Current Events:
Last night, President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals:



Link to News Article



To Zoe and Ryder,

The magnitude of this announcement brings me back to the events of 9/11. You two weren’t even a “twinkle in our eyes”. One day, you guys may wonder where mom and dad were and what was our reaction to the events of 9/11.

So, I’m going to tell you here:

We were not yet married, in fact our wedding was 11 days later on Sept. 22nd. We lived in the lower level of this house
on Alma Place in Oakland, CA. I was 29 and mommy was 28. Mommy was a high-powered prosecutor for the San Francisco District Attorneys office. I had recently gotten a new job with an Engineering Company named MACTEC in Oakland, CA. I think I had been there only a few weeks. So, Sept 11th 2001 was a regular work day, just like any. Your mom and I were asleep. At around 5:30am, I was woken up by a phone call from Uncle Rob. All he said was “Turn on the news”. I said OK and hung up, knowing that something pretty big must have happened… So I turned on the news and saw the live footage of a city building burning from the inside. Considering I just woke up, it took me some time to make sense out of what I was seeing. Smoke coming from inside of one of the World Trade Center buildings. Reading the scroll, I saw the word “airplane” I thought, “wow, looks like a small plane must have accidentally flown into the World Trade Center”. Then I listened to the reporting and understood that this was no small plane, nor was it an accident. I woke your mother up.

We watched together as another airplane flew into the 2nd tower. I think my reaction was something to the affect of: “Holy f’n s$#T”. I remember my heart was pounding! We continued to watch the news footage as at this point it was impossible to take your eyes off of the TV (it would stay that way for days to come). So, we’re thinking, man, those poor people. I remember wondering how in the hell they would fix the damage done to the buildings. That concern became moot as your mom and I watched in shock and disturbed awe the 2 World Trade Center buildings collapse, killing over 3000 people and setting off a string of events that would lead to 2 wars, hundreds of thousands of lives lost and a 10 year hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

Writing this and remember back actually gives me a lump in my throat. It was a very emotional time. It was also frustrating as you wanted to “do something” but there really was nothing that you could do. I remember thinking that were I in New York, I’d go help with the clean-up / recovery effort. But I was in California, so that wasn’t really an option. In hindsight, many of the 1st responders to the World Trade Center disaster are now suffering physical ailments related to their time spent around “Ground Zero”.

That is pretty much it, in a nutshell. Hopefully, by the time you guys are old enough to read and understand this, terrorism will be a thing of the past and the American economy and job market are once again flourishing…