

“I drive my cab there all the time,” he told me. “I know where we people are allowed to park and where they’re not allowed to park.”

I challenged the cabbie on this but he was insistent. “No way. That couldn’t have happened in a million years without someone higher up approving it,” he said.

At the time I chalked it up as a tale from an overly imaginative cab driver, but it wasn’t long before news broke that the FBI was deeply involved in a supposedly botched sting operation in which fake explosives were to be switched in at the last moment. Whoops!

Here’s Dan Rather’s report on CBS the night of October 28, 1993:

I don’t recall hearing that any FBI agents lost their jobs after fucking up a sting operation, bombing a building, and killing six people. Do you?

Fast forward to today. Another 9/11 anniversary has come and gone and even 13 years after the event I can’t help but feel awkward pausing for a moment of silence. It isn’t that I’m not saddened by the loss of lives on that terrible day, it is the way that event is continues to be described as a terrorist attack. There has never been any doubt in my mind that the official narrative of 9/11 is complete bunk, and I must admit that every year my certainty grows.

We lost a lot more than 3,000 lives that day, in my opinion we lost the republic. That truly deserves a moment of silence.
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Fifteen years

Wedding bliss, 1999

Wedding bliss, 1999


Kelly and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary yesterday. For a little romantic night out, we spent our evening with a few hundred other Ligon Middle School parents at the Open House. Hey, at least we were together and, to be honest, it was fun! We’re going out tomorrow night for a romantic dinner.

Above is a scan of a wedding photo we’ve had on our shelf almost since our wedding day. The color may have faded but the love is stronger than ever!

My fellow Americans, please stop being idiots

I agree.

Look, I’ve said it before and I still believe every word. ISIS represents no threat to the United States. None.

Are there terrorists in this world who would like to give us a bloody nose? Absolutely. You know what? You’ve already surrendered an astounding amount of your personal privacy in the name of enabling agencies to reduce that threat. Stop being so eager to bend over and give the little that remains. You’re already going through ridiculous rituals at airports and government offices and museums and bus stations and football stadiums and probably at the local Gymboree, all designed to give you the illusion of safety at an immense cost in both time and money. You’ve already given up everything from the privacy of your phone calls and emails to the ability to take some shampoo on the road. Don’t get out the checkbook to buy more nonsense.

via My fellow Americans, please stop being idiots.

Business idea

I’ve got a business idea brewing in my mind, an idea for a consumer safety device. Might even be patentable. I’ll have to see how far I can go with it, starting first with building a prototype. Like I don’t already have enough to do.

Labs come back clean

I got my lab results on Monday. They all look perfect – everything is right down the middle of the acceptable ranges. I’m as healthy as a horse … except for the weird. unexplained twitching I experienced.

Fortunately, the twitching has almost totally stopped since the family bike ride we all took on Sunday morning. And my muscles are not feeling as tense during the night, giving me a better night of sleep every night.

As nice as the clean labs are, though, it doesn’t really explain what happened. As it appears to not be an issue and my doc is satisfied I suppose I’ll just chalk it up to a mystery for now.

Jamaica, part II

Our first rum in Jamaica

Our first rum in Jamaica

This is part two of our vacation to Jamaica. Read part one here.

While my bag wasn’t waiting at the baggage claim, a bag very similar to mine was there. I realized quickly that my bag most likely made it to Jamaica but got mistakenly carted off by another passenger, thinking it was his. I checked the address tag on the bag and got the name of the owner, a guy from Pittsburgh. It seemed only a matter of time before he realized his mistake and I would be reunited with my bag.

The family and I went outside the airport and met our pre-arranged taxi at the curb. Our driver, Byron (which he pronounced “Barry-um”) kindly drove us to the hotel and provided us tips about what we should see. Zipling, snorkeling, and a trip to Blue Hole were all discussed. Byron offered to be our tour guide for a day at Blue Hole or the nearby city of Ocho Rios for a flat fee. We took his card from him as he dropped us off at the Holiday Inn Sunspree, about 10 minutes east of the airport.
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Visibly twitchy

My leg looking puffy where my dress sock just was

My leg looking puffy where my dress sock just was


For a day after writing my post about my twitchy leg I didn’t notice it twitching at all. Eventually the twitching came back and I began to try to track it down.

This morning while I was reading in the easy chair I watched it twitch. I don’t know if I had actually seen it twitch until today, so now I know it’s probably not the more serious, invisible twitch that had me concerned this week. Hopefully the lab work will come back tomorrow and my doc and I can work through what might be causing it.

On another note, Kelly, Hallie, and I went for a bike ride this morning and which I haven’t seen or felt my leg twitch. I wonder if something had gotten tangled up in there and worked itself out today?

Parks board and bond

Friday I woke up to an unfamiliar feeling: I was no longer serving on Raleigh’s Parks board. Six years had come and gone in a blink of an eye.

Though I’m no longer on the board, I still get to play a role in promoting parks. I was been appointed by the mayor to serve on the citizen board advocating for the upcoming parks bond. Not only that, I’ve agreed to serve as a co-chair for the marketing and communications team. It’s a great group of citizens and I’m looking forward to making this happen. I will have my hands full for the next several weeks, though. So far, it’s been a blast!

Jamaica

Boarding our Southwest flight to Jamaica

Boarding our Southwest flight to Jamaica


It’s been a month since we began our week-long vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica. The trip was a curious mix of being both relaxing and trying. We had to work hard to relax. Was it worth it? Overall, I think so.

Why Jamaica? For a few years Kelly and I discussed taking an international vacation. We wanted to try to use the Southwest points we’d earned and that limited our options to a few Caribbean destinations. I’d always wanted to go to the Caribbean, so we looked into our Southwest choices. Among the airline’s new destinations is Aruba; Nassau, Bahamas; and Montego Bay, Jamaica. We chose Jamaica.

Southwest is new to international travel, however. We experienced this when checking in early on the first Saturday. The ticket agent was unfamiliar with the new software used to check us in and was assisted by another agent with a clipboard and a German accent. After a bit longer getting our bags checked we boarded our plane and were soon in Baltimore, boarding our flight to Jamaica. We were already seated when we were informed that a substitute flight crew would be taking us to Jamaica.
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