9/11

5 years ago I was living with my parents, and working retail sales with IBM. I was sleeping in as I had an evening shift (1pm-9pm), and was out and about late the previous night. My mom burst into my room (which she never did since I was 14) exclaiming "they attacked New York!" I was working evenings at the time, and was NOT a morning person, so I was groggy and not entirely happy being awakened so abruptly. I stayed in bed.

5 minutes later she bursts in again saying New York was being attacked, and to get up! Then again she closed my door and left. This time my neurons managed to make the proper connections and have some comprehension what she was saying. I tried to make sense what this could mean, and why she was upset by this. I remember what I was thinking as I was dragging myself out of bed. The Soviet Union was no more. Russia and China were the only countries capable of mounting a credible attack. But they would have no reason to to make a pre-emptive strike that would not have gone unanswered. Completely improbable. So I dismissed that line of thinking and thought it must have been some sort of terrorist attack.

After getting dressed and going into the living room, I was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted by what I saw on TV: all of Manhattan engulfed with smoke, as the Twin Towers had just collapsed.

I worked at an IBM Store in Metrotown mall, and the big projection TVs that normally display advertising located throughout the mall were all tuned into news of what was happening. people were crowded around each of them, quietly watching as the world was changing before their eyes. The thing is, everybody knew it at the time.

At work, and all the display computers were networked and hooked to broadband Internet. We were all glued to them, reading and watching the video clips. It was a surreal day spent in disbelief I'll never forget.

Below are a couple interesting links to news sites cnn.com and canada.com, archived as they appeared. I remember these sites and how they looked quite well. When I found them archived, they were exactly how I remembered them:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010917011835/www.canada.com/national/

http://web.archive.org/web/20010911200318/http://www.cnn.com/