I remember waking up that morning thinking it was just another day at work. I remember thinking it was a beautiful morning in Winnipeg and laughing along to Tom and Joe on the radio as I drove into work. I remember the shock of hearing the first plane had crashed into a tower while on Kenaston, a few feet from Scurfield. I remember driving into the parking lot and sitting in my car, waiting for more news.

I remember walking into the office thinking it was a tragic accident and feeling heartbroken for the family members of those on the plane. I remember thinking that the damage to the office and resulting injuries would likely be minimal.

I remember logging into my computer and starting my work day. I remember the commotion on the production floor when the second plane hit. I had barely sat down at my desk. I did not stay.

I remember standing in the lunch room, glued to CNN, watching in disbelief as both towers collapsed. I don’t remember leaving there for hours.

I remember the panic in the voices of US based co-workers. I remember learning we had offices in one of the towers.

I remember customers calling – reaching out – just to hear another human voice on the line. I remember that we talked to each and every one of them, no matter how long it took.

I remember the news that planes were being diverted and receiving a quick phone call from my hubby telling me he had no idea when he would be allowed to return home. I remember hearing that members of 402 Sqn at 14 17 Wing were guarding three planes on the base side of the airport in the news. I remember he didn’t come home for three days and how sympathetic he was for the people forced to remain on the aircraft while he and his fellow soldiers patrolled the tarmac.

Many forget that not every passenger on those diverted planes were allowed to disembark and find temporary housing in hotels, schools and people’s homes. I remember.

I remember sitting in my living room reaching out via telephone for help making sense of what had happened. I remember feeling the world was slipping sideways. I remember talking to my dad – he who grew up during the blitz and had survived many an air raid and bombing in London during WWII – hoping for answers and gaining none.

It has been five years. Just as I have never forgotten Tiananmen, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Challenger disaster, I will never forget 9-11.

May the tragic loss of life as a result of terrorist actions in New York on September 11, 2005 never be forgotten. Each life was special. Each loss devastating to friends, family and co-workers.

Je me souviens. I remember.

h/t owed to me in comments for correction re: 17 Wing Winnipeg.

Technorati Tags: 9-11, Remembrance,

I had a teacher in high school who used to say you couldn’t go home again. When I returned home after a few years away at university, I thought I knew what he meant. The open fields I used to play in had been developed. Bright new big box stores were popping up everywhere. The shipyard was closing. Things weren’t as I remembered.

As I’ve aged, I’ve learned that perhaps it’s not that you can’t go home again, but that maybe you shouldn’t. Perhaps there was a good reason why you left in the first place. You may forget it for a time and bask in homesickness, but once you’ve landed back in the thick of things, it’s hard to remember why you ever wanted to return.

I miss my home in Edmonton. I loved Fredericton. When I really think about it, Saint John isn’t a place I remember fondly. Sure, I love some of the people here, but there’s not much about this city that has really endeared itself to me. After stomping around Bangalore, Manila, Memphis, Jacksonville, Tucson and Baltimore I’m itching to get out of fogville. I think I might actually prefer Winnipeg to Saint John.

Oh my, it must be really bad if I’m putting it down in writing that my redneck self would rather be in Winnipeg!

Mayhaps it’s the general blah I feel knowing that I come from a town where the potholes are plentiful, the air stinks, and entire buildings disappear in the near daily mists. The smell of the sea can’t wash away the stench of the mud flats or pulp mill. The plentiful lobster and atlantic salmon doesn’t make up for the missing Alberta beef. The Moosehead brewery and Keith’s Amber (Red) beer are poor substitutes for a trip to the Flying Saucer in Memphis. Nothing makes the t-shirt I saw a young father wearing out a dinner with his pre-school daughter today acceptable to me…

I am homesick, but not for the city I grew up in. I miss the city I’m claiming as my own.

Technorati Tags: homesick, small towns, Saint John, Edmonton

For those who participated in Red Friday yesterday, my family thanks you.

TrustOnlyMulder over at OfficiallyScrewed.com explains why he’s participating in the Red Friday campaign. His heart is definitely in the right place and I’m all for the wearing of red on Fridays – even if it means I look like a bloated shiney rudolph nose a little worse for wear for the day. However, I just can’t get behind the red ribbon car magnet idea. TrustOnlyMulder explains why he’s supporting a red ribbon over a yellow one this way:

For those who ask “Why not Yellow?”, the response I heard today was that the yellow ribbon is a welcome home ribbon for soldiers. The Red Ribbon/Red Friday campaign is just a way we are showing support to the soldiers and their families. It is likened to friends shaving their heads to show support for a friend with cancer.

Some people have even helpfully posted in the comments where you can find the cheapest red ribbon car magnets.

It’s a nice sentiment, but I really hope too many people don’t buy the red ribbons and instead continue to purchase and display the yellow or camo ones.

Yellow and camo ribbons can be purchased on bases at the Canex or Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC) and from Military Kit Shop websites. The money raised from the purchase of these items goes to the military units (when purchased from kit shops), or to the Military Family Resource Centre (when purchased from the MFRC or Canex). The funds are used to directly support military members and their families. Items purchased from Legions provide much needed funding to support our vetrans.

The point is, we shouldn’t be purchasing the cheapest items, or the one with the coolest background story. If we’re really interested in showing our support for our troops and their families, there are things we can do to put our money where our mouth is.

The Red Friday’s clothing campaign is a way of displaying solidarity, but until the funds generated from a red ribbon campaign are turned over to the MFRC, I’ll be continuing to support the yellow ribbon campaign.

Since I don’t agree with the purchase of Support our Troops car magnets from anywhere other than the MFRC, Legions or a Unit Kit Shop, what can you do to show your support you do if you don’t live close to a base?

1. Purchase a yellow ribbon from an MFRC website, such as Edmonton MFRC.
2. Purchase a yellow ribbon from an official Military kit shop, such as the RCR Kit Shop.
3. Purchase t-shirts, ballcaps, magnets, dog tags, lapel pins, etc. from the Canex Web site.
4. Make a donation to deployed soldiers.
5. Send a letter or postcard to any deployed soldier. To send a care package, you must know the name, rank, unit, etc. of the serving member.
6. Purchase a We Support Our Troops lapel pin or magnet (pg 10) from your local branch of any Royal Canadian Legion or order on-line.

Once you’ve done that, consider joining or supporting the invisible ribbon campaign.

h/t owed to Shere Khan over at Dust my Broom

Technorati Tags: support our troops, red fridays, car magnets, MFRC, invisible ribbon

The corporate world I am floating through is very PC based. A few years ago I had an opportunity to play around on Macs in my work environment, but it’s been a number of years since I’ve even seen one in the office. Knowing this, when it was time to choose a laptop I could use for business and pleasure, I decided to go the PC route. Each time I needed a laptop upgrade, I drooled and pined over iBooks but over the years have settled on a progression of Compaq, Averatec, and Dell machines.

I consoled myself with the knowledge that at least I had a nice Mac desktop at home to use when I wasn’t travelling.

Owning a laptop makes it hard to move from the comfy couch to the hard office chair after a long day’s work. There are a bazillion excuses why I’d sit working away on my Dell rather than caressing the keys of my Mac. Finally, when we moved to the mouse house the pretense of working on my Mac was abandoned. We don’t yet have the space to accomodate a desktop system in the small office/library/craft room. So it sits abandoned in a closet in it’s original packaging. When I’m home, I hear it calling to me.

Every few days, when I’m busy cursing some new annoyance brought on by my laptop or a Windows based program, I fantasize about cracking open the packing boxes and setting up the Mac. I dream of winning the lottery so I can ditch the Dell and buy a shiney new iBook…

Today, I was trying to pull a piece of software off my system to reinstall, only to be advised by the system repeatedly that bits and pieces were still installed. Thus began my lengthy time in purgatory – suffering through yea old dig through the registry and try to find all it’s tendrils un-install method.

I can’t stand it anymore. I really miss my Mac today.

Technorati Tags: apple, macintosh, mac, dell

After years of domination and subjugation to the whims of Chretien and the wishy-washy rudderless stylings of Paul Martin, I can’t believe a Liberal leadership candidate said the following (Source: Yahoo! News):

Canadians have an obligation to keep their “moral promise” to Afghans despite a mounting death toll, Liberal leadership contender Michael Ignatieff said Wednesday as the bodies of five more soldiers returned home from the battlefield. “This is an agonizing mission for Canadians but it’s a mission that amounts to a moral promise,” Ignatieff said following a rally in downtown Toronto where he unveiled a new campaign platform. “It’s a promise in which Canada said ‘We’re going to help Afghans get their country back on its feet.’ And the Canada I love and the Canada I respect always keeps its promises.”

It’s like a breath of fresh air…a potential Liberal leader who is willing to take a stand. It’s not necessarily a popular one, and might hurt his credibility with a large portion of his party members, but he’s made his views known for good or evil. The line has been drawn in the sand. We know which side Ignatieff stands on on this issue.

Just don’t scroll down the article too far or you’ll bump into the following statement:

The former academic said that the Liberals need to be strong, bold leaders because the country is tired of being “manipulated” by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

I know I’m young (only been voting for just over a decade) and blonde – so I have two strikes against me – but I just can’t get over the audacity of Ignatieff’s statement. Harper’s Conservatives have yet to hold power for 12 consecutive months and hold a minority government at that. They can’t manipulate anything without the support – overt or tacit – of the other sitting party members. For example, the government could have easily been brought down over the budget vote, but weren’t. Canada assumed command of the Kandahar Province Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) before the Conservatives took the reins (August 2005). All the Conservatives did was extended the pre-existing Liberal committment (from 2007 to 2009).

Now, read the highlighted statement (above) from the article again. Please tell me how we’re being manipulated by the Conservatives while the Liberals are shiney, spanking clean of any manipulation related tarnish? Obviously, I’m missing something important in the nuances of Canadian politics.

It’s days like this where I’m really glad that I vote for politicians based on their personal convictions, local platforms, and past histories rather than on party affiliation. If I based decisions based on blindly following a party into the brink, I don’t think I could live with myself.

Technorati Tags: Ignatieff, moral promise, Afghanistan, Liberals, Conservatives