I was working at Sandia, across the street from LLNL, at the time of sept. 11th. I was awoken by a call early morning telling me to turn on the news...

I tuned in just after the second plane hit the towers... I watched the surreal scene- I remember thinking "why the hell is the camera panning up to the sky" for a split second before I realized the camera wasnt going up, the tower was coming down... I checked on family and friends and then rode my bike the 10 minutes to work- I was stopped at the gate and told that the lab was closed... I biked back home and watched the horror unfold...

The next day, I did go into work... security was tight... I remember the anger expressed by some of my co-workers... my boss was furious that the lab had been shut down.. . his feeling was that as a national lab we were part of the national defense. He had a point- top terrorism experts work at sandia- one of the world experts on bin laden works at sandia.

Anyway, security got tight after that... My bag was searched often, cars were searched randomly... I didnt get stopped too often, because I was on a bike... airspace was restricted around the labs..packages were x-rayed...

twice my building was evacuated for an anthrax scare- needless to say false alarms...

The nearest place to eat lunch was the LLNL cafeteria, the security at LLNL was impressive- armored vehicles at the gate.... Guards with machine guns and body armor, it was surreal...

I keep in touch with some of my old co-workers there- The street, East Ave. that runs between the 2 labs is being sealed off, only lab employees can travel on it between the 2 labs...

It was a very odd time to work at a research institution...

As an aside, I have to say this... the national labs employees may not face bullets, but they do as much to save lives and secure our safety as the guys on the front lines... I saw chem/bio detectors being developed, foam that renders nearly all chem/bio weapons inert, a device that renders bombs inert (wish I knew how it worked, but dont have the clearance) ... forensic devices that are astoundingly sensitive- we sometimes got mass emailings from police and the FBI asking for help- one asked if we had a way to sniff out a body in a landfill... I dont know the answer they got...

The national lab system was created after WW2, our national labs probably outdo the science output of the rest of the world... the american national labs are very likely the best result from WW2... the medicines and discoveries that have come from the labs have made a huge difference... What has put america at the head of technology? It is the investment in our research institutions...

LOL anyway, I was just trying to make the point that even us "liberal eggheads" are quite patriotic, and contribute some....