This Day in Gary's History...

September 11, 2001

I was on a consulting assignment to help install and configure a web based software product at Caterpillar in Pontiac, Illinois. I arrived at the Bloomington, IL airport on the morning of September 10th, and was asked to visit the headquarters in East Peoria on September 11th. To save the customer money, another consultant agreed to lend me his pickup truck for the drive to East Peoria (on the other end of the state).

I left the hotel after 7 AM Central time, and was heading south on I-55, then West on I-74 towards East Peoria.

About 8:20 Central, I get a phone call from Minnesota. My wife was telling me that I had to get to a television set, and that a plane has struck the world trade center, and it's terrible. While she is talking, she stops mid-sentence, and then says it's an attack. Both buildings have been hit. If you look at the time-lines, both buildings had already been hit, but she didn't know it until that moment.

Picture this, me driving North-West along this stretch of corn-fields towards East Peoria.

I'm trying to explain that there's nowhere to pull off, there's nothing to do. Eventually she hangs up, and I find a Radio Station that is reporting the news.

Then the radio reports that the Pentagon was hit. She calls back. She again tells me that there MUST be some place where I can stop and watch a television. I'm not about to go knocking on a farmhouse door. Especially on a day when everyone is thinking of terrorists.

A little after 9:00 AM, Central time, I finally find myself in East Peoria. I park the truck in a parking ramp near the Caterpillar headquarters, and I walk towards the building.

The first thing that came through my mind is, how would a security director convince the company president that the security guards need to have Uzi sub-machine guns available. I can't imagine they went to the gun-shop and picked them up in the hour since the news had been heard, and there's no way Caterpillar is important or controversial enough to have armed guards standing outside all the time.

I cautiously walked past them towards the door, expecting that maybe I'll be challenged. I was carrying a laptop case, after-all. Then I walked in, signed in, and went up to the floor where my contact was waiting. I caught a few minutes of video of the destruction in NYC on a TV that had been set up in a break-room nearby. I spent most of the rest of the day, working on the customer's software concerns. The last 45 minutes I was there, I caught some more of the news coverage, and then I drove back to Pontiac.

My assignment in Pontiac was through the end of the week, and I had a ticket for Saturday the 15th. This happened to be the first flight out of Bloomington airport, and I've never seen such a small airport so crowded with people waiting for re-booking opportunities. I actually felt bad that the events on this day had not inconvenienced me, as if by not having been directly impacted by the events, maybe I was cheating.

Beijing : Attack and Murder at the Drum Tower

I feel that I should begin by expressing how safe I felt while I was in Beijing. I felt safer in every part of Beijing than I do in downtown Minneapolis. The news outlets don't really say that enough while sharing this bit of news. Actual physical attacks on foreigners are very unusual in Beijing. Like any large city, crimes of opportunity are common, but confrontational attacks against foreigners are incredibly rare.

Todd Bachman, his wife Barbara, and their Chinese guide -- who's name has not been reported, as far as I can find -- were attacked and stabbed at the historic Beijing Drum Tower on 9 Aug, 2008 at 12:20 pm Beijing time. Todd Bachman died of his injuries. Barbara Bachman underwent emergency surgery, and is said to be in serious, but stable, condition.

To most of the world, as the China Daily reports, he was an American tourist, and family member to a US Olympic coach.

To the rest of the country, as reported by the New York Times, Todd was the Father-in-law to current Olympic US Men's Volleyball team coach, Hugh McCutcheon. Or, as the LA Times reports, the father of Elisabeth "Wiz" Bachman, former Olympic Women's Volleyball player for the 2004 US team at the Athens Olympics.

Of all the stories though, I prefer the one about the man, and not about who he is related to.

As many of you know, I live in Minnesota. Todd and Barbara Bachman also live here. Where I live, the local paper, the Star Tribune, reports that Todd Bachman is the CEO of a local and successful chain of Florist and gardening stores, called "Bachman's". By successful, I mean that that the business has survived for more than 120 years. As a point of perspective, I mention that this year marks the 150th year of Minnesota statehood. There wasn't much of a Minneapolis 120 years ago when they opened.

Extensive reporting on the assailant is available, his name, work-history, where he was born, and who his family is. He jumped from the Drum Tower's second level (where the attack occurred), and died instantly upon impacting the ground.

However, it bothers me that we know nothing at all about the third victim of this crime. Even in the China Daily report, she is known only as "a Chinese tour guide". I only hope her injuries are less severe than the other two, and that reporting on her is unimportant because she is now starting a new day of being a tour guide. I hope this, especially considering the injuries to the other victims. The only indication of her well-being, from China Daily, "The two injured women are in stable condition at a hospital," does not suggest she is back at work today.

Todd and Barbara's daughter, who was present, but not injured, has even been reported on. As a former Olympiad, I suppose that's natural, but that only makes me more bothered at the fact that nobody reports any details about the tour guide. She is also a victim of this tragic crime. I'm sure I'm not the only person who wonders about such things.

Happy Independence Day

It is, of course, the Fourth day of July.

After several years of tension, and many attempts by various colony-side groups to get the British parliament to listen to basic grievances, conflict arose.

The Colonists and the British Army started shooting on 19 April 1775 at Lexington - just outside of Boston. On 11 June 1776, more than a year after the war had begun, the delegates to the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five, and they got started on the serious work of making a formal declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson did most of the writing, and the decision to ratify a Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776. Over the next two days, wording of the draft document was debated, and the final wording was approved after minor changes on 4 July 1776.

The war continued trough 1783. The Treaty of Paris was signed on 3 September 1783, and the last of the British troops left New York City on 25 November 1783.

George Washington left the office of Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army in December 1783, and did not become President of the United States of America until 30 April 1789, 14 years after the revolutionary war started, 13 years after the ratification of the Declaration of Independence, and 5 years after the British left.

[edits: added links to Wikipedia Articles]