My 9/11 history was erased

I would have liked to see those images. Maybe someone out there saved them and can send them to you.

Today is my Birthday (yes, 9/11). And so far, it has been pretty somber day too… just like it was 5 years ago. (boy, I sound like Eeyore…).

I enjoy reading your thoughts, Robert. Things have definitely changed. I commented to my wife last night while watching a bit of the 9/11 documentary (the one by the French filmmakers)… “Do you remember what life was like before 9/11?” We likened it to being a kid oblivious to the evils of the world. And then, we remembered what we had both been doing that day when it happened.

I think this is one of the defining moments for our generation – and with a similar impact like Princess Dianas death. Although I dont understand that one.

9/11 to me was when the internet was slow to not working at all, I remember where I sat and when I got a call from a friend who told me about it. I tried to get to *the* german news site (spiegel) and it only worked out a few times – they had made a low end version of it to get the site out at all.

Today, the internet is the first place we go. And even normal family members do. After the thing in London recently I got a call from a family member to see if I was alright – the person did not know exactly when I got back from the states and was worried becuase I had not blogged yet.

I havent read the wired article yet, but I think we have seen since then which affect blogging (with pictures and videos) can have about such events. And I think it is a good effect – event though I would love if the reasons where different.

It’s 8:49AM here on the East Coast. I think that’s just about the time the first plane hit.

It was also a beautiful crisp morning, just like today.

I was at my office and watched the news unfold on the internet – USA today, CNN, etc – and then found a small TV in the office closet, and we watched until the towers fell.

The phones at the office were silent. I don’t think that we had a business call all day. People were sobbing. I was the boss and told everyone that they could go home if they wanted.

I went home, opened a bottle of vodka and watched in a horrified stupor for the rest of the day. One of my most vivid memories was the clips of people jumping out of the towers to their death.

Man that sucked. This is really a dark day in our history.

as i have heard a lot today – i mourn for the world of 9/10 as much as for the souls of 9/11

Children have a wonderful way of expressing their feelings and thoughts even when they don’t have the vocabulary yet to say what they want to say. My own nephew, who was four at the time drew a picture of a plane flying towards the second tower. In his drawing, he included a mother clutching her baby and a cowboy trying to use a rope to lasso the plane and stop it from flying into the tower. I hope my brother kept that drawing.

IMO, the erasing thing is something most people don’t recognize soon enough. Simply put, there are sites and services currently which are not online 3 years from now.

So, remember to back up your important data. That catchyname.com won’t necessarily be showing your photos or postings or poems in the future any more. Naturally, we all Scoble readers back up already – we are pros after all.

I would comment on 9/11 also, but there simply are no words to express it.

Just deep silence.

It was really sad to see so many common people die on their ways to their jobs, working, etc. But please, remember also everyday all the casualties of common people, working people, in Iraq and Afghanistan, killed by “western” fire. Up to now, we´ve killed up to 41650 innocent people (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/), thats exactly 14 times a 9/11!!!!

That was a really beautiful post — Thank you. And while you might have a healthy attitude about your lost posts, I think it’s a big deal — the impermanence of blogs is a real problem. 99% of mosts posts don’t need to stick around very long, but ones should be around forever.

Funny. I have no desire whatsoever to erase my memories of that day. Didn’t we all promise ourselves that we would “never forget”?

I guess “never” doesn’t mean what it used to, does it, Robert?

Take us back, do you remember the URL? You can get them back using this:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

@8 That was unncessary. Leave it to the tin foil hat crowd. But, one wonders how many innocents would have CONTINUTED to have been killed under the previous regimes? Inquiring minds want to know.

Good post, Robert. I would disagree with you on one point. We should NEVER erase that day from our memories. If we do, we are all go back to Sept 10th naive thinking.

Chris: when I say I want to erase those images from my mind, it’s mostly a wish that it never would have happened in the first place. But, now that it has happened, I’ll never forget the brave people who’s lives were taken. Not sure if that comes across in ASCII, but hope it does.

@15. I think we all wish it would have never happened. But yet, that’s the type of thinking that got us into the situation in the first place: everyone (our govt. mainly) wishing this terrorism problem and OBL would just go away.

Im sorry i bring this up, i know it´s not the subject of the post, but anyways, #14, is it much better off a regime than to introduce a never ending civil war in a ethnical diverse country? Did you know that in Congo theres a even worse regime but noone cares about them? oh, yeah, theres no oil there… Its really funny and disturbing to see the US media from outside of the country…
Sorry scoble, it is over now… i´ll never forget the morning of 911-2001.. Its a horror movie so harsh we wish we never have rented…

Robert,

Thank you for sharing your memories and it sucks that your posts from that day are gone.

I think this is a great lesson to learn for Bloggers everywhere: In trying to learn from past history, are you making sure that what you write today is safe, that you have a local, archived copy that YOU can RESTORE? Without depending on sys admins on some remote server somewhere?

Good rule of thumb: Write posts in your text editor of choice, save them locally and THEN post them. Every so often, burn a cd/dvd of your local blog posts directory and store it off-site, like in a bank safety-deposit box for safe keeping…

Just my two cents…

I was sitting in a hotel room in Japan, finishing up a long day, and had the tv on mute in the background, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the smoking building after the first plane hit. I had several IM’s going, and as people from my company started rolling into the office CA time, they were not yet aware of what was happening, and there I was — on the other side of the planet — updating them with CNN and BBC (much better coverage) updates.

A co-worker still has our IM log saved from that morning.

We were in California on September 11th, scheduled to fly back to the East Coast that very morning.

Because phone service was jammed, we sent e-mails to our friends in NYC, asking if they were okay.

I have long since deleted their responses, but I printed them out and still have them tucked away in the book I was reading at the time. I also wrote a long story about how I felt and what I did that day, and not having anybody to read it, I sent it to Bill Griffith, the cartoonist who writes and draws Zippy the Pinhead. I have no idea why I sent it to him.

But even if I had to paper record, I still wouldn’t forget that day. If you were old enough to understand what was happening, you can’t just delete it from your mind with the push of a button. It’s burned solidly into the flesh and blood of our brains, and more durable and real than any man-made records.

Five years ago, if there was Google Earth and Live Earth, we would be using it to see live feeds from NY – not cnn or bbc.

Peace to the souls who died on 9/11 – it marked the beginning of a new era of international terrorism.

Over the weekend, I felt my memory of the Twin Towers pre-9/11 had been erased. Until I kicked around wikipedia and WiredNewYork.com.

I recently accepted a new job in the World Financial Center (across the street from the WTC site). Through interviews and pre-employment meetings I’ve walked by the site many times. Astonishingly, I couldn’t remember where things were. Truthfully, I hadn’t been to the WTC since the late 80′s, but I had been there many times, and in the towers a few times. So last night I started “remembering” pre-9/11 with the help of the internet.

But, we lost more than buildings that day. The people we lost can never be replaced, and certainly we can’t erase that. My thoughts, tears and prayers today are for the heros we lost that morning and the loved ones who mourn them. God Bless America.

That morning I was still thinking of the events of the previous Friday, when my company (Teaching Network) laid off more than half of their staff including me. I slept late and woke up when Fedex knocked on my door around 9AM to deliver my CodeWarrior update. At that time I turned on the TV and saw what was happning.

Setup your own server and post everything you want.

Create backups daily on home PC and burn 2 backup DVDs every 3-6 months with all content and place them in bank deposit box.

Robert, I have one of Patricks pictures…

http://rob.crabapples.net/archive/2001_09_09_default.htm