On September 12 2001 FBI officials arrived early in the morning with plans to relieve the volunteers who had been working all night to pull out what few survivors were in the rubble of the Twin Towers. Entering Ground Zero was already alien but something was very odd that morning. A cacophony of electronic chirping emanated from beneath the rubble. Deafening and disorienting. Hundreds of individual chirps and beeps.

A typical firefighter in New York City wears Pak-Tracker personal locator. The tracker emits a 85db ultrasonic pulse when a firefighters air supply falls below a certain level or if the firefighter pulls a cord to signal he has become incapacitated.

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I was rock climbing on a cliff face in Malibu today. Enjoying the cool air, crashing waves behind me and awesome sheer rock face before me. There were dozens of other climbers with us including a very boisterous and talented Polish guy in his 40's. Now Polish guy was a good climber and made crude jokes about women climbing. Near the end of the day him and I got to talking and low a behold two Chinook helicopters buzzed the beach. I pointed them out and Polish guy said he had ridden in one, to which he adds: "people say f@#$ the America military, that they are bad with bombing and war in Iraq...American military make me feel safe you know? I feel safe when I see them. I love USA military." I prodded and asked him if he had been involved at all with the crisis in Bosnia during the 90's. He tells me he spent 4 years in a German refugee camp having fled the war in Lebanon. He was involved in some way with the war in Bosnia although I could not really understand him.

Some one starts yelling and Polish guy jerks forward. During our conversation he forgot to take up slack while belaying so when his partner slipped on a hold and fell a little longer than he had planned.

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Music of the day is James Gang. Special thanks to Neptune's Neck for providing wonderful seafood for me to eat.