News worthy

Boston

My thoughts go to the people of the City of Boston. The residents of the City have warmly welcomed my family and I throughout the years when I stop by for a visit. My heart goes to those affected by the bombings.

Behind the headlines

We see headlines in the news to sad events, like the shooting at Sandy Hook, CT or the bombings at the Boston Marathon. These types of events make us feel sad and sympathetic to our fellow human beings. But in all fairness, we do not personally know those that were affected by a given event. However, there are few times that we do. When that happens, we do get a whole different perspective that goes beyond of a mere headline.

9/11

The 9/11 attack has bear fruit to many polarized opinions which I will not dwell on them. One thing I can attest. For those that live near New York City, the attack just hit home.

Soon after the attack I had to:

• Lodge one of my wife's co-worker because it could not made it home that day after New York City went into 24 hour lock down.
• Advice the husband of one of my co-workers that escaped the towers on time, on how to re-routed hundreds of printers that were destroyed after the towers collapsed.
• Listen the happiness of one of my coworkers when she got news that her sister was safe and sound. She worked in one of the towers and made it out ok.

Yes, these are certainly no major events and none of them refer to loss of life or property. But they show the small ways this event affected me personally.

Hezbollah Attack

Hezbollah were shooting rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel, when I had to go to a sales presentation in Tel Aviv. During that time, my wife was obviously concerned. I think that it was mostly because the news were narrating stories about refugees leaving in droves into Cyprus. She asked every day: "are you going dear?". She received the same answer every day: "Yes, dear".

So, on schedule, I took the trip to Israel with a carefully planned stay that lasted about 24 hours.

The trip followed this itinerary:

• I left on the red-eye from Newark to Tel Aviv
• I worked until late on my presentation on landing.
• I spent the night
• I performed the presentation
• I flew back home

My wife thought that I was going to spent the time in a bunker, but the Hilton, Tel Aviv had better accommodations and softer beds.

However, it was an eerie feeling when I landed in Ben Gurion and there were only 1-2 taxis willing to go "up north". I am not sure if there were any takers, no brave souls were seen by me. Going to the beach that night people were dancing to Reggae while a gunship was flying through the shore making sure that everything was in order. One thing for sure, it was not exactly like being in Wildwood or Boqueron.

1999 Colombian Earthquake

In 1999 a 6.7 magnitude earthquake devastated the coffee region in Colombia, namely the cities of Armenia and Pereira. News of the earthquake were all over. I happened to be in Colombia working in Bogota that day. What did I feel? Absolutely nothing.

Well, you see, I was on my lunch break (It happened at 1:30 PM) and the sidewalks in Bogota are not the most even ones in the world. Probably I mistook the earthquake with "me trying to balance my body without falling down due to a misstep".

When my wife called me that it made the major news outlets, I called mom and my wife to tell them that "I was ok". I would have thought that mom would talk to my sisters being that they were all in Puerto Rico.

Well... no... she did not.

The next day I received one email from each of my sisters. They honestly thought that I was under a pile of rubble.

Well, sorry to disappoint them.

New Jersey

Cat

This cat is probably out of my budget...