I read yesterday’s New York Times as we were waiting to leave Boston. This weekend, the Times did a feature on the second anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. It turns out some new footage has emerged which captures the moment the plane struck the North Tower, the first of the two to be targeted.

The story of this amazing footage is here, but what is really amazing is watching the footage itself. The Times site has a link to some narrated scenes from the video. It is something you don’t want to miss. If you’ve got Macromedia Flash, cue it up.

At the end of the montage, the clip zooms in on United Airlines Flight 175 as it barrels towards the South Tower. Take a careful look at the fuselage of the plane, underneath the right wing. There is something attached to the plane which should not be there, something almost the size of a jet engine.

A look at this aircraft’s history in photographs doesn’t show any engine-sized appendages. At some point, it was either added to the aircraft (where it would be impossible to hide), or the aircraft that crashed into the tower was not Flight 175 after all.

Also interesting to note is how the explosion of the first aircraft is entirely different from that of the second one. This is in spite of the aircraft being identical models, flying for the same amount of time, and therefore having the roughly the same amount of fuel onboard. Why then is the first impact not the fiery wreck of the second? Where is all the burning aviation fuel? It could be that the first plane was not a 767 at all but a smaller plane. Initial news reports told of a small private plane striking the tower, which may explain the different damage.

While I’m leery of every claim being made about the crashes, it seems to me that there is more going on here than we have been led to believe.

The video from the Times is unlikely to have been doctored. It provides a view from the opposite angle of that which we’ve seen over and over. Could this “offical view” have been set up with the intent of hiding that thing beneath the wing?

Anyway, watch the video. See for yourself. Is it a fake? Or are we viewing evidence that proves a gang of illiterate, boxcutter-weilding hijackers are not the whole story?

Click here to see the strange appendage.

I’m up in Boston this weekend to attend a friend’s wedding. From my friends’ apartment in South End, I can reach three different access points.

Yesterday I needed to adjust the forwarding on my VoIP telephone. We hadn’t yet met with our friends, so on a whim, I decided to see if there was wireless in the park near the restaurant where we had lunch.

We were near Harvard’s JFK School of Government, in Newton Market park. Sure enough, I logged on to an access point with the default “linksys” SSID. A few mouse clicks later and my VoIP phone was ringing straight to my mobile phone. Kewlness.

There are a few organized wireless projects in the Boston/Cambridge area. Seems Cambridge is more active than Boston – most likely since its the home of MIT.

Seems like having a net connection available is becoming a prerequisite in this ever-incresingly connected world.

Greg and I were on the way to lunch at the local Mongolian place, Crazy Fire. As we passed under the I-40 & U.S. 1 interchange, Greg slammed on the brakes. A disabled tractor-trailer was parked under the bridge and partially blocking the merge lane.

This intersection is bad enough without a large truck blocking it, as the merge lane is WAY too short for traffic merging onto and off of the interstate. I knew when I saw it that I had to call it in to the police.

As we maneuvered around the swerving cars, I dialed 911. A minute later, the call connects me.

“What is the location of your emergency?” asked the dispatcher.

“I’m not sure this is a Raleigh or Cary thing,” I said. “There is a disabled semi blocking the merge lane under I-40 on U.S. 1.”

“Hold please, I’ll transfer you to Cary,” she said.

A few moments later, I’m talking to Cary 911. I repeated what I told the Raleigh dispatcher.

“Is the truck on I-40?” she asked.

“No. It’s on U.S. 1.”

“And you said it was on the ramp?” she said.

“Well, it’s not really on the ramp, per se. It’s actually blocking half of the merge lane.”

“Okay, sir. Understand that we need to be very particular here. Is it on the ramp, or on U.S. 1? Because if it’s on the ramp, it’s Highway Patrol.”

I blinked. It’s a freakin’ huge truck! Mister Magoo could find it! And here I am, being asked to differentiate between the ramp and the merge lane, which just happened to be right on the city limits between Raleigh and Cary.

With a mental flip of the coin, I told her the truck was on U.S. 1, at which point she cheerfully told me “we’ll send someone out!”

So the moral is never to break down under a major interstate right on the city limits between cities with two different 911 centers. You may never be found.

I got my voice over IP phone from Packet 8 yesterday. A few test calls indicate very good sound quality. And it works through firewalls, too.

I may take it to work with me to see how it travels. An upcoming business trip on the horizon will provide a great opportunity to try out TRUE “number portability.”

Shoot me an email if you want to try giving it a call.

I did some clothes shopping this weekend when it hit me: why are pants called a “pair of pants?” What makes them a pair? You can’t just wear a pant, it’s gotta be plural. So what gives?

I bought some underwear in a pack. The package said “six pair briefs.” I almost expected 12 garmets in the bag, but noooooo! There were only six. I almost felt like complaining to the FTC that I got ripped off.

English is a funny language.

Couldn’t help but comment on this story. The Republican Party, rather than provide jobs to the countless out-of-work Americans, have outsourced their fundraising centers to India. Bush and his party are doing their part to create jobs. Only they’re on a different continent.

The old cliche “are you better off than you were four years ago” is going to bite Bush in the ass come November.

Like a dumbass, I couldn’t just chill when I got home yesterday from Toronto. I had to go tinker with my car. I wound up draining my car battery all night last night and am now stuck at home.

The passenger side door has a seal that has come loose and was simply hanging off the car. It also has a noisy seal around the window. I put the keys in the ignition last night to bring down the power window on the passenger side. Problem is, after fixing the seal, I totally forgot to shut the car off.

Kelly is out of town until midafternoon, and the house is completely empty of food, as we were planning on being out all week. That means I’m down to using my bike to get around until my car battery recharges.

It all brings to mind the post I was going to write about how dependent we are on cars. Guess I’ll have more to say about that very soon!

UPDATE: Got a battery charger which also has enough oomph to crank the car. After lunch I’m gonna give it a try and see if it will get me to work.

Honestly, after traveling so much, all I wanted was just a normal day.

Well, I’m on my way back from Toronto now. Like a clueless traveler, I didn’t know that I had to pass through Customs before boarding my flight. I assumed that I’d head through customs at RDU airport, as I do when I fly back from London. The mistake almost cost me my seat. I was walking up to the gate at “final boarding call.”

The CEO sent an email yesterday that suggested the sales engineer team make frequent trips in order to help close whatever deals we can help close. He suggested a one-a-week frequency. While I’m fine making a trip like this one every two weeks or so, I’m not sure I’m up for doing them more often than that.

And yet as I type this, I have to admit that I do enjoy the travel. I suppose I get as much from being in front of our resellers and customers as they do. I am enjoy learning how to quickly win friends. I can already tell its a salesman’s secret weapon. At one point in yesterday’s training, a crack was made about salespeople. Jeff and I were jokingly asked if we were salespeople, at which point Jeff singled me out as the sales guy. While everyone was chuckling over this, Herb pointed at me and said “see, I could tell! Just look at the way he smiles!” I laughed at the time, but as I think back it seems to be a fantastic compliment. I have finally broken free from Server Room Hell, becoming a talented, technical showman.

The word on the street is that my manager holds the key to the company’s success. That’s comforting to know from the standpoint that what I’m doing is that valuable. It also raises the bar as far as the kind of committment I need to put forth in doing my job. I don’t consider myself a slacker by any stretch (well, sometimes, perhaps), but I can really turn some heads at this point with a little extra effort. I’m at the point in my employment where the “honeymoon” is over and folks are beginning to solidify their impression of me. Now I just need to step up.

Speaking of stepping up, the opening game of N.C. State football is this weekend. MY buddy Scott has graciously offered me his season tickets for the game. I was hoping to bring Kelly and Hallie to the game, but Kelly and I decided that Hallie wouldn’t really enjoy sitting on our laps on a crowded metal bench with thousands of mad, screaming fans around us. Makes sense to me. Plus, we don’t have an appropriate Wolfpack cheerleader outfit for her.

Yesterday’s talk with Herb the Political Canadian really energized me about democracy and the political process. It was nice to find someone who had views similar to mine. EVen better, it was nice to debate the issues with such an informed person when our views differed. At the end of the discussion we were all still smiling. Nice.

I’ve come to subscribe to the belief that you never return from a trip the same person. Though this trip was a short one, that belief holds true. Everytime you leave your day-to-day cushy environment and step into new territory, you’re going to grow. It can’t be helped. Here’s to more growth.

I’m finally settled in my hotel room here in Toronto. I’m staying at the hotel 18R, a nice 10,000 foot concrete-surface hotel with ILS approaches. Actually, it’s the Best Western, but its no lie I can see glide slope lights from my room (11th floor).

The room’s best feature is the gratis high-speed internet, which I’m making use of now. It’s a Bell Canada service called Data Valet. Only way it could rock more is if I got a real IP address to the Internet. But I can’t quibble.

I’ve had a long day, starting it at 4 AM and not yet finishing, as you can see. But I’m psyched just to have some breather time – just to be alone for a moment. I’ll finish a post and then crawl into that bed behind me.

Toronto is an interesting place. I was expecting it to be more beautiful than it actually is – at least, what I’ve seen of it. The weather has been gorgeous – it was 80 degrees F today with a steady breeze, though the breeze added chill around sundown.

What’s really surprising about Toronto is how much it reminds me of Austin, TX. Yes, Austin: that Texas town some-odd hundreds of miles away. I could close my eyes and the clear sky, ever-stretching highways, and funny-talking locals would convince me I was in Austin. The accent is different, though, I will admit.

The insane traffic has been the biggest surprise. I always pictured Canadians as polite and mild-mannered, but it is utter chaos on the roads here. Bumper to bumper traffic moves at breakneck speed, people abruptly change lanes, and absolutely NO ONE lets you in front of them. My rental car is a sweet Ford Mustang in a hideously bright shade of yellow. If I wasn’t already self-conscious about driving in a foreign country, it helps to have a car so visible it washes out the view of Mars. Thanks, Hertz…

The training I was sent here to do went well, all things considered. I was asked early-on if I had any kind of itinerary. Of course I don’t because I’m all about improvising. So that’s what I did. Luckily, I’ve got my coworker Jeff here to pick up the slack when I hit the tough technical parts. Mostly I held my own.

A few hours of being locked in a stuffy conference room and we were done. By that time, the main “combatant” in the company had completely changed his tune. It was to the point that I never would have pegged this guy as the one who gave us the most grief. He was all smiles as we left. For all the high-tech wizardry of the teleconferencing stuff I do, there is still no substitute for face-to-face meetings. No doubt about that at all.

We talked ourselves into going to one of the reseller’s customer sites to see our product in action. Jeff did surgery on the box, applying eight or so patches to the system. Each one took an agonizingly long time to finish, so we whiled away the time talking to our host, Herb.

Herb is a Jamaican-Canadian who immigrated 13 years ago. He was actually on the verge of falling asleep in front of us since he got only 2 hours of sleep last night. To my amazement, Herb lit up when our conversations somehow migrated to American politics.

Herb studied American political science in his college days in Canada. We spent the next two hours swapping views and opinions on the U.S. political climate. I consider myself to be somewhat politically aware, but Herb absolutely shamed me with his knowledge. I never thought Canadians could be more aware of American politics than Americans are, but Herb proved me wrong. He humbled me, plain and simple. And I’m not EVEN going to talk about the average American’s knowledge of our northern neighbor. I’m clueless about what’s going on in Canada.

Oh, and taxes. I heard an earful today about Canadian taxes. Yet Herb tells me that in this city of four million people, there are no ghettos. You won’t find a city like THAT in the States.

In spite of the rather unappealing sprawl around me (and the runway right outside my window), I wish I had more time to explore. The people are really friendly and the weather is nice (at least this time of year). I’ll have to bring Kelly along for the ride the next time around.