15 September 2001

Changes

My office is notorious for its finicky fire alarms, which tend to go off if someone sneezes the wrong way. People have gotten in the habit of ignoring them until an announcement is made over the PA system. Yesterday, the alarms went off, and the entire building evacuated quickly and efficiently. Thankfully, it was a false alarm caused by a momentary power surge. But the Airborne Express package delivery van outside the building caused some of us to suspect worse. To their credit, security personnel and the Houston fire department responded really quickly and ascertained there was no threat. But I suspect we will be taking those sorts of alarms seriously for quite some time.

Another post-September 11 change is the military control of Houston's skies. As I'm typing this, I just heard Air Force fighters fly overhead, something that happens several times a day now. While the idea of a military state remains abhorrent (and we are VERY FAR from becoming one, I would add for the anarchocrapitalist crowd), it has lately been comforting to know that Ellington Field is located between downtown Houston and Galveston and to hear those occasional fighter patrols.

It was more comforting just now to hear and see a Southwest commercial jet heading to Hobby Airport, however!

[Posted @ 10:02 AM CST]