ten years on...

bin laden is dead.

a few things come to mind for me from that day ten years ago:

1) walking into my office on the morning of 9/11 to a ringing phone. i dropped my bag, picked up the phone, and it was my friend dan. he asked me "are you watching this?" i had no idea what he was talking about. it was about 9:05am and i had yet to turn on my computer. dan had very little info at the time, but he was watching things unfold from his office window, a big plume of smoke emanating from the first tower. he said "i think a small plane flew into the trade center!" i plugged in, checked out cnn.com and saw an image of the building with smoke pouring out.

2) after about an hour, every conference room at ogilvy was packed... people were glued to the televisions, watching the horror unfold. many were crying. rumors were flying. mass confusion.

3) around 11:30am, our prez, carla h., sent everyone home. but many who lived in brooklyn, queens, new jersey, could not get out of the city as all subways and buses were shut down. at the time i lived in the upper west side of manhattan, so i had a bunch of people over to my place.

4) for the next three or four hours, we watched in shock.

i imagine bin laden's death won't change much, as he had become just a figurehead for a number of different splinter factions of al quaeda, each with their own de facto leader. but let's hope things get a little better.

also, what the fuck is with the pakistani government? a little embarrassing to say the least that he was found deep in the heart of the country, hiding in a mansion. i imagine things will get a bit weird between the US and pakistan now.