The 10th anniversary of 9/11 has led many to remember their 9/11 experience. Here’s mine.

I woke up early like I always do, around 6:30am or so. I went into the bath and turned on KNBR while taking my shower. Gary Radnich’s chatting with Kevin the Rat filtered through the water washing over his head. I couldn’t make out the words but there was something “off” about his voice. When I stepped out of the shower and could hear Gary’s voice clearer I could tell he was talking about something serious and Gary was uncomfortable with it. Gary couldn’t wait to toss the show over to network coverage. I could make out that a plan had crashed in New York.

I came out of the shower and flipped on CNN thus starting my now daily ritual of checking CNN every morning. The anchors were talking about a plane crashing into the twin towers. And then the second plan hit. It felt like I saw the crash live but given the time it must have been on tape delay. I woke Yang up to show her. I don’t remember what we spoke about. I remember being in awe. It was our one month wedding anniversary and years later this became a memory key of our anniversary date for her.

At the time I was doing contract programming for a company Menlo Park company called Skire. Not sure what else to do, I drove up 101 to their office and tried to work. Every five minutes or so I checked the CNN web site for the latest news. News at the time was crazy, from domestic terrorism to an Iraqi plot and then settling on Afghanistan and al-Qaeda. I remember a grainy video where Afghanistan leadership was saying “hey, it wasn’t us” (to paraphrase).  I remember thinking the terrorists kidnapped planes headed for the west coast to impact all of America, not just the east coast (actually they just wanted full fuel tanks). I remember thinking they picked the iconic US airlines, United and America. I remember thinking the crash into the Pentagon – it being the military headquarters – as a clear act of way. I remember the experts saying how well planned the attacks were and thinking that it wasn’t all that complicated of an operation.

It was a small office with a dozen or so programmers and ten or so other staff members. I don’t really remember anyone talking that much about the crash beyond short sentences of shock. There was a group of five Pakistani programmers who were pretty uncomfortable what the attacks might mean for them. At the time I really had no idea about the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan and their relations with the terrorists.

Like most, I did feel patriotic which seemed a bit strange because I am not typically a very gung ho American.  Maybe like when someone you don’t feel that close too, yet you are attached to, dies. I went to the parking lot and my car to listen to Bush address the nation. That day and for the next few weeks I felt a lot of good will towards Bush and like most felt a coming together of the nation.

I don’t remember many details other than this. We lived near the San Jose airport and the lack of planes landing for a few days was noticeable and not all together unpleasant. Yang and I travelled to Vegas, I want to say on Sept 25th for ridiculously cheap air far ($25 first class) and did not mind the heighten security measures at all.