Random Nuclear Strikes

Nine years ago last month, The Wife and had recently adopted a new dog. She was a Dobie/Rott mix named Ellie and she loved having a new home. However, we were both working days and felt that she could use a “buddy”. So we went looking, and after a few weeks we found this handsome Corgi-mix fella named Russell.

They got along spectacularly. It was as if they were meant to be dog-friends. Russell became a very big part of “the family”. Always waiting for you at the door and always eager to get outside to walk either the neighborhood or the fence line.

Or napping in the occasional chair

Sadly, these past few months have seen Russ not wanting to do his usual walking about and he has been at the vet more often than usual. He’s gotten cataracts in both of his eyes, with one being exceptionally bad, and he can only hear enough to catch a snap of fingers indoors and clapping outdoors.

Just these past few weeks have seen him not be able to navigate the stairs and he has repeatedly walked into the furniture and multiple door frames. Even more recently, life has seen him not being in full control of his bladder and not always knowing if he is indoors or outdoors (if you put two and two together there, you can understand what my floors have been going through).

So, sadly, today is the day Russell gets to go in the car to the vet and not ride in the car to come home. I’ve been feeding him all of his favorite foods for the past few days: Keilbasa, cheese off the block, steak, chops, and last night was beer brats.

Today is going to suck. Hard.

See ya later, pal.

I was still working a morning shift and had just stepped out of the shower when my wife (then fiancee) opened the door to tell me that a plane had just struck one of the skyscrapers in NYC. I was shocked and quickly towelled off and proceeded to get dressed in front of the bedroom TV so that I could catch the news reports of it.

I sat on the edge of the bed and watched for a while and then went into the kitchen to grab something portable for breakfast. I walked out to the living room to watch the rest of it before I had to leave for work and within a minute of doing that I watched the second plane slam into the other tower live.

I quickly finished my breakfast, grabbed my porch flag and placed it in its holder. I grabbed my spare porch flag, took it off the pole and fixed it up into the back hatch of my truck canopy. As I gathered my stuff up for work, I heard about the plane hitting The Pentagon.

I then went into the safe and grabbed my Remington 870 and a 30cal ammo can of 12ga shells. I loaded the 870 and placed it, the ammo can and my work bag into my truck and headed off to work.

It was the day of our weekly district meeting, but when I arrived, everyone was fixated on the TV in the meeting room. It was then that I learned about fourth plane crashing in Shanksville.

My workplace sits directly under the northern flight path of SeaTac Int’l Airport and is only a few blocks west of Seattle’s Boeing Field. The silence of those two airports during the next few days was eerie, to say the least.

What were you doing ten years ago today?