Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Terrorists hijacked planes and destroyed the World Trade Center and a part of the Pentagon. Patrick and I found out as I was getting ready for work and we were checking the morning's news on the Web. We have no TV, so it was all web. Most news sites wouldn't load—we got the best data from news.com and nando.com. Neither Patrick nor I knew of anyone directly affected by the attack. At work, this day was the day before student orientation, so our office was beleaguered by last minute preparations as well. I had very little time to prowl the web for more news about the disaster. UCSF remained open and running, but managers were asked to give employees great flexibility to leave to attend to personal business or to be with loved ones. When I got home, it felt like the longest day I'd ever spent.