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New York Times a and YouTube — Reflections on 9/11 – Ten Years Later – This section of YouTube includes special content from the New York Times, archived news broadcasts from September 2001, and features personal stories and tributes.

Revisting 9/11: Recently published photos by James Nachtwey

Joel Meyerowitz’s photography of Ground Zero,
TIME returns to the site with him 10 years later to view its progress

                                My 9/11 story:

In 2001 I was taking a series of web programming classes in NYC.  Macworld was also in NYC that July.  The summer was quickly becoming one of my best ever.  Most of my classes were held uptown, the final one downtown.  My mom kept asking to come with me and for us to do something after a class.  Rather than that, I thought I’d take her in for the day for fun.  Besides  it being a fun thing to do, my dad’s one year death anniversary was coming up that September, and I was hoping some treks into NYC would distract her a bit. Our first trek was in late August, and we went uptown. We had such fun that we planned our next trek for September, but we’d head downtown.  I rescheduled my last class to later in the month, and I decided to take mom in on the 11th instead.

We planned an early NJ Transit train, getting off in Newark and taking the Path directly to the World Trade Center. I thought we’d start our day having breakfast at Windows on the World.  I was getting excited because the weather was suppose to be clear and sunny — meaning fabulous views for taking pictures — and mom was excited, too.   Monday afternoon, however, I got a call from my favorite Parkinson’s organization asking me to do some work for them.  The work was needed on Wednesday.  I wanted the work, and I knew in order to get it finished I’d have to cancel our Tuesday plans.  I called mom on Monday evening to cancel.  She was very disappointed and upset, and I got an earful of the  “You promised!” and more.  Back and forth we went.  I remember getting annoyed and saying, “Mom, it’s not like the buildings are going anywhere, we’ll go next week and that’s that.”  The following morning my younger brother called me at home. When I answered, he blurted out with a huge exhale, “Thank God.”  Why?  “Turn on the TV,” and he hung up.  I did.  And like so many others, I was glued to the TV, horrified.

A week or so later, one of my friends sent me a card acknowledging my dad’s one year death anniversary.  She wrote that she believed my dad was watching over us.  Who knows.

I did take my final web programming class later that September.  That class was held on the first day that area was opened up to the public again,  and I was the only student who showed up.  Initially he taught, and then we talked about the 11th.  He told me some of the horrors we witnessed.  Then we stopped talking and sat for a bit in silence.  My class was over.

I’m in one of those funks lately so I decided to start playing around with a single butterfly picture in Photoshop to give it some different looks.  While nothing is particularly grand, there are some ideas that are getting my interest.  I also may print a few of these in different sizes to add to the painted journal I recently did.  However, I do think I want to do some kind of butterfly image on fabric.  I also want to do use watercolors to paint some butterflies.  As an aside, my friend recently gave me a jar of Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground.  I’m thinking of adding some to one of the painted pages in the journal to see how it works.  At worse, I can always paint over it!

I like the simplicity of this one, and I may use this as a starting point for some watercolor images.

Please respect copyright.

I received some emails asking how things in our area of New Jersey. Many areas had flooding and electrical outages.  We were extremely fortunate, only suffering minimal broken tree branches and some minor flooding in the yard.  We did have some stressful moments during the night as we watched the water totally covering the street and creeping up our front yard to the point that we feared the main area of our house would flood.  However, each time the rain subsided in strength, the water would recede back to the street.  Back and forth all night, with neither of us being able to sleep.

Downtown Hightstown was a huge mess.  The flooding on Main Street was severe.  Our favorite place in town for food — and where I had my big surprise birthday party and mom had her surprise party last summer (actually we’ve had countless parties there over the years) —  Tavern on the Lake, was totally flooded.  Yes there is a lake nearby, but I never remember it ever so flooded, and we’ve been going there (through various names and ownerships) for some 20 years.  Sadly, it was more like Tavern in the Lake.

This is the firehouse on Main Street.  The police station was also flooded.  The water treatment plant, we were told, had some 13 feet of water in it, meaning the water needed to be boiled before use (although that has now been lifted). The most tragic was two people in the area who died as a result of the storm.

It was a strange week — an earthquake (yes, I felt it, although I thought I was having some kind of vertigo and mom was right there giving me the “you don’t eat right” speech, as she didn’t feel a thing <g>), hurricane, flooding, and we even had a hit-the-basement moment for a tornado warning (which is rare in NJ).  Crazy weather seems to be becoming the norm.

While I do not know of who may be eligible for what in other states, in NJ, all 21 of our countries are eligible for possible FEMA disaster relief. For more information, visit the FEMA site and click the “Apply Online for FEMA Assistance” link, or you call (800) 621-3362.  Also, beware of scam artists!  The NJ Division of Consumer Affairs has issued warnings, which you can read about here.

Generally by this time in the year,  I have at least a couple hundred butterfly photos.  But, not this year.  I was shocked to see that one of my favorite places to find butterflies is now dug up for a warehouse being built on the property.  It bought to mind “paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”  My second favorite place didn’t have many butterflies this year.  It is disappointing, but at least one day I managed to get a few pictures.  I fear with Hurricane Irene coming this weekend, there may not be any butterflies left to photograph next week. We’ll see!

Congratulations to Derek Jeter for hitting not only his 3,000th hit at home in Yankee Stadium, but making it a home run!  And, he hit 5 for 5, including the game winning hit over the Tampa Bay Rays!!  And, he’s the first Yankee to reach 3,000 hits.  What a day!

OregonLive.com has a series of excellent photographs that you can see here.

Mom, me, and Derry

After walking around Birmingham, we found a place to eat — The Duck.  We had an excellent meal and ordered a fudge sundae for two.  We were stunned by the size of the dessert .  Often English people say that American sizes are very large.  Ha.  That sundae was massive!  Even so, we all enjoyed it and the vacation.

After leaving Kenilworth Castle, we headed to Birmingham where we spent one night prior to flying home in the early morning. First we took mom to The Mailbox so she could get a taste of one of Birmingham’s shopping areas.  From there we walked along some of the canals at the Gas Street Basin.  Mom was surprised to learn that Birmingham has more canals than Venice.  The weather was perfect and it was a good way to unwind.

Mom and Derry relaxing.

After leaving London, and on our way to Birmingham, we visited another English Heritage property, Kenilworth Castle and Elizabethan Garden which is in Warwickshire.

After seeing the changing of the guard, we took a tube over to the London Tower.  By then, the weather warmed up quite a bit.  As time went on, however, the weather changed again with a light rain.  The first time I went to the Tower, Derry and I climbed more stairs going into the various towers.  However, we’ve been giving mom quite a work out and so decided not to climb as many stairs.  Besides, we also walked across the Tower Bridge.  And, after we were on the other side realized that the tube station we next wanted to go to was on the north side, meaning another walk across the Bridge.  By then, mom and I were holding each other up to make it across!

The building on the far right is The Shard, which will be Europe's tallest building to date when completed.

Mom is a big fan of English royalty.  She likes the kings and queens, stories of Lancelot and Merlin, and all things up that alley.  On our second day in London, she was thrilled to learn that she would be watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  As another surprise, the queen was in residence, and we saw when she left the residence in her Jaguar!  Yes, everyone cheered.

When you get the opportunity to stroke a royal horse ...

After a long day with several stops along the way, we finally made it to London. It was already late in the afternoon. Even so, we wanted to bring mom in and let her see some sites. Being we were staying on the outskirts, we took a couple tubes in.

Mom is settling in well to riding the tube.

Mom had no idea where we were heading. When the Westminster stop was finally announced, we started talking over the announcement … “Exit here for House of Parliament, Westminster Abbey …” so that she didn’t hear any of it. Once we exited the station, and mom looked up, she was stood still in absolute disbelief.  Her head looked upwards, her mouth dropped, and she kept saying, “Oh my God, Oh my God. that’s the Big Ben. Oh my God.”  :)

Derry was great with mom, often walking her around as she looked at everything in disbelief.  We went to Westminster Cathedral.  At that point it started to rain.  Mom was fine with the rain saying she was in England, she was expecting it to rain.   It was a quick shower and the skies started to clear.

Derry walking mom around.

Mom sure looks happy!

After a lot of English and National Heritage sites, cathedrals and castles, scenic overlooks and more, it was time to start our trek to London.  The prior evening, however, there were some beautiful skies before the sun started to set, meaning landscape pictures.  Here are a couple of my favorites.

Anyway, along the way to London, we stopped at a folly in Cotswold called the Broadway Tower.  While this is something I’d like to visit again, especially on a clear day, it was very windy so we decided to look around the area but not go up the Tower.