Wednesday, September 11, 2002

SEPTEMBER 11th Of course no one will ever forget what happened a year ago. We'll all remember where we were and how we heard about the terrorist attacks. I heard about the first twin tower being hit via e-mail, but I found out that the Pentagon had been hit by looking out my office window. As crazy as that day was, I'm amazed and actually kind of proud that I never even thought about snapping a photo. At the time, driving myself and four of my friends out of the city was the only thing that mattered. I took this photo of the still burning Pentagon at 8:30 a.m. the next morning from the 9th floor of the Watergate. The building with the gold columns is the Kennedy Center. A year later, this was a much more pleasant sight outside my window. My old friend Brian wrote to me this morning and asked how things were in Washington D.C. today. I told him that we were all a little on edge, but all was well. As I was working, I looked up at the clock which happened to read exactly 9:11 a.m. Before I even had time to process that, I heard a very loud rumble that shook the floor of the office. For a split second, I thought we were being hit again. It turned out that it was just a dump truck over at the Kennedy Center construction site. I wonder if I'll always react to a rumbling sound that way. Before I came home tonight, I decided to go over to the rooftop of the Kennedy Center to watch the sunset. I don't get over there as often as I'd like, but the view of the Watergate today was amazing. It was so peaceful. I'm really glad I went.