I was coming in to work late after stopping by the hospital. I was channel surfing, looking for a station that didn't have commercials. I clicked on to Man Cow of all things just as he said "...ane has hit the building! Oh my god! is this true? somebody find out if this is for real." I stayed with the channel long enough to find out it wasn't one of his crappy skits or phone pranks, then stayed on.

I got to work thinking, "wow he's really gone too far this time!" When I came into the lobby of my building the TVs that normally have product slideshows had CNN on. I watched the replay of the first plane hitting and saw a dove flying across the screen at quarter speed. I was thinking, There's no way this is real! something's wrong with this image. It wasn't until I saw the buildings fall and realized those were people jumping from the windows to their deaths that I accepted it was real.

By lunch time everyone knew. There were questions like; Has anything else been hit? Are we a target? Shouldn't they close the schools? Are they going to send us home early? By that afternoon everything in the air was on the ground. I drove home that evening under one of the most beautiful skies I had seen in a while. Everything deep blue and just enough bright white clouds. A perfect indian summer day. You could clearly see The peak of LeConte and thunderhead. Everything was so still... What was it? No planes. There's always something coming and going but there was nothing up. There was less traffic on the ground too, no horns, no stereos blaring. No one out mowing. Quiet. Everyone went to bed waiting for the other shoe to drop.