Site Was Down?

I woke up this morning to an email from my blog server, SquareSpace. Their server in the middle of Manhattan was flooded overnight, due to Sandy. Ne'er thought that thousands of miles away, I was feeling the brunt of it.

The power to the server were patchy and as a precaution, the node was powered down. The site was expected to be down for a few hours until the issue with backup power were sorted out. From what I gathered, it didn't take them too long to get that organised.

When I checked the traffic details, it was clear that the numbers were down. It didn't matter however, as the status of my blog was not at the top of my priorities looking at the devastation in New York. By the afternoon, service was resumed and the blog was back up, running as usual ....

New York

The first area you enter when you get into the Universal Studios is appropriately called Hollywood. We shall leave that for the last entry as that was the exit as well. We decided to take a clockwise turn, and the first stop would be New York.

There were mainly cafes here and cinemas. Cinemas with live and movie shows. Not much in the way of rides, but there were sing-along in the afternoons as well as the main site for the parade. We did not stay until the evening, so missed that.

A long walk, but luckily it was shadedBeware of the pot holesThere were authentic memorabilia here, with diners, true to the American ambiance. You can't help but to wonder if the mob would get you round the next corner. Gift shops aplenty, and it was a nice place to sit down for a coffee and plan for the day.

We decided to breeze through here as the boys were excited about Egypt and the Lost World.

Subway?An authentic-looking yellow cabCinemas at every cornerWhere's next?The next area was the Sci-Fi. The main attraction here was Transformers ride. Unfortunately, Anita was not keen as she is prone to vertigo. That was a shame, as I was really looking forward to this one. It was endorsed by the movie director as well and it was opened to much fanfare last year. If you get to the park, make sure you queue up for this one. I am sure it would be worth it.

Instead, we took the "Accelerator". Mainly we were sat in a cup and flung across the platform. Kid's tolerated that one OK. Next stop …. Egypt!

Remembering September 11th

Just after the first tower being hitI couldn't helped but be reminded of the events of September 11th, with all these TV shows and articles on the net. Some of them more over the top than others, often being over-dramatic and American-centric. Like it or not, all of us could remember what exactly we were doing when we first heard of the event.

I was actually in clinic, still working in Manchester back then. I called my next patient a couple of times, and when I tried to get the nurses to call out the patient's name, I realised that there was nobody paying attention. Everybody was glued to the TV screen. I took a peek. The first tower were just hit then. Straight away I called Anita, and she was watching the live coverage on CNN. It was I think about 3 in the afternoon then.

While talking to Anita, The second plane flew into the tower. I was in shock. Everybody on the waiting room, watching the TV screen were gasping. And then, there was a complete silence. We then rushed through the clinic - there weren't that many patients to start with. Some of them even volunteered to skip.

Finished the clinic early and rushed back home, in time for the tower to collapsed. It was round-the-clock coverage after that, but it soon got silly when one Moslem group after the other were accused of doing the act. We soon left for Trafford Center to get some dinner.

While at the Trafford Center we learned that both building were down. Called my Mum at home to catch up about what the reaction back home in Malaysia was like. My Dad has not slept all night watching the news. We then learned about another plane hitting the Pentagon as well.

One of my Uncle, working for RTM at the time was in the US on duty and he was stuck there for the next week as air traffic grind to a halt. His flight took him via Europe and he was stuck in London for another couple of days, unable to get a connection home.

The tower collapsingSatellite imagery of the dayMy brother-in-law, was seconded from Petronas to Exxon, and was based in Houston, Texas in 2001. It was early morning when he learned the news, and by midday, he was already back to his flat. The office were closed for the next few days as American picked up the pieces and took stock of what had happened. He also decided to stay indoors during the period as there were some group targeting Moslem at his area. Apparently, Houston has a good-sized Moslem population and people were pretty uptight then.

I am sure all of us could still remember exactly what we were doing at that point in time. Talking to my Dad, he said, it was like the day Kennedy was assassinated, or the Moon Landing, the Challenger disaster - I was at MRSM on the day of the Challenger disaster, in form 2 - or even the Acheh tsunami. I remembered that one really well as well. Like it or not, the memory would stay with us forever. I wondered what your memory of the day was like ….

If you are in the mood, read about how the students in the class where President Bush heard about the attack react to the event. They are all grown up now.