143 Replies to “September 11, 2021: Reader Tips”

  1. My husband’s company’s New York office was located in the south tower. I was at home when he called to tell me an aircraft had crashed into the World Trade Center. We thought it was an accident. I turned on CNN and watched as the second aircraft crashed into the south tower. I called him back and told him what just happened. This was no accident. His company lost 176 souls that day. It was a few days before we heard a friend and mentor managed to get out before the tower collapsed; other colleagues perished.

    While in NYC in 2004, we visited Ground Zero. It took some time before we could walk up to the fence, to look for the names we knew, so we just stood across the street, and I said some silent prayers. Twenty years later, it’s still a difficult day.

  2. On SEP-11-2001 I made my way to Toronto in my brand new VW Jetta TDI. The darn antenna didn’t work and the only CDs in the house were Dance Mix 95, 96, 97 … so I drove 4 hours in peace and quiet.

    It was my first day at a new job – the offer of a 10% interest in a $16 million company. I arrived at my new bosses mansion on top of the Niagara Escarpment. As I made my way into his massive basement office and paused and thought – this will be me one day.

    Inside the place was empty. I yelled out. Someone in a distant bedroom yelled back. It was about 11:30am. He was sitting on the edge of his bed watching the TV. “What’s up” I asked. He just pointed to the TV. We watched the replays of the planes hitting and the towers falling. We thought it was best if I just drove home to be with my family.

    Months later we received some bad news. The equipment (our revenue generator) had been shipped overseas via JFK airport and was stuck in customs. US customs held it for several months and then charged us $38,000 just to send it back to Canada. There was no way they would ship it on to Kazakhstan. My dreams of a mansion on a hill were dashed. I went on to do other things but the images of the planes hitting the towers, the towers falling and the faces of people covered in dust never left my mind.

    In 2007 Nissam Taleb published “The Black Swan” a book about investing and how unpredictable events can have life-changing consequences even for those not directly affected. It is one of the few books I read cover to cover. By October 2007 I had sold my entire stock portfolio and was 100% in cash. The housing market was insane. My CIBC investorline guy phoned wondering why I had sold all my stocks. I told him I had invested in cash. He told me that no one “invests in cash”. I answered that you do when the stock market is about to crash. He pressed me – “there is no evidence for a crash”. I replied with a question “the guy from CIBC is telling the guy with a million dollar portfolio how the stock market works?”. I feel I won that argument.

    I waited for several months. Surely the market was going to crash. Even my wife teased me. Maybe I wasn’t so smart. In the summer of 2008 my wife noticed that the Ritz Carlton in the Cayman Islands was offering discounted rooms up to 40%. We booked a decent suite. Two weeks before we were to leave they phoned us directly offering 25% off if we promised not to cancel our trip. My wife negotiated a penthouse suite instead. We left for the Cayman Islands during the last week in September, 2008. When we arrived the place was empty. That night we went for dinner and we were the only people in the restaurant – with 8 waiters serving us. I left a giant tip. On the beach the following morning I told my wife that I had missed almost a year of the stock market. I would reinvest when we got home. A day or two later the market crashed. I was suddenly, an investing GOD.

    Being a patient and saavy investor I waited until early the following year to reinvest. I would soon lose almost half my portfolio in a few short months. Interestingly no calls from CIBC investorline. Maybe I wasn’t so smart after all.

    My bad fortune was interrupted by a documentary on 9/11. As if the crashing towers and loss of life weren’t bad enough, it was becoming apparent that many of the heroes were getting cancer and the US government wasn’t doing very much about it. Adding to the misery, the terrorists rounded up after the disaster were wanting freedom and it seemed as though many would be released. Over the years may were, only to rejoin the terrorist groups and return to fighting America. It seemed so unfair that on one hand, first responders to 9/11 were dying of cancer, and on the other hand those same terrorists were again killing Americans. Now that I’ve seen Joe Biden in action I can confirm what many have been saying for years – that America has become a total shit-show of corruption.

    9/11 has taught me many things. In no particular order:

    1. things can happen in this world that are unexpected and uncontrollable and that will affect you in ways you cannot predict. Don’t stay out on the limb too long.

    2. you are never as smart as you think you are.

    3. there are assholes and heroes – too many of the former and too few of the latter.

    4. you may find good fortune but there are those who find hardship, through no fault of their own. Do not turn your back on them.

    5. western society is fascinated by evil people to the point of ignoring their victims.

    6. as life goes on, personal health and happiness should become more important and personal wealth and self interest less important.

    7. the person most likely to help you in a time of crisis is often the person you would normally pay the least amount of attention to.

    8. our leaders have become corrupt.

    We don’t really watch TV anymore. I can only imagine the false images of Trudeau, Biden and Harris, each taking advantage of a tragedy to improve their lot in life as they collect their gold bars in the dessert, with no destination in mind. Power and greed on one side, a fireman climbing stairs, carrying 40 pounds of equipment, and telling people to get to safety on the other.

  3. UnMe, no comment? Having a nice tool around in your Lamboghini with your supermodel wife this morning? Shopping for a new frame for your science degree?

    A good friend phoned to tell me the news, and that I should turn on the TV, after the first collapse but before the second. I told him, “no way jet fuel could cause that!”

    He’s an engineer though, see, and he explained it to me briefly, we hung up and I went to tell my wife to turn on the box. Horror, utter horror. Will never forget it and neither should anyone else, any more than we should forget that the POTUS just massively armed and financed the kind of people who did it.

  4. I was refinishing cupboards at home when wifey called from work to tell me a plane flew into the world trade centre (she went on a tour of the towers a few years earlier when she was in NY taking a course. I’ve still got the Trade Center T-shirt she bought me ). I turned on the tv moments after the second plane hit. Then watched it over and over until the second tower fell. Knowing that many people were still inside was stomach churning, I had to go outside for a cigarette and try to rationalize the carnage I’d seen. It was like watching Hiroshima close up. I’m afraid we may live to see worse.

  5. We’re now being told we will require a 3rd covid jab but it’s not called a booster. That Trudeau feels it’s appropriate to have an election when we’re still fighting a pandemic and for economic survival is proof he’s in it for himself. For this he should be punished with a wipe out.
    There seems to be a lot of anger across the country which is a good sign in this case.
    In my riding the Conservative has stayed too long at the fair, 20 years and gets large majorities. This person is given to bimbo blurts, an embarrassment to say the least. However, this time it’s Trudeau we need to bump.

  6. Somewhere I have an Edmonton Sun paper with a picture of the Shawinigan Strangler, the PM at the time and the opposition leaders at Ground Zero a few days later. The PM was holding his nose!
    Was always a classless POS!

  7. Adolf The Gay Nazi was asked this morning about Big Chief Jody stating in her book that he got angry and wanted her to lie. He basically accused her of lying.

  9. I tried logging on to my brokerage account this morning and, apparently, the server’s unavailable right now.

    Normally, the system’s down overnight for maintenance but it’s supposed to be up and running by 5 AM my time. It’s now 8:30. It could be coincidence, but, considering the date, which happens to be a milestone anniversary, there could be a different reason. A system attack? Paranoia on the part of the operators?

    1. I think some idiot soyboys are having their fun today. A few minutes ago, I was about to post a message on a certain website when it starts going wobbly on me.

      Grow up, people. It’s a major anniversary of a certain event. Go find a closet somewhere and get your jollies there.

    1. It’s rather presumptuous to think that this book will damage Prime Minister Cox Zucker. If being shown to be a groper, a blackfacer, and an outright crook wasn’t enough to unseat him, what are the chances that a few written words will?

  11. Some of the mostly young men who spoke to Reuters complained that U.S. forces had not tried to help the Afghan people.
    “After the September 11 events took place, the Americans were in our country for 20 years for their own benefit,” said Jalil Ahmad.

    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/on-9-11-anniversary-afghans-blame-departed-us-forces-for-their-woes/ar-AAOkN2b?ocid=msedgntp

    Since returning to power last month, the Taliban has appointed an acting cabinet including several former militants held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay.

    Shoulda nuked them and Pakistan. Still should.

  13. I was living in Riyadh, working for a Saudi company, and on a business trip to Jubail at the time of the attack. However, I did not actually learn of the attack until hours later, when I called my wife after my return to Riyadh, after the towers had fallen.

    I cannot begin to describe the anger I felt at those who gleefully supported the attack, and that included a few of my colleagues where I worked.

  14. I was in my home office near Washington, D.C. My father called shortly after the first tower was hit, and I spent the rest of the day watching events on TV and tracking my wife’s progress getting home from her office at AARP near Foggy Bottom.

  15. I got a call from a co-worker telling me to turn on the tv.

    I remember the day; beautiful sunny fall day. We drove to another town, no radio reception along the way. I remember getting to our destination, looking around, wondering if that all really happened.

    A friend was moving from the eastern US to western Canada, driving across the country. The eerie quiet, no aircraft was what he remembers.

    1. PS: To myself but forgot to say, this is very relevant to Canada today, and the Fake Canadian Government model.

  17. Was set to walk my dog 0630 PST. My 17 year old daughter asked me if WW3 had started. I returned home having heard some plane had hit the WTC. Then I saw a tower go down, my daughter informed that was the second to fall.

    I knew it was OBL and wished that his DNA could be wiped from humanity.

    GWB distinguished himself in the immediate aftermath to 9/11. Today he disgraced himself, his legacy and his nation with his psychotic ramblings linking 9/11 with a three hour riot on 6 Jan.

    The enemy is again ensconced in Afghanistsn, that establishment swamp failure now replaced with bitter hatred for and fear of millions of their fellow citizens.

      1. Honestly BAD R he is one of the very worst SHITCONS in world history. He destroyed the US Constitution with his damned Patriot Act Bullshit.

  18. In the mall. During one of the hourly news break in the muzak, all they said is that one of the World Trade Towers had collapsed. Knowing these are quite “large”, I knew we should go home immediately and get the TV on to see what was happening.

  19. I was at work, when my wife-to-be called. She was unsure what was going on. I remember the JFK moment, looking at vanishing buildings from a workplace TV. We stopped doing what we were doing and spent the day in a shock. Later on, I remember how the stock exchange world was shocked months and months by their friends disappearing with all their colleagues.

  20. I was at the Westin hotel in Edmonton preparing to conduct a training workshop. From the second floor, I could see a large screen TV on the lower level and saw the images being televised. Didn’t know what had happened until I asked someone and they said a plane had flown into the building.
    When the workshop participants arrived, the conversation revolved around the morning’s events and I considered cancelling the training program. However, the attendees wanted the program to go on so we did. It was challenging because after the breaks, the group wanted to discuss the tragedy so we allowed time for everyone to de-compress. One participant had a relative who worked in one of the towers so he was completely distracted until he learned that his relative had not been a victim.
    I was scheduled to return to Toronto on Thursday, but with all the airports closed, it was late Sunday before I was able to get home. I still remember sitting alone in my hotel room watching the footage over and over and crying.

  22. The family of the man killed by Antifa is suing the city of Portland, the Police, the Mayor and the DA.

    from the article: “Time and time again,” the lawyer continued, “City leadership and law enforcement have failed to find an effective response to clashing groups of protesters. For well over a year, they have known when and where these rallies would occur and the likelihood of escalating violence. Yet no strategy of protective intervention has been utilized to this day. This reckless dereliction of duty, cost our client, Aaron Danielson, his life.”

    The average number of arrests for current Antifa members is above 6. The DA should be under investigation for supporting Antifa. Over last few weeks confrontations are have degenerated into gunfire on the streets.

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/portland-protests-trump-aaron-danielson-lawsuit-wheeler

  23. The local paper had an array of photos (the Province) and in the middle was my wife and I holding our 911 baby. I had just made it back from YWG or I wouldn’t have been there for the birth.

  29. I was just about to go to bed late Thursday night and a UK based friend from ICQ (remember that app?) messaged me.

    – Have you heard?’
    – Heard what?
    – They’re gone man. It’s just dust.

    Weird night. Had job interview next morning which was awkward too.

    My real September 11 story however was from 2019. I was in London, England (not the London in Canada which I have also had the pleasure to visit) and at the Imperial War Museum. Up on one of the floors is a piece of metal windowframe from one of the towers. About 3m x 1m maybe and distorted out of shape. While I was looking at it there was a Mother and her young – eight maybe? – year old daughter and the Mum was explaining the context of the window frame to her daughter.

    I realised that the daughter was of the generation that had zero cultural understanding or even awareness of the day and I basically went into a quieter corner and broke down in tears.

  32. Sitting in a structural engineer’s office discussing a job. Ex military and engineering. Had it analyzed structurally and diplomatically before finishing our coffee. Have no time for conspiracy nonsense.

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