To give you an idea of how extraordinary the Marriott Staff was just listen to something they did for me.  The Festival was being held on the weekend prior to my birthday. During a conversation with a member of the Loss Prevention Depatment who was fixing the safe in my room, I jokingly mentioned that Monday was that special day and I should stay longer to celebrate.  When I returned to my room after breakfest the morning of my B-day and day of departure, a huge gift basket was sitting on the table with a card. I will never forget the kindness...

That is quite a nice deal. I had very pleasant experiences with the hotel staff as well; in general, they seemed quite the opposite of then-stereotypical cranky New Yorkers (which I sometimes ran into on previous trips there).

Almost ironically, on the last day of the '99 fest, we had already checked out of our room, but I still had some functions left to attend; I asked the bell captain if I could leave my bag with them for several hours, and he replied that they'd hold it for me as long as I wanted. I was certainly gratified, but my first thought was, if I wanted to blow something up, what a perfectly easy and innocuous way to plant a bomb on the premises. Certainly incapable of doing such severe damage as even the car bomb in '93, but if--at the time--I were asked to predict another disaster at WTC, I would've certainly said something along that line as opposed to what really happened.

[shadow=black,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

Probably like everyone here who'd been to WTC, the sense of loss to me was very personal. The fact that I'd spent time there and really enjoyed it made it a lot more than a tragic event that happened "somewhere else." I think about the places around there that Peg and I ate and shopped that are no longer there. I remember the hotel and Tall Ships, the bar/grill there, and the restaurant on the 101st floor (where I drank the most expensive gin and tonics I've ever had) with more clarity than just about anywhere else I've ever spent time. I think knowing the layout and the details of the buildings makes it easy to visualize what the people there were seeing and what it felt like; I often think about -- had it happened while I was there -- what I would have done, where I would have gone. Would I have simply hauled out of there in the grip of fear, or would I have kept my wits and tried to help others? More than anything I think about my wife, who suffers from fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis and isn't very mobile even at the best of times. She could not have evacuated any place very quickly. All my contemplation tells me that the first and only thing I would have done was to try to get her to safety, no matter what happened.

--Mark

Just curious if anyone else has noticed what I've been seeing this evening: ZoneAlarm is registering -literally- a hit per second, TCP Port 6346 (which is used by file-sharing services), both my email server and my mom's email server are slowed to a crawl, and a lot of Web sites are slow to respond. I'm wondering if either terrorists or the government are going great guns to find exploitable computers this evening...

--Mark

Thanks, Julianka. I finished one of the stories, which is for an anthology called SPIRITS AND SLEUTHS, and am now working on the second, which is for a book titled BEYOND THE DUST. They'll both be out sometime next year.

I've been asked to collaborate with another writer on a new piece of fiction, but I haven't made up my mind whether I'm going to go for it yet. Regardless, I hope to get back to LABYRINTH before too long. I've got at least another solid week of work on the short story, possibly more, depending on how things progress this week.

I've got a tale in a new anthology titled OCTOBERLAND, which is a book of Halloween stories, due out any day now, as a matter of fact. It's probably available on Amazon.com.

CYA,

--Mark

The course you've found is the same sort of specialized version of freshman comp that we teach here. It's actually Virginia Tech, not U of Vermont.

Now that's interesting. (I had assumed the VT in the address stood for Vermont, since there was no other reference in the document that I could find.) I used to frequent Blacksburg, VA, since my brother graduated from Virginia Tech and then lived there for 12 years afterward. Beth Massie and I still camp out in the Jefferson National Forest not far from Tech. So it's within easy traveling distance.

I dunno if they're still offering that particular course, but I suppose I might give 'em a holler.

Actually, a few years ago, at the invitation of the department chairman, I went to speak to the language arts dept. at Ferrum College, VA (which I attended back in the dark ages). They told me they'd have a nice dinner for me when I got there. What I didn't expect was a first-class catered dinner and a check for a hundred bucks (for which the professor apologized -- "It's all we can swing for guest speakers"). Frankly, I thought it was a wonderful gesture and the payment was quite unexpected.

Naturally, since it was me old alma mater, I was feeling fairly charitable; for other institutions, I'd certainly have to hold out for at least a meal that doesn't originate from the campus cafeteria.

[shadow=navy,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

Thanks for all the congratz. What I find most interesting is that there's a whole semester course devoted to literary vampires (and a pretty decent range of literature to draw from). I see that the course is numbered English 1106, so I'm guessing this may be for a graduate elective course or something such. I wish I'd been able to have such a choice when I was in college! At least in my regular lit courses I did get to read some really interesting stuff, and did actually discover (and re-discover) a few of my all-time favorite novels and short stories in them, such as The Three Musketeers (to this day my favorite novel) and various works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Flannery O'Connor, Voltaire, and the inevitable Edgar Allan Poe.

[shadow=navy,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

Quentin and MINJA!

Hey Connie, you see this? Yer not gonna take this sitting still, are you?

<<Sitting back with a drink and sandwich to see if cat fight ensues.>>

[shadow=purple,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]