This blog is shutting down, but a new one is beginning.

I’ve been writing for well over a decade. I’ve been blogging for about three years. Unfortunately in the last eighteen months, I’ve forgotten how to do both.

I’ve tried to break out of my creative funk—and over the last two months I’ve had a modicum of success with the writing—but every time I’d think about this blog I’d see the date of my last post and get depressed. So I decided that a change of scenery would be nice.

So I’ve closed this blog (I won’t be deleting it, but there will be no more posts and I’ve closed all comments), redesigned it from top to bottom, and started this blog with a clean slate, and a promise to myself to blog t least 5 times each week.

Please take a few minutes to visit my new blog and make a note of the new address and the new RSS Feed.

This post contains new content as well as content posted on this blog on September 11, 2006 and September 11, 2007

In the days following September 11, 2001, I was one of the millions of Americans who pledged to Never Forget.

In a sense I did keep my promise. I didn’t forget the attacks, or how they affected me. And I have tried not to let their effects lead me into lingering anger or hatred.

But in a larger sense I didn’t keep my promise. Though I didn’t forget the victims, I also never took the time to know them.

2,996 is, in a sense, my self imposed penance, my Mea Culpa. Today I am one of many caring people around the world who have taken this day to remember those among us who gave our lives for doing what we all do every day…

…Live Free

The Falkenberg Family

Charles Falkenberg
Leslie Whittington (Falkenberg)
Zoe Falkenberg, aged 8
Dana Falkenberg, aged 3

Charles and Leslie boarded American Airlines Flight 77 with their two daughters, Zoe and Dana, en route to Canberra, Australia, for what family members said was a dream, working vacation. Leslie, who was an associate professor at Georgetown was going for a short stint as a visiting fellow at Australian National University at Canberra. She was bringing her family down under for a once-in-a-lifetime trip. They had just moved out of their home, in fact they spent their last few days before 9/11 in a hotel, and upon their return to the states, were moving into a new house in Chevy Chase.

Charles Falkenberg was a software engineer had spent six years designing software for oceanographers, ecosystem and space scientists. He had also worked with scientists researching the the long-term impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

It’s difficult to write about the lives of two children who were too young to have really begun to live them. I know that both girls had taken swimming lessons at the YMCA, and that they accompanied their mother to work often enough that her coworkers had fond memories of their visits, particularly of Zoe’s flamboyant outfits.

To help cope with the grief of losing an entire family, the girl’s grandparents have asked people who wish to remember the Falkenbergs, to plant Zinnias, Zoe’s favorite flower.

Two years ago, my family and I planted zinnias under an arch of jasmine. Each year they bloom stronger, larger, and more beautiful than before…

…like they’re growing…

…like two little girls should have.

Eric Thomas Ropiteau

Life was going well for Eric, before it was cut short.

On September 10, he called his Mom to tell her the good news—he and three of his friends had just signed a lease for a large apartment in Brooklyn—he was barely able to contain his glee. Just a few months earlier he has began working at TradeSpark, a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald. Just a few days earlier he has bought a bonsai tree with his girlfriend, Fabienne—they named it Herbert.

An online tribute from a college friend describes him as having an infectious energy. Over and over again he’s described a guy everyone liked.

This year I remember Eric Thomas Ropiteau.

While researching this post I found this message:

By Lara Ropiteau on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 01:02 am:

I am looking for my brother, Eric Ropiteau. He works at tradespark/Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of Tower one. He is a 6'4" white male with black hair. He is 24 years old. Please contact me with any information. Thank you.

It’s painful to read that knowing that her plea will never be answered…at least not with good news. Also troubling is that Eric was one of the few that Project 2,996 failed in it’s first year.

Just today I received an email from his sister, asking that I be sure to include him in this year’s tribute.

Lara, I’m sorry for your loss—sorry beyond the ability of words to express.

Candace Lee Williams

March 5, 1981 - September 11, 2001

Learning about someone from hundreds of miles away and 1,800 days removed is a little bit like assembling a jigsaw puzzle without having the picture as a guide.

Here are just some of the pieces:

Candace was a student. A graduate of Immaculate High School of Danbury Connecticut in 1999, and attending Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. She made the Dean’s List once, and was a member of the National Honor’s Society.

Candace was a Daughter, Sister, Granddaughter and Niece.

Candace was active. In high school she was a cheerleader, served on the student council, volunteered for the Special Olympics, played basketball and ran cross country.

Candace worked in the WTC. Though she was on Flight 11 when she died. The plane she was in crashed into the building where she worked as an intern. She impressed her co-workers at Merrill Lynch so much that on her last day they sent her away in a limousine. The next semester Merrill Lynch asked the University for “five more Candaces.”

Candace was a dreamer. On 9/11 she was on the way to California, to meet her roommate for a short vacation. On that trip she wanted, more than anything else, to have her picture taken with the Hollywood sign

Maybe more than anything Candace was a helper. As a child she helped out at her grandparent’s construction company and not just in the office. She ran the machines, she poured concrete and she even put in septic systems.

At Northeastern University she developed a reputation as someone who would help others. Classmates appeared on her doorstep before exams, knowing she’d help—she even helped convince one friend not to drop out of school.

Airline records say that on Flight 11, Candace was seated next to Mildred Naiman, an 80-year-old grandmother. Candace’s mother says she’s sure her daughter died holding Mildred’s hand, comforting her.

Candace,

I won’t insult your memory, your friends or your family by claiming that I know you. But from what they’ve all said about you, I feel I can say that you’re someone I would have liked to know. Five years later, the imprint you have left in other’s lives continues.

They will never forget you.

And five years later I make you this promise…

…I will never forget you.

Dale Challener Roe

One of the greats has died.

A scientist, an explorer, a visionary and, most famously, one of the greatest science-fiction writers of all time—Sir Arthur C. Clarke has passed away at the age of 90.

It’s difficult to overstate the effect that Arthur C. Clarke had on the modern world. He was, arguably, best example of a Renaissance Man the modern world has seen in decades, and as such his influence was felt in many diverse worlds.

He was most famous for his prolific writing career. He wrote more approximately 100 books, among them landmarks of fiction and non-fiction. And movies. He co-authored 200: A Space Odyssey—probably the single most influential and groundbreaking science-fiction movie ever. His novels often stood alone as the most optimistic of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi.

His optimism was even more evident in his most important role. Above all Arthur C. Clarke was a visionary. In the 1940s he predicted that man would reach the moon by the year 2000—an idea that was roundly dismissed by authors and scientists alike. When man left the ventured to the moon the the 1960s, he teamed with Walter Cronkite for the television broadcasts. After returning to the Earth, Neil Armstrong, he said that Clarke had “provided the essential intellectual drive that led us to the moon.” In fact it was once estimated that over 75% percent of the scientists at NASA considered Clarke a critical inspiration.

Even more impactful to our everyday lives, Clarke is the person credited with the concept of communication satellites. He presented the idea in a memo to the RAF in 1945, who rejected the idea as absurd. He tuned to the private sector, and the article was published in Wireless World in 1945. His idea led to the boom in worldwide communications that brought on the electronic revolution.

He never stopped imagining. He is also credited with the idea for he space elevator—commonly seen as the best way to get massive payloads to and from orbit—an idea NASA and other agencies are pursuing.

He was a scientist, and artist an man of vision.

And today, without him, the universe is a less brilliant place.

“The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.”

“I’m sure we would not have had men on the Moon if it had not been for Wells and Verne and the people who write about this and made people think about it. I’m rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books.”

“A hundred years ago, the electric telegraph made possible - indeed, inevitable - the United States of America. The communications satellite will make equally inevitable a United Nations of Earth; let us hope that the transition period will not be equally bloody.”

“The inspirational value of the space program is probably of far greater importance to education than any input of dollars… A whole generation is growing up which has been attracted to the hard disciplines of science and engineering by the romance of space.”

“It may be that the old astrologers had the truth exactly reversed, when they believed that the stars controlled the destinies of men. The time may come when men control the destinies of stars.”

“As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.”

“Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”

“I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.”

“It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.”

“Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn’t come here. Well, it can’t hide forever - one day we will overhear it.”

“Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.”