A minimalist approach to essential, transparent, accountable, flat, adaptable, responsive, solution-based government, rooted in virtuous individual autonomy, traditional values and free markets, with a bias towards reduction of government functionality, cost and scope
I was working in the Waukesha County courthouse, which hosted the county IT infrastructure. I was racing for a government contractor on a fixed-bid ERP upgrade contract. I had relocated from California to the Chicago northwestern suburbs (my new employer only had one Wisconsin-based client) mid-contract, an 83-mile commute one way. I joined the project, replacing the original Apps DBA, and it was well behind schedule. I had to spend long (unpaid) extra hours because the county DBA's processes sometimes failed to bring up Apps processes after backups (and there were issues with their backups beyond this discussion), so I had to be at the courthouse early before testing. If I had to implement any patches, the county insisted I could only apply them after 7 PM, so I often had 12+ hour days, not including my commute.
I was well into my hectic work schedule, and I was somewhat annoyed by my Indian developer colleague who was late to work. (He lived locally.) I think I needed him to check some details. We had a few cubicles among client cubicles when my colleague finally arrived, yelling to the floor about an airplane flying into a NYC building.. I was puzzled, thinking maybe he was incoherently talking about a Cessna having a hardware failure over NYC. It soon became clear from others that it was more serious and multi-faceted. I particularly remember hearing about Flight 93. By that time, one or more clients brought in portable TVs. It seemed like I was the only person at the courthouse actually still working. It's not that I didn't care, but the county was paying for my work, not watching TV or discussing the news on their time. It really wasn't until I got home that evening and had access to the Internet.
I remember the paranoia in the aftermath of the attacks. I was worried about soft targets like Chicago Union Station during rush hour. I recall briefly joining early morning prayer assemblies in front of the courthouse after my morning commute.
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