Fourteen years ago our country changed forever. It is a day all of us will remember: where we were when it happened, how we found out about it, who we knew who was affected or had a close call.
My 9/11/01 story: I was CEO of a funded start-up then (in pharmaceutical drug discovery tools) and we were about to close a round of funding with a London investment group that had pledged $2.5MM. My Chief Scientific Officer and I were scheduled to meet with them in Manhattan the morning of 9/11/01. Shuttle flights from Boston to NYC leave every few minutes and we agreed to meet at the terminal. Unfortunately my colleague got stuck in traffic, so we missed our targeted flight (that was the one that flew into the first World Trade Center Tower in NYC) and caught a subsequent flight. When we got off the plane there were already videos feeds on all of the airport monitors of a mysterious plane flying directly into the first tower...seemed like a tragic accident...and then another plane flew into the second tower followed by the Pentagon attack and things cascaded into chaos from there. We were safe on the ground, but it was, for me too close a call. Of course, the London team got stranded somewhere so our closing got postponed and then when the financial markets collapsed, it got further postponed. Too much fear in the markets at that point. The venture financing market is very skittish in the best of times, but this was a legitimate disaster so the market fears continued for months and months--even simple transactions couldn't get done. In October, we had a great half-page article about our company in the Wall Street Journal (complete with a picture of me and my team), but we were never able to close that financing round, so we closed that company and I started working on something else closer to home. Been doing that ever since. No longer travel outside the region for routine business matters
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We also remembered all the wonderful times we've had in our 2006 Ford Escape that now has 135,000 driven miles PLUS 100,000 towed miles on it. It is a little worse for the wear but still giving us good service so we spent today getting a little more work done on it. Ken took it to the shop to get a new bumper on the front installed and they gave us some touch up paint so I used that on the many chips, bings and bangs. We also went shopping for some silver paint for the bottom edges that we'll do another day since it started to spit rain soon after I did the touch up.
Because of all the driving we are doing, we've needed lots of gas and today had the thrill of putting in gas that only cost us $1.99.9!!!!!!!! The prices have been slowly dropping all summer but this was like a miracle. We never thought we'd see gas this low again. It got us to remembering driving around seeking sale gas of 18 cents a gallon when we first got married. And we certainly remember paying close to $6 a tank when traveling Canada and Alaska. The last couple of years it has spent a good deal of time in the $3 plus range so this is indeed welcome.
While out shopping for the paint we drove by our old home in Waterford and reminisced about our 20 years there. We planted several of the evergreens and can't believe how big they have gotten along with the cherry tree in the front yard that our grandson Scott "helped" us plant while staying with us when his brother Jason (who is now 14) stayed with us.
In the late afternoon we met long time friends - who made up our long running bridge group and enjoyed dinner together at Peabodys followed by dessert and several hands of bridge at John and Vera Anne Corwins home but only after we checked out their brand new 24 foot Era motor home that was parked in the driveway. They attended GNR for the first time this year along with the FMCA gathering in Madison, WI.
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