Category Society

All Stuck Up

Michael 7 Comments

It’s time for me to come clean. I don’t have a favorite mayonnaise. Hellmann’s or Kraft is ok with me. I couldn’t tell the difference between a store brand and Duke’s. Whether regular, light, or olive oil based, I don’t care. Once I even made my own. For all the work involved, any advantage was lost on me. Sorry. Mayo is mayo and as long as it’s thick, white, and has a little tang it fills my mayo need.

On the other hand, every other condiment in the world has gone through extreme testing and I have strong preferences. These fall into two categories. Those I like and use and those I would rather do without. Rather do without. That doesn’t mean I don’t bend if I have to. If I’m at friends’ house and they are serving one of those other mustards at their cookout, I won’t turn my nose up and whip out my brand from a handy condiment belt. I’m not a snob. Except …

Except for honey and syrup. You might say that when it comes to honey and syrup, I’m pretty much stuck on what I like. I got to thinking about this because I just used the last of my honey this past Sunday when I made the glaze for the Easter ham and the last of my syrup on this morning’s breakfast pancakes.

(If you have a good memory you know in my last post I mentioned that we went out for our Easter dinner. That’s right, we did. But that didn’t stop me from baking a ham.)

(Some traditions die harder than others.)

(We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post.)

I may have even mentioned before that I can be a honey and syrup snob. There aren’t specific brands of either that I have hitched my wagon to. Rather there are specific sources. Local sources. Local is always better. Think about last summer and the green beans you got at the farmers’ market versus those you got at your snow bound mega-mart’s produce section on your last shopping trip. I prefer the summer stock also, but that doesn’t stop me from eating green beans in January. But honey and syrup. Those are two different stories. If I can’t get local, I don’t get.

Fortunately, our local maple festival is this weekend. Those little plastic bottles of refined tree sap will soon fill my pantry! Honey isn’t a big seller at a maple festival. In fact, it’s not a seller at all at this one. Fortunately, right outside the park hosting the festival is a farm store where the natural nectar fills the shelves. So it looks like in one smooth motion I’ll be able to restore honey harmony and syrup snobbery to my kitchen.

And I, for one weekend, will be the most stuck up guy in the country.

 

An Eggcellent Family Tradition

Michael 2 Comments

Holidays are great for traditions. All the big holidays have great traditions with lots of family time and activities people are willing to wait all year for. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Groundhog Day.

egg1But as is so often the case, the biggest seem to have the least. And Easter is the biggest for the Christian community for if not for Easter there would be no Christian community. But still the fewest and the least. There just aren’t those big events we associate with the holiday outside of the church.

It might be because spring is a horrible time for a holiday. The secular season has its own traditions more universal than celebrating a religious commemoration. Spring break, baseball opening day, and high school musicals all compete for the limited attention span of people who have just gone through too many weeks of snow, ice, and freezing temperatures.

eggsMy own little family is no exception. Although there are our every year church activities and things we do most of the time, we have but one family tradition we’ve done every year since my daughter was old enough to sit at the table and spill colored water about the kitchen. Dying Easter eggs on Holy Saturday. This year since my dialysis schedule has me sitting in a chair not at the kitchen table most of this Saturday, we rescheduled our egg dying for today, Holy Thursday.

Easter eggs have been a tradition in Italian households for centuries, long before there was an Italy. Early Romans used eggs in their spring festivals to symbolize new life as did early Persians and early Mesopotamians and early Africans and druids and pagans and probably cavemen. Christians just borrowed them because the symbolism works for Christianity too. And for the two of us it works because we get to spend a few hours in each other’s company and catching up with each other and with the season.

egg2Traditions are good for that. Connecting seasons with the people. Take the opportunity this season to start or continue your own tradition. Whatever season you want to celebrate, Easter, Spring or Baseball, can be a chance to make new or stronger connections with the people most important to you.

Happy Easter. (I pick that one.)

 

Hi Mom

Michael 5 Comments

Are you going to watch the reboot of Roseanne? That was the seemingly innocent question asked on Facebook last week. Among the “if nothing else is on,” “can’t wait,” and “yes, yes, yes,” was an “ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!” If the all caps weren’t dramatic enough, the multiple exclamation marks made me pause and consider that the writer’s negativity was not aimed toward the creative aspect of the production or the wisdom of rebooting a 30 year old story line.

A closer review of the comments confirmed my suspicions. The particular commenter expanded on her cyber outburst declaring that when once Ms. Barr has been a bastion of progressive thought, no woman should have to be subjected to her new conservative rantings. Word has it that in the new series, Roseanne supports some of the current administration’s efforts and this will be a point of disagreement between her and Jackie, her sister. This apparently displeased the young commenter.

In 1988 when Roseanne debuted, the show was hailed as groundbreaking. A family centric comedy with strong female characters took on the topics of the period. Typical for working class 30-somethings, Dan and Roseanne had to fight the system for any edge they could muster. It was entertaining but was it groundbreaking?

JeanHagen

Jean Hagen, America’s first TV mom

American TV has always featured strong females and story lines that reflected contemporary family values and struggles. Jean Hagen, Donna Reed, Marjorie Lord, Lucille Ball, Barbara Billingsley, and Mary Tyler Moore played strong characters dealing with the issues of their time and were some of our favorite mothers.

As strong women portraying strong women they had strong opinions. What was paramount in the 1950s wasn’t in the 1980s and isn’t now. Things change. Once upon a time in polite society we kept political and religious convictions in our hearts. Perhaps that too is changing. Today, if there isn’t a political overtone to something, some people make certain to inject one. Occasionally without spending much time in the thinking portion of the thought process.

If you ask me will I be watching the Roseanne reboot I’d have to say I don’t know yet. I liked the show when it first aired but over 7 years I became disenchanted with it. Not because I disagreed with the premise that anybody could win a lottery but because to me it wasn’t funny anymore. If I watch it on Tuesday I’ll be looking to see how entertaining it is and does it amuse me. It won’t be because either Roseanne or Jackie agrees or disagrees with my political view.

I personally don’t turn to an entertainment medium for input into my political opinion. I’d rather use news sources for that but what do I know. I’m old. Maybe that’s the latest thing so we can watch TV, play with our phones, and decide who we’re going to vote for in the next election all at the same time. Still, I require my entertainment to be just entertaining.

Although, now that I think about it, a show where real people get their political convictions from fictional characters might be pretty hilarious. I wonder who I send that pitch to.

 

Things Numerous but not Sufficiently Voluminous

Michael 4 Comments

I’ve had too many odd thoughts running around in my head and it’s time to get rid of some things that don’t make any sense to keep.

ModernThinkerHave you seen the new Internet food fad, donut chips? The last time I was at the store I purposely sought out day old donuts to try them. What you’re supposed to do is split your leftover donut in half so you have two skinny disks. Then you coat these in sugar and cinnamon and press them in a panini press. Don’t waste your time. Or your donuts. Unless you like flat, scorched, stale donuts.

I’ve seen this a lot in the last few weeks. A vehicle with appropriate handicap placard or plates idling in a handicap marked parking spot with a driver. This confuses me, particularly when I am walking past the vehicle in question after having has to park my handicap marked vehicle 3 rows away. Is this idling driver an able bodied person who dropped off his or her handicapped passenger at the store front and will return to the door to then pick up the passenger? Or is it a handicapped driver who dropped off his or her able bodied passenger and is himself (or herself) not intending on getting out of the vehicle. In either case, does that car have to be in that spot?

PatioSnow

View from my patio early Wednesday morning

Should it be normal that I didn’t think anything odd that almost 9 inches of snow fell here on the first full day of spring?

Baseball, the game of the boys of summer, starts its season March 29. Hockey and the boys of winter start the Stanley Cup playoffs on April 11. I wonder if this is why baseball style caps are the biggest hockey fashion accessory after replica sweaters.

There is a difference between being chronically ill and being disabled. Yes, a person can be both one leading to the other, and can be both neither affecting the other, and one can be either and not the other. The struggles are real for any of the above.

Am I the only person who still uses the 3 part recipe – eggs fat, and heat – for scrambled eggs and adds a splash of half and half in my morning meal mix?

QuestionIt’s been eleven days since we changed our clocks to Daylight Saving Time and I still have one clock that hasn’t’ been advanced yet. If people want an extra hour of daylight in the summer why don’t they just get up an hour earlier?

Why are there braille markings on drive up ATMs?

How many spiders are living with me that I can wipe out all the cobwebs in the corners on Monday and they’re all back Tuesday morning? And should I be worried about that?

Thank you for listening. I feel much lighter now.

 

Low Seeded Life Lessons

Michael 2 Comments

If you’ve been anywhere near a TV set, radio, computer, or newspaper where they recognize college basketball as news, then you’ve heard about the big upset in the NCAA tournament last week. You’ll hear about here (read about it here?) too. But just for a little.

For the first time a number 16 (aka lowest regional) seed beat a number one regional seed. All the news outlets told that part of the story to everybody reading or listening. As impressive as that is there are some important things they left out that the underdog in question should be proud of or at least include in their press releases.

bracketEveryone in America can probably tell you that before this momentous occasion, the number one seeds had gone 135-0 in these first round games against number 16 seeds. Nobody mentioned that was the first time that happened in the 79 year history of the tournament. One can argue that there have not been 16 seeds for all those years. For the first 12 years there were only 8 teams invited to play in the tournament. The current four region, 64 team, 4 round format (excluding the 4 team preliminary play-in round) was initiated in 1985. Even so, that’s been 33 years, over 50% longer than most of the kids playing in the tournament have been alive.

The other thing everybody has mentioned is that the number one regional seed that lost was also the number one seed in the tournament, or the team determined to be the best in the field of 64 entering four round play. Nobody has mentioned that the number 16 seed that beat them so handily was the 63rd in the tournament, or the second worst of those 64 teams. (It almost makes you wish they were just a wee bit worse!)

There is one more thing the news people have been remiss in reporting. Everybody together now, name the school that lost that historic game. That’s right. Virginia. Technically the University of Virginia. Now, just as quickly, name the school that won. That’s ok, you can have a minute to think about that. Now that a few days have gone by you might need to refresh your memory. If you checked the headlines or listened to the reporters you might recall it was UMBC. And that stands for? Go ahead and take another minute. That’s right, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

So what’s the moral of the story? Keep working. No matter how long the odds, sometimes the dark horse wins. Don’t worry if the experts downplay your accomplishments. You know what you’ve done with what you were given to do it. And yes, you done good. (As they say.) And finally, even though nobody else may know who you are, what you do matters and that will always be remembered.

See, even in ongoing madness you can find some of life’s lessons learned. But then, it is supposed to be a college tournament.

 

The Next Step

Michael 12 Comments

Welcome to another episode of As the Kidney Turns. When we last left our hero he had just been referred to the local transplant team for evaluation for a potential transplant. Yesterday he got the call to schedule that appointment.

Yes, I got the call Wednesday afternoon for a phone review and to schedule the first kidney transplant evaluation appointment! Even though I spent my career in health care and even participated in post-transplant processes (more on that in another post coming soon), this is going to be a new experience for me. I said I’d keep you in the loop with the process and we start here if you’re still interested in coming along for the ride.

The telephone interview ran a little over a half hour and included a review of systems (current health status and medical conditions, medical history, past surgeries, recent tests, and physical abilities and limitations), and a brief description of what to expect from the evaluation appointment.

The first contact with every new provider always starts with the review of demographic information – height, weight, date of birth, and those sorts of etcetera. One of the questions posed was actually the second time I was asked it this week and the first time was by Tax Guy. You remember him from the last post as one of the stops on my whirlwind appointment tour on Monday. What could a tax return preparing team and a kidney transplant evaluation team have in common? It was “are you working?” It was actually a two parter. First “are you working” and that was easy to answer. No. The follow up was more difficult. “Why?”

It wasn’t put so bluntly by either, but both had to put something down on their forms. The US tax return includes a space for “occupation” that must be filled. Since I am not working I have three choices: unemployed, retired, disabled. I’m sort of all three. I am not being employed to anyone’s good use.  I am old enough that I could retire but not so old that I can draw on pension benefits. And I am not working due to the loss of function that was required to perform my job. Since my income is from disability benefits rather than pension benefits I am disabled rather than retired for the purpose of paying taxes. So that satisfied the accounting world.

The transplant evaluation people need to know if I am physically able to withstand the rigors of the operation and recovery. Being disabled affects not only the need for the potential transplant but the response to the transplant and it’s after effects. A kidney transplant is different from a heart, lung, or liver transplant in that for most potential kidney transplant recipients, if one does not receive the transplant there is still another option to maintain life. Dialysis. It’s not a perfect alternative but for the patient who cannot tolerate the surgery or recovery associated with a transplant it is a means of replacing not the kidney but what the kidney does. Knowing that, it is in the patient’s best interest to not subject him or her to a major surgery that poses significant and severe risks if those will be more harmful than not having the transplant.

So, to make a long story short (which I almost always cannot and once again I fear I have not), in the medical world there are basic functions that I cannot perform on my own including walking and standing without assistance, the loss of my bladder and associated parts requiring me to rely on self-catheterization for what the bladder and other parts usually do, and the ongoing and chronic progression of Wegener’s Granulomatosis and its effects. In the medical world, I am also disabled. But enough of me is still functional enough and strong enough to, on paper, appear to be able to withstand the rigors of transplant surgery and recovery, I can now progress to the evaluation stage to determine if the theoretical transfers positively to the practical.

NationalKidneyMonth

Source: National Kidney Foundation

I’d be very happy and honored if you’d stick with me for that progression. Hopefully this will be the only time that you have to make such a journey. March is World and National Kidney Month. Even though my appointment isn’t until April I’m going to take it as a good omen that I got my call this month. You can make my journey yours and not have to make one on your own, if you remember to, in the words of the National Kidney Foundation, “heart your kidneys.”

Related Post:
First Steps (Feb. 15, 2018)

 

The “Not Togethers”

Michael 5 Comments

I like yogurt. I like chocolate. I recently found out I don’t like chocolate flavored yogurt. Some things aren’t meant to go together. Even when not obvious, it soon becomes apparent that you are facing a combination that never should have been. Eventually the natural order of things will correct the imbalance and life goes on.

Every now and then, however, an aberrant pairing sneaks through and escapes corrective action. Sometimes they work. For consideration I give you oil and vinegar. Sometimes they don’t. Think pineapple and pizza. (Do not try to argue that point. If you disagree you’re wrong.) (Period.) Sometimes they should never have been put together in the first place, like good food with bad service in a restaurant.

Tuesday a friend of mine mentioned that she and her husband were going out for dinner. Since this was in celebration of their anniversary they had picked a new to them restaurant. I hadn’t heard much about it and since it was a dialysis day, I had 4 hours in front of me with not much to do. So I pulled out my trusty tablet, connected to the free guest WiFi, and did some research. Regardless of the source, I found consistency in the reviews. The food is very good. The service is below average.

What do you do with that kind of information? Going out to dinner is more than just eating. At a fine dining restaurant that goes without saying but what about at a local, family owned eatery. Good food coupled with a good wait staff gets added to the permanent dining rotation. Bad food brought by disinterested servers is equally a no-brainer; there is no reason to ever go back. Pleasant efficient wait people serving bad food is a little challenging. You don’t ever go back and spend money on disappointing food but you should slip the name of a good restaurant to the waitress in hope of a career upgrade.

But the good food/bad service establishment can be problematic. It’s hard to argue with good food. On the other hand, with a little planning and some care and attention, you can make your own good food in your own good kitchen. And as I already noted, going out to dinner is more than just going for the food. Service is called service because you expect to be served. And you want to be served well. You can’t separate the food and the delivery.

YogurtIf the server and the cooker are related you absolutely take the establishment off your future consideration list. Otherwise the decision is difficult. As much as you want the tasty morsels you can’t subject yourself to bad behavior to get them. Maybe you give them one more chance and see if the owner saw the errors in his or her earlier hiring practices and has upgraded the front of the house staff. On the other hand, if a subsequent visit reveals the same poor presentation, well that’s a combination that just has to go.

Just like chocolate yogurt.

 

Suiting Up

Michael Leave a comment

Twelve is a very important number. There are twelve months in a year, 12 animals represented in the lunar calendar, and twelve gods resided on Olympus. An American jury has 12 members; a Canadian football team has 12 players. There have been twelve men who walked on the moon. The Bible speaks of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the Twelve Apostles. Beowulf has 12 followers, Thorin has 12 dwarfs, and there are 12 generals in Paradise Lost.

And in twelve weeks it will be Memorial Day.

What? Memorial Day? Yep. In 12 weeks America celebrates Memorial Day, another holiday no American gets to celebrate with a day off except for government employees but, and this is important, a day all Americans not lucky enough to live in Florida, Arizona, or Southern California get to celebrate with pool openings!

I thought this year I should celebrate Pool Opening Day with a new pair of trunks. Somewhere along the way, men have gotten the short end when it comes to swimwear. It may run from the classic Speedo and all that threatens to blind you when you think of most men in a Speedo to the classless board shorts and all that threatens to blind when you know those things are going to fall off at any moment. But between those extremes are the basic trunks in dark solid colors or inoffensive prints. Take reasonable care of them and they will last 40 or 50 years. And stay stylish throughout that time.

But only a short trip through the Internet’s e-mall and I saw that boy, was I wrong.

I knew I wanted something more distinctive than basic blue swim shorts and in an uncharacteristic fit of silliness (as opposed to a fit of uncharacteristic silliness) I typed “funky trunks” into the search bar. I didn’t know there is an actual company called “Funky Trunks” specializing in funky trunks. I guess technically Funky Trunks is a trademark of the Way Funky Company of Melbourne, Australia from where they supply funkily styled trunks to swimmingly adventurous men in Australia, Canada, throughout the UK, and in the USA, and maybe in a few other countries too. I stopped looking when I saw how much they cost for how little material they use!

NotMe

Not me in not my new suit

I won’t pick on just the branded funky suits and their high prices. All men’s swimsuits have gotten more expensive than the last time I went recreational clothing shopping.  To me, $60 (US) seems like a lot for something to wear to the pool. But I hadn’t bought any for a while and then it was probably at a store with “mart” in the name on an end of season clearance rack so what do I know.

So then I thought the couple pair I have will have to do until sometime this fall when the end of season racks are filled with funky style trunks. Or maybe basic blue.

 

Working It Out

Michael 5 Comments

Every now and then I get it into my mind that I should go back to work. Most of the time that happens when I’m asleep in the form of a dream (or nightmare if you will). Some of the time it happens when my every so often disability recertification comes in the mail. In the past few days both of those things happened. And then I thought, if I had to, what would I do?

I couldn’t do what I used to do or I’d be doing it. Whatever it would be it should be something that I don’t have to think much while I’m doing it. I had a lifetime of thinking. I’d want something mostly brainless.

It shouldn’t be anything that requires a lot of sitting. I spend so much time sitting during dialysis (so I can “live a normal life” while I’m not on dialysis) and after dialysis (so I can recover from dialysis) that standing is actually refreshing. But it couldn’t be anything where I had to stand for more than a half hour at a time. I’m good on my feet in one place for around 30 minutes and then I fall over. Sometimes it’s a little more, sometimes a little less, but 30 minutes is a good starting point. Or more appropriately, stopping point. Limited standing would be good.

The local dollar store had a sign up for a part time cashier. I love dollar stores and it would be a financial plus for them since my little salary would certainly turn into dollars spent there. But I’m certain they don’t have half hour shifts and I’m just as certain they wouldn’t take kindly to me teetering, tottering, then toppling a few times each day, ADA regs notwithstanding.

HelpWantedA great standing job would be TV weather person. They only stand in front of the big screen for 2 or 3 minutes then it’s back to checking the weather app on the phone to prepare for the next segment. I can do that. I even already have the app on my phone. Two actually. The one that I wanted and downloaded myself and the one that magically showed up the last time my phone automatically updated itself from wherever it automatically updates itself. If I would be willing to move I can probably do it without either of those apps. I’m certain that in San Diego I can go on air and say “tomorrow will be warm and sunny,” and be right 362 days of the year, 363 on leap years.

A short period standing job would be good but would more likely still have to invented. What else is out there to do? Driving. I like to drive and I know my way around town. I could drive something, but not for a cab company, or worse, an app based ride hailing service. I wouldn’t even pick up a hitchhiker back in the last century when thumbing on the open road was right between VW bus and Greyhound as the most popular means of interstate travel. Depending on the kindness of strangers is not my idea of gainful employment.

Limo driver might work. Oh the people who climb into the back of a limousine are just as strange as those crawling into the back of a taxi and then they aren’t nearly as strange as those crawling into the back of a taxi. You can tell that by the way even though some limos have glass partitions between driver and passages they are rarely bullet proof. Car lot courtesy van driver is another stranger driver job I can get along with. Again, they are still strangers but the people I would be working for are holding the strangers’ cars hostage. The problem is that sometimes those drivers double as lot attendants and that means clearing cars of ice and snow in the winter and washing them year round. That makes it all much too much like a job.

What else? I thought I’d find out and check some ads. I was still interested in possible jobs but not that interested that I wanted to open up a browser and check a real job site. I discovered that there are still want ads in the paper. A lot of them are for security guards. That wouldn’t work for all kinds of reasons. Security guards either sit a lot (see above), stand a lot (see above), or walk a lot (not even considered enough to be included above). No to guarding.

But I found a job in the paper that seemed ideal. It was titled “staffing assistant” and the responsibilities included “reviewing and recommending job applicants, and making staffing recommendations.” I figured I could review my background, recommend they hire me, then further recommend my job to be home based and with no additional responsibilities.”

Now we’re talking dream. No nightmares need apply.

 

Land of Plenty

Michael 7 Comments

I have seen the Land of Plenty and it doubles as my apartment. It’s closing in one three years that I downsized from a 2000+sq.ft. house to a 700sq.ft. apartment and it was time to take stock of that which I decided was worthy of making the change with me. So I did and I discovered that I should have put downsize in quotes.

Clothes are easy. If you haven’t worn it in a year you’re not going to wear in another. Tuxedos excluded. But how do you know when it’s time to let go of those bath towels. I don’t know how I decided which towels to bring with me on the move but however it was it was not well thought out. I ended up with 14 bath towels in my linen closet; there are also 12 hand towels and 14 wash cloths. (No, I don’t have an explanation for the discrepancy. Just go with it.) I can change full towel sets every day and not be concerned with having to do a load of bath linens for half a month.

Bed linen seems to have actually grown since my life reduction. Still I am the proud owner (ok, I am the owner) of seven complete sheets sets each with 4 pillow cases, two comforters, 4 blankets, and two dust ruffles. I know men who can’t even recognize a dust ruffle. Why do I have two? That might have been appropriate for a three bedroom house but for a single bedroom hovel, per sleeping space I probably outpace some major hotel chains.

KitchenToolsThe kitchen hasn’t been spared its own review. There I’ve had the benefit of slowly transferring pieces to my daughter whenever she says things like “I really need a new blender,” and I can come back with “Before you go to Target you can have one of mine.” Even shifting a blender off to her I still have two (one standard, one immersion). I also still have two food processors and two slow cookers even though she has taken possession of one of each of those, and for some reason I have two coffee makers.

Somehow the number and sizes of my pots and pans are appropriate but the kitchen tools are out of control. Do I really need three potato mashers? I rarely even eat potatoes. How many slotted spoons should grace one small kitchen? If the answer is four I have just enough. Spatulas, turners, and spoons fill two utensil crocks on the small counter. One drawer holds three zesters, two peelers, and a garlic press.

Even the glassware hasn’t escaped consideration for further reduction. A man who doesn’t drink does not need a complete set of 4 each red and white wine glasses, champagne flutes, and martini, rocks, and pilsner glasses. And an ice bucket.

Yes I think it’s time for another elimination round. There’s always the tried and true garage sale. I certainly have enough to make for an interesting afternoon of browsing for some people. I could donate them all to the local St. Vincent dePaul Society. If I did I’d not ask for a receipt for taxes or I’d certainly be setting myself up for an audit down the road. I could post them for sale on line but then I’d have to worry about taking pictures and shipping or meeting a complete stranger in a parking lot to hand over a stir fry pan. No I think the easiest thing to do is just leave them all where they are and let my heirs fight over them when I’m gone.

By then they should be museum quality antiques.

———-

WTC

Photo: Jeff Mock via WikiMedia Commons

TRRSB Extra: Say World Trade Center terrorist attack and your first thought probably goes to Sept 11, 2001. But that wasn’t the first terrorist attack on the New York skyscraper. That came 25 years ago today on 26 February 1993 when 15 people conspired and parked a rental van packed with 1200 pounds of explosives in the parking garage beneath the towers. Six people including a pregnant woman were killed and over 1,000 injured in the blast that also caused over $590 million in damage.

The FBI called the van bomb the “largest by weight and by damage of any improvised explosive device that we’ve seen since the inception of forensic explosive identification.” The World Trade Center’s sprinklers, generators, elevators, public address system, emergency command center, and more than half of the incoming electricity lines to the buildings were destroyed in the attack.

Sometime today please take a moment to remember the victims of the forgotten attack on the World Trade Center.