I saw a special on a bunch of officers and historians who returned to a Vietnam battleground in about 1993 on “20-20” or one of those other news-magazine shows. I bought the related book a few years back called We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, about the battle, called “LZ X-Ray”. In it was a platoon leader, a guy by the name of Rick Rescorla, who basically kept an entire platoon together and helped turn the tide of the battle, and who shows up on the cover of the book.

I heard on the radio today a sound clip of Robin Williams, who, during the all-star benefit this weekend, mentioned a security chief for Morgan Stanley by the name of Rick Rescorla, who worked on the 44th floor of Tower 2, and who, in the 1993 bombing, got all his people out of the building safely (and who got their attention by dropping his pants.) He didn’t make it out of Tower 2- they said he was last spotted on floor 77 or so, clearing the building. The Miami Herald claims that he was instrumental in getting about 4,700 Morgan Stanley employees out alive. I looked up his name on Google, found the “We Were Soldiers” website, and found that it was the same man.

It doesn’t seem like much, and probably pretty stupid, but I really felt that news- from the writing in the book, and the stories that were written about him, I kind of felt like I knew the guy, or at least had a connection to somebody in the building.

I didn’t get as much done in the basement as I’d hoped; some of the stuff I tried to accomplish didn’t work. The birch plywood I bought for the shelf is too small on each side- note to self: standardize on common measurements- 4′ and 8′ lengths of wood. Makes it easier and less wasteful. I started laying the kickplate along the walls, and some of it looks great- some of it looks like junk. The short piece in the corner by the closet is twisted and bowed, and is made worse by the bulge in the wall directly behind it. I have to pull it, mill a new piece and replace it. I went out and got some replacement wood, so all should be OK for now, but it’s just annoying. I also have to fix the blade guide on the table saw, which is pulling the wood out from the blade and widening the cut- pissing me off. I bought wood for the shelves on the walls, and framing wood for the closet, and will install that tonight or so. I also have a 10″ plank to be cut into two pieces for the window shelf- there’s nothing else I can do there. And then I need to stop and consider finances.

Here’s the best diagramatical map of the WTC disaster I’ve seen yet. This explains what I want to know about what’s been affected and what hasn’t- something the nightly news has been poor at doing.

Here also is a link to an interesting article in Business 2.0 about LEGOs and the Mindstorms programming kit they ship; I went from there to the LEGO site and cruised around during lunch today.