My hands hurt so I can’t type much, but I wanted to post something so I could look back and feel productive, having done at least something other than eat, sleep, and play crack. Maybe when my hands stop hurting I’ll post the layman’s guide to crack: choose your flavor.

Another day gone… I feel so lazy and worthless… all I did today was eat, sleep, and watch tv.

Bought the movie The Siege with Bruce Willis and Denziel Washington, or however you spell his name. I thought it might have been an appropriate movie to watch, but I was startled at exactly how many parallels there are between the movie and what has happened this week. I highly recommend all those with sound minds to rent it and watch it. I don’t want to give away all the secrets, but look for these: the terrorists in the movie were trained by the CIA and then turned on the US. The terrorists were on the terrorist “watch list” but still managed to get into the country. The other terrorists made it into the country under student visas. The movie also touches on hate crimes and martial law, and of course is set in new york. I have to say it’s an exceptionally eerie feeling watching the movie. Kinda makes you feel anxious among other things.

To reciprocate the kindness shown to me, and to test my ability to add links to a blog, I’m going to attempt to give you all (all, like, one of you) a link to Amanda’s Blog. Be sure to check it out if you get a chance…

Well, I probably need sleep… I’ve watched quite a few movies today and it’s late… Let’s see… I’ve watched battlefield: earth, cherry 2000 (shows you how little was on tv today), the siege, fists of legend, from dusk till dawn, plus a lot of tv like the news and mtvX. boy do I feel lazy…

Later….

Third time’s a charm… got the archiving thingy up and running… I only had to teach myself how to program Java to do it, but hey… at least it’s done now….

take three….

take two….

Had to post something to update the template… let’s see if it works…..

Well, we’re still alive… nothing happened, and you want to know what the profound significance of that is? It means that my homework is still due in the morning…

I started grading papers today… what an interesting feeling knowing that you are directly controlling the grades of underling engineers. I found today that I had a deep regret of all the pain I must have put my professors through. My chicken-scratch writing and my stream-of-consciousness writing style must have driving them crazy. Almost as crazy as some of these papers are driving me… What child aspiring engineer writes their homework on the back of engineering paper… in highlighter… with the answers written sideways up the paper??? AHHH! My momma always said engineer is as engineer does… something like that… I wonder if these students would be insulted if I scratched out their name and wrote “Engineer Gump” on their papers? I’d be fired for that. Must be true…

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. I better sleep… sleep is always good. The weekend starts later today. too bad I have to grade papers…

–Wolff

“So it begins…” ironic… I chose those words to be my first post just for poetic asthetics, but that was yesterday, and so much can happen in 24 short hours.

I woke up this morning like any other, rolled out of bed into my computer chair. Being the nosey person I am, I checked everyone’s away message. I was suprised when more than one of the messages read “if you haven’t turned on your tv yet, do it now”. This seemed very odd to me, so I started downstairs to see what was up. I was met almost at my door by my roommate saying things like, dude, the world trade centers are just gone, the pentagon’s been bombed, america’s at war. So I sat in front of the tv and watched as this whole story unfolded in front of me. Even as I watched, a great shadow settled in on my mind. I didn’t quite know what it was, but I knew it was there, and it bothered me.

So I went to class only to find that my first class was cancelled and that the engineers did what engineers would do in times like this, and we sat and discussed all the technical details of the crashes. After I had had enough of the structures and mechanics involved, my mind briefly touched on the religious implications of the matter. My mind had already thrown around the verse in revelations where it says the descended in iron horses, and just yesterday my mother told me about the new super virus they were discovering. I’ll come back to that issue. And still that shadow hung in my mind…

Then, I got to the fun stuff… the conspiracy. I had read in a book (by Grisham, I believe) where the cia had allowed a bombing of an embassy to pass a bill increasing funding for the intelligence and military. Already senators were pledging money for these departments, but my mind wouldn’t accept the idea that anyone would sacrified 10,000 people for money. A few hundred, yeah, no doubt. And then the thought occured to me that it was that exact thought that would keep anyone safe who might have had those motivations. The american people will never raise a finger at the cia because we refuse to believe that they would allow 10,000 to die. And then Richard pointed out that maybe the cia was thinking a few semi trucks with explosives… that would have killed a few hundred, and that maybe they allowed it thinking it was something smaller. It bothered me that on so many other issues, the government is quick to say that they didn’t know anything, but this one, all they would say when asked if they had prior knowledge was “we don’t discuss military intelligence here”. Not a very fitting answer, but oh well. I am not accusing the government of any such plot… these are just my thoughts as they occured to me. No one will ever know if that is the way it was, but if these acts continue, there would be no doubt in my mind that it was, in fact, not our government or any agency in control of them.

And then there was that dad gum shadow which had really started to bother me… so I bought something. Sad, but true… I went to walmart and bought a printer… felt a little better, but that’s another story.

Back at the house, I got into another religious discussion. One where someone was pointing out to me that this could signal the second coming of the Lord. To put everyone’s mind at ease, I say this. It is also written that Christ will return “like a theif in the night”. If anyone is expecting him to return, don’t expect him to return.

Then we discussed what comes next. I can think of nothing more than would strike fear into the hearts of every american than if these terrorists were to stage another attack tomorrow morning. With our government claiming it’s highest level of threat awareness, a blow now would be crippling to the american psyche. We would realize that nothing is safe or sacred, and it would probably throw the country into panic and chaos. that’s the goal of terrorism, right? So Richard and I have come up with two possible worst case scenarios for striking fear into the people. (I must take an aside now and point out one of Richard, Mike, and my other predictions that does not seem so funny now. About three months ago, we spent an hour discussion the effectiveness of jumbo jets used as kamakazi bombers. We discussed the horrified looks of people seeing a fleet of low flying 747’s coming at them… I never put faces with those looks until today. Now it is all too real and not funny at all) But as for our two cases now, which I hope neither of which play out. The first thing we think is that since the east coast was hit, the west coast will be next. The obvious place on the west coast is las angelas, but there didn’t seem to be any military targets there. then again, what was military about the trade centers? The other thing I thought of was what keeps people thinking they’re safe? They’re small and they’re far away. Imagine, if you will the horror that would follow if no one thought they were safe. I commented to Richard that at least we would have been safe in Starkville because it’s one of the remote corners of the world… no one would ever think of us… but what if they did? What would happen if terrorist set off a tatical nuclear bomb in a small city in the mid west? Nothing more than a population of 10-15,000… All of a sudden, this isn’t a big city ordeal, and we return to the whole panic and chaos.

Well, I have some bad news… the government is thinking like me and Richard. (a little late, but you can’t blame them). The Navy just dispatched 15 warships to the west coast. They only sent 7 to the east coast. If nothing else, it says they are considering the threat. It’s enough to make my hair stand on end just thinking about it… We’re nearing the hours I’ve been thinking about and writing about here, and I can’t help but feel a little nervous.

But I was tarrying in the past… allow me to continue… so what of this shadow? this cloud that has been in my mind all day.. Well, I actually figured it out before I started writing this. I fear it is none other than the shadow of change. I feel that the world we live it, the nation we live in at least, is setting on the verge of some big changes. What they are, or how they will come about, I don’t know… All I know is that’s what I feel. I feel that my generation will be these ones setting back telling our grandchildren stories of the old country to some extent. Back when gas was under $2/gallon, and the government wasn’t controlled by the military or something of that scale. Change… That’s the shadow that over powers my mind tonight, and all I have is time to decide if it’s a premonition or the fancy of an idle mind.

Time is the maker and unmaker of all things… So it is written…

So it begins…