25 years ago today, I was a little more than a year out of college, married with a baby on the way. I put on my suit and went to work on a Tuesday morning, seemingly just like any other Tuesday morning. I worked for a medium-sized financial planning company in upstate New York, a 3-hour drive north of New York City. The company’s approach to Technology Risk was to keep the company’s internal network completely separate and disconnected from the Internet. I was a software engineer on the team that built and maintained the company’s client-facing planning website, so my team all had a second, Internet-connected computer on our desks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was trying to think last night how I first heard the news after the first of the World Trade Center towers was hit. I honestly cannot remember. At that time, there were no smartphones as there are today. The average cell phone could only call and text. Maybe my boss had heard and mentioned it to the rest of us? That seems the most likely. I vaguely recall someone asking if we were able to get through to any news websites with information about the attack. Understandably, the websites were completely flooded with traffic and would generally just fail. Every so often a page or two would load with some limited updates. By late morning, the company released everyone to go home. There, we put on the news channels and stayed in front of the TV most of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watching different memorial videos and the 9\/11 Memorial Ceremony today in New York City, I do find myself a little choked up at certain scenes and stories. I encourage everyone, especially those who are younger and didn’t experience 9\/11 personally, to take some time in the coming days to review some history and stories of the events, to keep the memories alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n