Internet Entrepreneur and Weekend Hacker

It is 5:30 and I have been up since 2,  I gave up trying to sleep so I just went and made a cup of coffee and am sitting out on the balcony.  The intracoastal is completely still and periodically I can hear a car going over the Linton Avenue bridge.  This is the time of the day when you can hear the freight trains going by.  I do not live very close but it is so quiet that you can hear the rumble for miles.

At 2AM, MSNBC replayed their broadcast from the morning of 9/11.  Odd sitting their for two hours and watching in knowing what is coming next and what has occurred in the 8 years since.  I remember the back and forth calls to my parents that morning, I worked from home then, and the odd call from a business associate wanting to discuss an invoice with me.   It was 9:30AM on 9/11 and he wanted to ask about payment on an invoice.  I asked him if he had seen what was going on and he said yes but still wanted to know why I had under paid an invoice by $27.  I just hung up.

The NY Times had an interesting article about the aftermath of NYC and 9/11.  NYC was going to become a police state with armed military guarding the streets.  The financial world would move and no tourist would come to NYC.  None of what was predicted in those weeks after came true.

I was up in NYC in early Nov. of 2001 and lots had returned to normal.  Of course, I remember standing in the 42nd Street entrance to Grand Central and there was a free standing wall that was plastered with “have you seen” pictures.  Grand Central is a loud place but if felt as through there was silence surrounding that wall.

Like everyone else, I was paralyzed that week watching the news.  I slowly got back to work as I had a small business to run and orders started to come in again by the next day but nothing social or interactive happened that week.  Finally, on Sat night I guess we had all had enough of the TV and a group of us went out to dinner.  We were at City Tavern down by the Marriott in Boca,  Every restaurant that night was packed but it was oddly quiet, not the normal raucous weekend night in Boca.

Strange the few things that I remember.  The phone call at 9:30, the wall at Grand Central and that first dinner out after 9/11.