[PLUG-TALK] Where I was on 9/11/2001

[Keith Lofstrom]

I learned about the Twin Towers attack in a motel room in
Sunnyvale.  I was preparing for a meeting with clients at
National Semiconductor, when my business partner Chisong
walked in and turned on the television news, showing 
smoke pouring out of the North Tower, then the collapse.

I called my clients, postponed our meeting from 8am to
10am, then started calling car rental agencies.  I knew
I would not be able to fly home that afternoon.  I also
called Intel Oregon travel, in case they had an engineer
or two needing a ride north.  Got a bureaucratic no.

I found a car, packed and checked out, then went with my
partner to Hertz car rental to pick up their last car.
We took two cars to the delayed meeting. 

We actually got something done at that meeting - though
Hossam, one of the National engineers, was from Egypt
on a green card.  He was sure he would be in an
internment camp in a week.  I told him the US wasn't
perfect, but we weren't as evil as that.

Driving north up the Central Valley after the meeting,
listening to AM talk radio assholes, I wasn't so sure.

I stopped that night in Ashland, joining students from
Southern Oregon State College in a candlelight vigil.
Faith in US goodness mostly restored.  Then gas, then
a Medford motel, then up at dawn and straight up I5 to
the Hertz location on 3rd and Oak in downtown Portland,
arriving around 10 am. 

I pulled in at Hertz, pulled my suitcase out of the
trunk, gave the attendant the keys, who immediately
gave them to the next customer in a long line.  She
got in and drove off, less than a minute after I
arrived.  I took Trimet home.

Hossam was not deported, though he became a spineless
toady for his boss, perhaps fearing job loss and
subsequent deportation.  National Semiconductor stopped
paying for our development work, then (without asking)
put a nonfunctional "boilerplate" version of our design
in one of their important new products, rendering it
nonfunctional.  They would have saved millions by simply
asking us yes/no, and learned more if they paid us. 

Still, I had more fun working with other customers,
so things turned out fine for us. 

National Semiconductor lost partners and customers and
sold divisions.  I wasn't the only person they screwed.
Remnants were acquired by Texas Instruments in September
2011.  In a weird way, National was another victim of 9/11.

As COVID thins the ranks of older key contributors to
the US economy, we may clean out some deadwood, but some
of our important "products" (like utilities and hospitals)
may also be "rendered nonfunctional".  Expect another
"roaring 20s", perhaps another Great Depression.
Hopefully not a thermonuclear Gulf War II.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com