December 2003

My sister and I left this morning at around 7 AM, and 500 miles later along I-75 we arrived here in Atlanta! Our hotel (Fairfield Inn) is located right downtown, only a few blocks from several things we wanted to visit while here.

First we stopped at the World of Coca-Cola Museum. The highlight was of course all of the free coke sampling, including discontinued flavors and products that they only sell overseas. It was nice to have some familiar favorites that we’ve enjoyed elsewhere in the world like Fanta Lemon (which I last had in Madrid, Spain back in 2000) and this fruity drink (they called it Fanta Tuti-fruity) that I first had in Saudi Arabia under a different name.

We drove to the hotel to drop off our stuff and try to find a place for dinner. We ended up going back to the area around the World of Coke museum and walking through an area called “The Underground”.

We drove around for a while trying to find a shisha place and ended up driving through the Georgia Institute of Technology campus. It looks very cool with their own Barnes & Noble and a hotel/conference center! We’re headed back tomorrow morning for a full tour.

Also on tap for tomorrow, we’re taking a guided tour of the CNN Center. That should be neat, maybe we’ll get to see a live broadcast of something Then after the tour at Georgia Tech (see above note) we’re leaving for Jacksonville, FL. My sister wants to visit a school there, so we’re going to spend the night. It’s a long trip from Atlanta to Miami, so we’re staying in Jacksonville (five hours from Atlanta) to break up the trip a little.

Now it’s time for bed. The morning is going to come too early!

Tomorrow is the big day! My sister and I are leaving for our 5-day road trip with an ultimate “destination” of Miami, Florida (I say destination not because it’s our last stop or anything, but since it will be our southernmost city to visit). We’re going mainly to check out colleges (she wants to transfer and I’m looking for a graduate school for the 2004-05 school year.

Here’s a small outline of our trip:

Mon Dec 29 – Atlanta, GA
Tues Dec 30 – Jacksonville, FL
Wed Dec 31 – Miami, FL
Thurs Jan 01 – Miami, FL
Fri Jan 02 – Savannah, GA

We should arrive back in Kettering, OH sometime Saturday (Jan 03) afternoon. We pretty much have to be back because my sister’s classes resume on Monday morning :-O

Thanks to Sprint PCS and Vision, I will be able to make some entries while traveling down endless miles of Interstates throughout the trip. Keep it posted here if you’re interested. Also, once I get back to Ohio I will post any photos that I take!

During the summer before I came to RPI (that would be Summer 2001), I worked at the Cairo, Egypt branch of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Namely, I worked in their IT department with two really cool guys: Diaa Mostafa and Abdallah Higazy. It was only about five weeks after I left that the events of September 11 unfolded on live TV. I never really thought those events would hit close to home since I don’t have any family in that region nor knew anyone personally who was flying that day.

In mid December, 2001 I received a compassionate plea for help from Diaa, letting me know that our mutual friend Abdallah Higazy had disappeared from his hotel room in downtown Manhattan and asking if there was anything I could do to try and find him. Days later it came out that Abdallah was being held by the FBI in connection to the September 11th bombings, but that communication was not permitted. It was nearly a month later that the story first broke on CNN:

Abdallah Higazy was taken into custody December 17 after returning to the Millenium Hilton Hotel to claim possessions he left in Room 5101 the day hijacked airliners slammed into the Twin Towers, killing nearly 2,900 people.

The belongings included a hand-held radio used by pilots to communicate with other planes and people on the ground, authorities said.

Source: CNN

When I saw that article at CNN’s website, I immediately recognized him from the courtroom sketch. A few weeks later, after running the numbers again and allowing my friend Abdallah to contact a lawyer, this came out in the news:

The government has decided to drop its case against an Egyptian college student charged with lying to FBI agents investigating the September 11 attacks.

The defendant, Abdallah Higazy, 30, was released from jail Wednesday night after one month behind bars.

Source: CNN

He was freed, given the clothes he had on when he was arrested, and tossed out with $3 for a subway fare. He was attending graduate school at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, and since he was arrested during final exams his credits for the semester were canceled.

After a probe into the September 11th investigations, it came out that Higazy and several other detainees were badgered during polygraph tests to make confessions. Further, a security guard at the hotel where Abdallah was staying plead guilty to planting the radio:

In New York, a hotel security guard pleads guilty to making false statements about an Egyptian guest. Ronald Ferry, seen here in the gray jacket, told a judge he lied when he told federal agents an aviation radio was found in Abdallah Higazy’s room September 11. Higazy, whose room overlooked the World Trade Center, was detained by authorities for a month.

Source: CNN

He has since filed civil suits against the investigators in the case to recover damages. I search for the case filing, but wasn’t able to come up with a document.

I have some pictures of Abdallah, Diaa and I together.

If you are interested in this story, here are a few more articles:

Newsday Photo
911review.org Story
Findlaw.com Legal Commentary
Interview Transcript from Good Morning America

Having recently been thinking about getting a Mac G5 with one of those 23″ plasma displays, this is kind of amusing:

Click to Enlarge

Shamelessly stolen from Joy of Tech.

Today was very festive here at home! I am now in the possession of several more DVD’s, including the Indiana Jones collectors set. I guess you could call it a DVD Christmas, just what the studio executives in Hollywood ordered

Among other gifts for my family, I gave my parents a carefully selected bottle of wine. It went very well with dinner, and I got pretty happy after a glass or two too many! Banana creme pie for dessert is always a good ender to an enjoyable, relaxed day!

So Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone out there!

I’ve been in Dayton with my family now for three days, and it has been very busy! I arrived late Thursday night after the 11 hour drive from Troy, NY.

On Friday my mom and I spent the day shopping. I bought some clothes for myself, and we bought a few Christmas gifts for people. Being the last shopping weekend before the big day, everything was packed and the stores were selling out of some of the stuff I really wanted to get. But it was still nice to spend the day with mom! We hit both malls in the area (Dayton Mall and Fairfield Commons), stopped off at Starbucks for a quick beverage, and picked up a few things at Target.

On Saturday I was going to go to the Wright Patterson Air Force Museum with Dad, but instead we ended up shopping. We hit several stores, including the Dayton Mall and Home Depot (it was afterall kind of a guys’ day out!). Then Saturday night Erin and I spent some time hanging out and catching up. Definitely a lot of fun!!

Today (Sunday) I actually ended up going to the Air Force Museum with my dad. They just opened a new hanger recently and many things have changed since I last visited 6 or 7 years ago. We had lunch, then I came home and slept for four hours… I guess touring through a museum takes more out of me than it used to!

In any case, I’m really enjoying my vacation so far. There are many things left that I would like to do or catch up on but for now I’m enjoying things as they come

The rain/freezing rain/snow mix has delayed my departure from Troy by at least a day. On a positive note, I had the chance to get a lot of work done this week and made a lot of extra money in the process!

The new plan is to leave tomorrow morning for my parent’s house in Western Ohio. If there isn’t too much black ice on the roads, I might actually make it