I pray you guys weren't on the Boston's flights, and anyone else who is in the New England area. Please let us know that you guys are ok.

And please, give blood if you can. Call 188-HELP-NOW

-----------------------
"So what are my chances
of honest advances
I'd say low
Better to win
by admitting my sin
than to lose with a halo"
-Evita

• RE: Ayak, Webby and JV,LadyT, 02:40 PM, 09-11-01
• RE: Ayak, Webby and JV,SherpaDave, 03:16 PM, 09-11-01
• RE: Ayak, Webby and JV,SurvivorBlows, 05:33 PM, 09-11-01
  • RE: Ayak, Webby and JV,mistofleas, 05:39 PM, 09-11-01
• RE: Ayak, Webby and JV,desert_rhino, 00:17 AM, 09-12-01
  • RE: Ayak, Webby and JV,Drive My Car, 00:20 AM, 09-12-01
• RE: Ayak, Webby and JV,Outfrontgirl, 03:30 AM, 09-12-01
  • I'm OK,AyatollahKhomeini, 12:02 PM, 09-12-01
    • RE: I'm OK,Riordan, 12:08 PM, 09-12-01
      • RE: I'm OK,ItzLisa, 12:21 PM, 09-12-01
        • No cost?,AyatollahKhomeini, 12:45 PM, 09-12-01
          • RE: No cost?,ItzLisa, 01:08 PM, 09-12-01
            • Boston security,AyatollahKhomeini, 01:24 PM, 09-12-01
        • RE: I'm OK,PepeLePew13, 01:31 PM, 09-12-01
    • RE: I'm OK,LadyT, 02:42 PM, 09-12-01
    • RE: I'm OK,desert_rhino, 04:17 PM, 09-12-01
      • No,AyatollahKhomeini, 07:10 PM, 09-12-01
        • RE: No,desert_rhino, 08:11 PM, 09-12-01
• RE: Ayak, Webby and JV,LadyT, 10:29 AM, 09-12-01

Sorry, 1800-Help-Now for the nearest place you can give blood
-----------------------
"So what are my chances
of honest advances
I'd say low
Better to win
by admitting my sin
than to lose with a halo"
-Evita

LAST EDITED ON 09-11-01 AT 03:49 PM (EST)

Heard indirectly from JV. He's fine.

I'm fine -- I was foolishly posting on the Love Cruise board at 10AM before I learned of the attacks. Since then I've been offline most of the day.

I'm also pretty sure AK is fine, I heard from him last evening and he didn't make any mention of any plans to travel to NYC today. Boston evacuated most high-rises this morning, so I'm guessing AK probably is home by now. Thanks for asking.

Thanks for checking in Webby. I'm glad you're okay and it's good to hear that Aya's probably fine too.

Hugs and kisses to you
mistofleas

Area banks are full, but I will donate tomorrow or Thursday...

I'm fine, and thanks...

Our world changed today.

-- JV

"What rage for fame attends both great and small!
Better be damned than mentioned not at all." --John Wolcot (1738–1819)

>>Our world changed today

Yes, it did.

Now that all the New Yorkers and most everyone has checked in, I am not feeling OK about AyaK "probably" being fine. I want to KNOW he is fine. Even though he's taking a catch-up break, he knows we are here, and how we worry, and he hasn't posted. Since two of the flights left from his city for LA (where he used to live) I of course added him to my list of anxiety.

Has anyone sent him email or heard from him? Webby? (I didn't want to add to his email pile-up...)

AyaK, please touch base with us and then you can freely return to your unsung superhero work--battling the evil forces of the IRS!

Also, I hope to god noone you know was involved.
I looked for an emotion icon to end with and realized I don't know whether to smile or look sad...

Thanks for the concern, everyone. Webby sent me an e-mail today, and I wanted to reassure everyone that I was not on a flight yesterday -- though, like many of the rest of you, I felt very vulnerable, especially because I can see Boston's Logan Airport out of my office window.

My wife called me to let me know about the two World Trade Center plane crashes. Within minutes, my firm's e-mail traffic was jammed ... and then the firm's two conference centers were turned into TV viewing centers. I didn't go down until I heard about the Pentagon crash.

I was in a packed conference center, with probably 300 other people, when the Two World Trade Center collapsed. The collective catching of breath was chilling. The local television news announced that all Boston high-rise buildings had been contacted by the Boston Police, and our tension rose when we heard about the Pennsylvania plane crash. Then One World Trade Center fell, and less than a minute later, building management closed and evacuated my building (one of Boston's tallest, but not THE tallest). I went home, picked up my younger daughter from preschool at Harvard (which seemed to me to be the best target in Boston), and watched TV the rest of the day with most of the rest of you.

Today -- I would just like to see Osama bin Ladin and Mullah Mohammed Omar dead, and the people in this town who helped them carry out this carnage rounded up and put on trial. Easier to say than to do.

Good to see you and glad you are safe. I echo your last comments as well.

LAST EDITED ON 09-12-01 AT 12:36 PM (EST)

Needless to say... ditto!

Aya, glad you're okay - JV, Moonie, everyone!

I think the thing that's really sitting hard with me this morning is that the b.astards did this to us with our own resources. It's not like they had to stockpile a bunch of bombs or spend millions on weapons. All they needed was four suicidal wack-jobs crazy enough to fly a plane to into a building. The cost to them was the price of a plane ticket each. That's it. They used our own planes to carry this out with no effort or cost to them, but indescribable cost to us.

Our Mayor has vowed "We will rebuild". Eeeeeehhhh... pardon me if I don't exactly share your enthusiasm. I dunno, but I don't think that's appropriate to be talking about with the lives lost. I know he wants to show the tough NYer "We can survive anything, they won't beat us!" attitude, which is great. But rebuild those towers? I think the reason we were such a huge target is because of the towers - let's remember, the bigger the target, the more damage - and would people ever feel safe again inside them? Remember, it's not the first time they were bombed - but they were able to repair the damage in '93 because it wasn't as extensive and total as this. Plus, I think it just flies in the face of the lives lost. Maybe, in time, when it's appropriate to be talking like this, a memorial would be the most tactful thing to put on that spot. Something like the one in Oklahoma City. I, for one, don't want to see another massive target in NY. Hell, now the Empire State building makes me nervous - why rebuild an invitation to these guys?

The most heartbreaking thing on the news right now is all the people coming up to reporters in the street to show pictures of missing loved ones on camera. I'm also noticing, in the background shots, missing person posters on the telephone poles and street lights.

I live ten minutes from LaGuardia airport. I went out to have a smoke on the front steps of my apartment building, and it was weird to have no planes flying overhead! I live close enough that whenever I'm on the phone, I have to, at some point, say to the other person "Okay, wait one sec - there's a plane going overhead....okay, it's passed - what did you say? I couldn't hear you before." Last night, with as much time as I spent on the phone with people, I never had to say that to anyone - it was very eerie indeed!

****************************************

Actually, I think this would have been a fairly expensive operation. First, these weren't one-man teams. The report from United Flight 93 was that there were 3 hijackers. 3*4=12. That's at least 12 people sane enough to not do something suspicious (like shout "Allahu akbar!" in the terminal) and get caught prior to boarding the planes. Second, even though these people had books and videos on commercial planes, at least four of them had to be experienced pilots ... and not just pilots who've flown little Cessnas, but pilots who understand how to fly a huge heavy plane manually. The three planes that hit, especially the one that plowed into the Pentagon, were flown expertly. Finally, the terrorists had to have some method of remaining in contact if their plans changed ... and that takes planning, and planning takes time.

So, yes, they didn't have to buy a truckful of fertilizer and a detonator, but this wasn't as easy as 1-2-3, either. In fact, I liken this to TET, the North Vietnamese offensive from 1968. North Vietnam used up most of its resources in the South to make TET work. If we'd responded by killing the North Vietnamese leaders, they probably wouldn't have been able to rebuild (at least not for awhile), despite the outpouring of support that followed TET. Let's hope we don't make the same mistake here, and that we get bin Laden and Mullah Omar before they can rebuild their US cells and operations using all the Palestinians who now want to join their jihad.

LAST EDITED ON 09-12-01 AT 01:14 PM (EST)

Yikes! Never argue with a guy who's obviously better informed on this stuff than I am (hugs to Aya!)!

That's true - I guess that all makes sense. I don't know about alot of that stuff, so it looked pretty black and white to me, but your theory makes sense too, Aya. I don't think anyone can deny though that they must have picked our planes to hijack and cause destruction with so that it would be spiritually and emotionally more damaging - plus, more U.S. lives lost that way.

In my other post, I mentioned my boss had been taking her little son to his first day of Kindergarten, and Aya, you said you picked your daughter up at pre-school. Last night when I finally connected with my boss, she said the train out of the 'burbs that she and her son were on was filled with lots of parents doing the same thing - seeing their little one off to their first day of school in that area. When the train stopped, let everyone off and sent them back where they came from on another train back to the 'burbs, she said the kids were all laughing and playing on the train, and the parents, of course, were very somber and tearful. Alot of those little children don't realize this now, but will realize something important in the coming years - that they probably saved their parents' lives yesterday, because alot of the adults would have been at work in or around the WTC yesterday, but opted to take the morning off to see their child off on his or her first day.

EDIT!!!!! Aya, hope you've stayed home!! The police are entering the Westin Hotel in Boston as we speak, searching for the possibilty that people involved in yesterday's hijacking may be there. They found an empty hotel room, but suspect that may have been where one of the hijackers was staying!

****************************************

Police presence in downtown Boston today is VERY heavy. Most tall buildings closed their underground parking garages. I'm not too worried about the danger to my building -- although a gun battle is always possible. So ... going onto the downtown streets seems like a bad idea today ...

First... it is great to see you back on here, AyaK. It was gnawing on the edge of my mind that while I knew that you weren't likely on any flights (due to Webby's conversation with you the day before), still knowing that we hadn't seen you on here was always on the mind.

Second... I agree, Itzy -- the last thing they should do is to try and replace the World Trade Center and a memorial sounds like a much more appropriate thing to do. I think they could go ahead and build a bunch of office buildings around the site but nothing too showy or conspicious -- after all, they were office buildings and should be kept as such. 10-12 average-sized office buildings would be safer and provide easier in-and-out access than 2 out-of-this-world buildings with targets painted on them and 5 other smaller buildings.

"Permit me to introduce myself. I am Pepe Le Pew, your lover."

Thank God you are ok AyaK. I hope you have stayed home today, it seems like a lot is going down in Boston as I type this.

That preschool wasn't at Oxford Street, by any chance, was it?

-- JV

"What rage for fame attends both great and small!
Better be damned than mentioned not at all." --John Wolcot (1738–1819)

There are six preschools within Harvard, including Oxford Street. My daughter is in another one, located at the Harvard Business School (across the Charles).

Yes, I know. My son was at Oxford Street for 4 years.

-- JV

"What rage for fame attends both great and small!
Better be damned than mentioned not at all." --John Wolcot (1738–1819)

I have checked this website, www.whdh.com. It is a Boston news channel. It has released some of the names of the passengers on the flights. AyaK is not one of the names. It will be updated throughout the days ahead, but for right now, he isn't listed. Continue to pray.