At work, we were intermittently and then totally bereft of Internet access, amongst other systems, because our corporate headquarters is in Tampa, which was about to be hit by Hurricane Charley, and their local electric company was shutting everything down. I tried to get our family resource centre computer, which has a separate dial-up connexion, to work for various things I needed to download, print off, lend, etc., but it's got IE 5 and couldn't even be used to check e-mail, run simple forms or scripts, even though the settings suggest that it should. So, the IT guys are going to look it over, since that explains some of the issues the families have been having with using it.
The one thing I could do was read online stuff, and so during a break I checked John's blog, and then Anne's. And I came across this series of posts, in which Anne describes being attacked on the street with a can of mace on her birthday, the people who helped her, some correspondence she'd had with a supportive e-mailer who had lost a son to crime--and then her horror when she went to check the link for his blog--to find out that the man she'd been writing with had just been killed in a car accident.
So, Anne, thank you for some perspective. I may have had to vent a little frustration a bit ago with the last post, but your story (and his) has haunted me all day and made me appreciate life--the bad as well as the good--a little more. I hope you stay safe don't let this attack harm you any further (and oh, by the way, happy birthday), and I hope the O'Brien family finds some solace.
It's funny how here in blogland a total stranger can really make such an impact on your life. It makes me appreciate the support of my friends, and also I can appreciate the lonely, frightened, sad souls out there hoping to find someone to remind them of why life is precious.
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