I slept. The world changed all around me, and I slept.

My wife woke me up in a shaking, excited voice, “Jon, get up! Terrorists attacked the World Trade Center!” I remember thinking that she must have been watching a movie of some sort, and I dozed off again. A few minutes later, I got up, put on some sweats and a flannel shirt, and went downstairs to see what she was talking about.Rhonda’s eyes were wet and red with shock. She sat on the edge of our recliner,her knees together, her elbows on her knees, and her chin in her hands. She was watching television, and again I thought that she was watching a movie. Attack on America, the headline said in bright red letters at the bottom of the screen. We were watching CNN.

Suddenly feeling the need not to stand, I took a seat on our couch. The picture on our screen showed the World Trade Centers moldering, smoking, and burning.The reporter spoke of chaos, of passenger airplanes crashing into the Pentagon and into both towers of the World Trade Center. As we watched, the structural integrity of the first tower failed, and the tower collapsed. Rhonda began to cry. I looked at the screen in disbelief. For some reason, I could not get the idea out of my head that we were watching a movie. I had the sensation that we were being fooled, like the Orson Welles 1938 radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds.” I knew, however, that this was not “War of the Worlds”; this was more like Pearl Harbor, this was War.

Not long after the first tower fell, the second collapsed in on itself. During the second tower collapse, America lost many of its bravest men and women; the firefighters and policemen we now herald as fallen heroes. I walked into the dining room to use the phone. I called into work to make sure that the watch was paying attention to the message traffic. Working in military communications, I knew that they would have a lot of correspondence to deal with. My overly excitable Chief answered the phone. I asked to talk to someone on watch, since I was obviously not going to get any answers out of him; he sounded as if he were going to have a heart attack.

“Well, we’re pretty busy, is this really important?’ He asked.

“I just wanna make sure that the watch is keeping a close eye” I responded.

“Oh, yea, we’re really jumpin’ here, everybody’s really busy, we got flash traffic coming all over the place!”

I found out later that he was the only one running around.

“Ok, thanks Chief.”

I got off the phone and returned to the living room.My wife was in tears, horrified and amazed that such a thing could happen. I sat back down on the couch and began to contemplate my own feelings. At first it seemed that I felt nothing. I remember wondering if I were so desensitized to violence that I was incapable of feeling anything. As I watched the firemen, policemen, and volunteers sift through the rubble, a desire came over me, a desire to help. I wanted to do something! I wanted to be in New York or Washington D.C. I wanted to help, to put hand to brick and begin the immediate repair of what the evil men had destroyed. I wanted to be surrounded by the smoke, ash, and debris. I wanted to put goggles over my eyes and a handkerchief over my mouth and make my way though the rubble the fallen towers had left. I wanted to find survivors. I wanted to hear the cries of victims, to smell the burning of the buildings to feel the dust collect on my clothes as I worked day and night to find survivors.

I could do none of those things. I was in my living room, watching television. We watched the news for the rest of the day, and when night came, I slept.

On Monday, the 23rd, at 9:17 AM, we were blessed with our fourth child, Jacob. Jacob and his Mom are home now, after a few days stay in the hospital at the University of Iowa. Jacob is strong and healthy, waking every few hours to eat and burp and have his diaper changed.

The day before, Sunday the 22nd, our van broke down. And, being the non- mechanic that I am, I ecided that it must be the starter. So, I went down to the auto parts store and picked up a new starter, brought it home and tried, and tried, and tried to install it. After several hours of swearing at the van, I resigned to my fate and packed up my tools. I would have to get the van fixed on Monday.

This caused a problem. My Mom is visiting to help us out while everything is so crazy. She was going to take the kids to school in the van while I took the wife to the hospital for her scheduled C section, and then meet us at the hospital later. With the van out of commission, that plan was no good. So, it was decided to keep the kids home with my Mom until lunch. Then, BJ got sick and threw-up all over our bed, soaking through almost all the way to the mattress. So, since we didn’t have a spare set of clean sheets or covers that day, we decided that Rhonda would sleep with the kids in their room, and I’d pull out the hide-a-way in the couch and stay with BJ just in case. Needless to say, neither of us got much sleep that night.

Monday morning came, my wife and I let the kids sleep in and we drove to thehospital. It was an incredible morning, and I was so glad to see that Jacobwas healthy and strong. Around noon or so, I left the hospital after I wassure that both mother and child were OK and that they simply needed to rest. Ialso had other kids that needed me, and some other issues to take care of.

My wife was not doing as well as I had hoped. The anesthesia that she wasgiven made her very sick, and with the stitches from the C section she wasjust miserable. I stayed with her and Jacob for the evening and then headedback home.

As if this wasn’t enough, I’ve also come to the end of the semester forcollege. I had three term papers to write, two for one class and one foranother. I finished two of them over the weekend, but the last one I didn’tfinish till yesterday.

On Tuesday I dropped off the kids at school and went down to the hospital. Ivisited Jacob and my wife for an hour or so (she was feeling much better),then jumped in my car and headed to Des Moines for an interview. Yes, aninterview. That’s why I needed my dry cleaning, I was picking up my suit. Oncein Des Moines I wanted to print out a fresh copy of my resume, so I went allover town looking for a Kinkos. I finally found one, but their system was notworking at the time, and I had run out of time. I jumped in my car and startedchanging into my suit. I tied my tie in my rear view mirror, and really had noidea how I looked when I stepped out of my car in my suit at Communications Data Services.

The interview went way better than I could have imagined. We talked for almostfour hours and I felt like we really hit it off. I met with the entire teamand we talked Linux and AIX for a while. They must have felt as good about thematch as I did, because by Friday morning I had an offer that I could not turndown. I accepted the offer, and start May 14th.

My wife and Jacob came home on Thursday, and I went back to work for theafternoon. Friday, after I received and accepted the offer from CDS, I gave myboss my two weeks notice. That did not go quite as well as I was hoping itwould, but its for the best.

We are not getting much sleep right now, and probably won’t for the next fewweeks. My wife is going to need our prayers, she is going to be alone with allfour kids for a few weeks while I start work in Des Moines and get everythingready for the move. Never a dull moment in our lives!

So, to sum it all up:

1. New Baby!! :-)
2. New Job!! :-)
3. Broken Van
4. Sick Kid
5. College Papers

What a week! I can’t wait to see what next week brings. God has really blessed us and answered our prayers.