I still remember it like yesterday.

Like you, a lot has changed in my life since that day.  I still lived in Chicago, chasing a lifelong dream.  My son hadn't been born and I had yet to embark on my path of activism against illegal immigration.

I was working on the 19th floor of a building attached to the Chicago Board of Options Exchange for a derivatives trading firm as a junior trader.  It was a beautiful morning and I could see Lake Michigan clearly as there weren't any significant buildings between ours and the lake.

On our trading floor pre-market, news covered what was believed to be a small engine plane crash into one of the towers.  At the time, no one seemed really all that phased by it.  As our entire firm watched, the second plane crashed into the other tower right before our eyes and it was instantaneously understood that terrorists were attacking.

Pre-market electronic trading was going crazy.  The floor was set to open soon after and traders hung in limbo concerned about risking thousands, if not millions of dollars and their livelihood.

We are literally across the street from the Chicago Board of Trade and just down the street a couple of blocks from the Sears Tower.  The Mercantile Exchange was a little farther.

My better half worked in the high rise right across the street from Sears Tower.

It seemingly took an eternity for the New York Stock Exchange to announce it was suspending trading and we couldn't leave until we knew they were halting trade.  In the meantime, I scanned the horizon from our window looking for any planes, half terrified and half dismissive.  I mean, really, 99.5% of the world doesn't even know what an option is, let alone where they are traded.

But, Chicago is a "target rich" environment.

As fate would have it, nothing would befall the City of Chicago that day.  And luckily, my better half wasn't working that day because she was sick.

My co-workers and I evacuated our building and I rode the bus home with one of them along Michigan Avenue as we headed north towards Montrose Harbor.

Along the ride home, workers were going to work as if any other day, oblivious to the events that had just taken place, and as I would soon learn, were taking place.  I eerily remember thinking to myself and then out loud: "The world has just changed and these people do not know it."

I saw "tomorrow" in the eyes of my co-worker and friend and "yesterday" in theirs.  I have never experienced history in such a palpable and discernible manner.

I was jealous.  They got to hang onto a certain innocence and invincibility just a little bit longer than I.

I finally made it to my 20th Floor condo and soon found out that one of the towers had come down.  Unbelieveable.

I remember being a haze for a couple of days.  The markets were closed and I think the TV was on 24 hours.  I don't remember sleeping, but I am sure I had to at some point.

In the world of finance, everyone knows someone and a lot of people died that day.  And the reverberations were significant.  It is quite surreal for someone to talk to a person on the phone regularly and then one day, poof...they are gone.

Barricades would go up and extra saftey precautions established.  Fighter jets would roar over the skies regularly on alert or report of some threat to Sears Tower.  Evacuations were common in the area.

There are many negative things I can say about President Bush and his administration.  However, to date, we have yet to be attacked again on our soil by any of these dirt bags and I am incredibly grateful for the work he and the folks who are on the frontlines do for us each and every day.

God bless those who have lost and have suffered.  God bless those who risk their lives to keep us safe.  And may Osama bin Laden and all the other bastards who seek to destroy our nation, culture and people rot in hell after suffering an excrutiatingly painful death.