*brushes dust off* *climbs out of bomb crater*

Well, not exactly. I was remarkably (and thankfully) unaffected by yesterday's excitement at the Pentagon. I happened to have picked a good day to not be going into work (especially as the Metro train line I take into the District runs right underneath the Pentagon), and when I heard the news on the radio, I opted to just sit tight in the apt. and watch events unfold.

DC is seemingly normal, with some expected differences. I took a drive around the city today, and you couldn't get near Capitol Hill. One interesting thing to note: I was going around during the noon-lunch hour, when one would expect a massive crowd of people going out to eat. In fact, it was almost eerily quiet on the DC streets, not even a tourist crowd milling about in large numbers. The number of police is very visible, although the heavy stuff they had out immediately yesterday when things were happening has been put away. I drove past the Pentagon, and indeed the chunk burned out of there is as bad as it looks on the tv. But otherwise, like I said, there's a rapid air of returning to normalcy. I suppose with all the excitement that's gone on in this town over the years, especially with having had emergency contingencies accounted for for years from the Cold War, that this is one of the few cities that could take something like this in stride.

Barring further incident, I think I'm ok. My apt. is far enough from the downtown area that short of a nuclear strike, I won't be affected by anything there. Work or social activities might be dangerous, but all the notable targets around the District are obviously going to be well-protected, and in fact, especially considering the contingency plans Washington has on the books, I'm probably better off here than a lot of other places.

Anyway, just wanted to drop the note to reassure everyone. Hope all's well in the rest of the world.