Complex Numbers

Revisited: "WTC"

So Daylight Slaving Time has started now. Here, anyway. Not everywhere, thus leading to mass unnecessary confusion.

Speaking of time and confusion, my random generator gave me yet another entry from 2009, part of a series of blog entries expanding upon a list of things to know about Me.

Clear? Good. The entry is "WTC" .

The bit of Me-trivia at the beginning:

14. I stood atop the World Trade Center when there was a World Trade Center. I don't remember if it had a 13th floor.

Which really doesn't make complete sense unless you know that the previous entry started out with "13. I chuckle whenever I see a building that doesn't have a 13th floor."

I've rambled about 13 fairly recently; no need to bring any of that up again. Back to today's highlighted entry:

Actually, I was there two or maybe three times. Fantastic view when the weather was clear.

At least once as a tourist, and once on business. The tourist thing took me to the observation deck, which was cool. The business thing (I was running errands for my aunt) was actually kind of more interesting, because I got to see parts tourists usually didn't.

Now... there's a link at that site. It's dead. (Actually, both links are dead.) The purpose of the link was to show that I'd discovered that the WTC towers did, indeed, have 13th floors. Before you go saying "See? Obviously it was unlucky," consider this sole surviving quote from the now-dead link:

Both towers of the World Trade Center had occupied 13th floors and, ironically, after hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers on that fateful day, media accounts of harrowing escapes told of many rescues from the 13th floor of both the North (1 World Trade Center) and South (2 World Trade Center) towers.

For those survivors, luck began on the 13th floor.

Well, first of all, actual luck would have involved not having the towers collapse. Second of all, that's flagrant misuse of "ironically." But still, an interesting take on things.

In reality, the number 13 had fuck-all to do with the events. The important thing is that I Was There. Just not on that day. Lucky me.