September 11, 2001 - 12 Years Later

Here's a partial summary of my account of the morning of September 11, 2001, including an email that I sent from my Manhattan apartment that afternoon.  I post this, or an expanded version of it, every year on this date.

______________________________

The morning of September 11, 2001 began like most other mornings for me at the time.  I woke at 6:30 am and spent 32 minutes riding my exercise bicycle in my living room on East 18^th Street in Manhattan while watching TV.  I then showered and got ready for work at AIG’s downtown offices.  Every morning, just before leaving my apartment, I’d rip a page off my horoscope-of-the-day calendar to see what the stars were predicting for me.  This routine was attributable to my mother, who passed away in 1993.  She used to put a horoscope-of-the-day calendar into my Christmas stocking every year starting in about 1980.  After my mother died, my sister Maria continued the tradition.  My guess is that I had read my daily horoscope almost every morning for 21 consecutive years.

 

That day, something very strange happened even before I left my apartment.  I was about to rip off September 10th’s page to read the new day’s prediction when I said to myself, for no discernible reason, “The world is different now, I’m not going to read horoscopes anymore, I don’t believe in them.”  With that thought, I unceremoniously threw the entire calendar into the garbage.  This was the first time in 21 years that I knowingly refused to read my daily horoscope.

Outside on Third Avenue I flagged a cab and headed south to my office at AIG in the financial district, in keeping with my routine.  I want to emphasize here that I don’t claim to have ESP or any special ability to see the future, but there was an unusual aspect to my commute.  Riding down Third Avenue (which turns into Bowery Street in lower Manhattan), there was a point in Chinatown, called Chatham Square, where the Twin Towers would become visible from the cab after being obscured earlier by buildings.  In my mind’s eye, I would regularly imagine the Towers exploding from a high floor just as I entered Chatham Square.  I didn’t know what would cause an explosion and I certainly never thought that a plane would be responsible.  Nonetheless, I was envisioning a large eruption of gray and black smoke.  This vision was the only reason that I knew the name of Chatham Square (whose sign was rather obscured): I felt strongly that someday it would be an important detail and I took special note of it.  Over the previous three years, whenever I’d arrive in Chatham Square to see the Towers unharmed I would literally breathe a sigh of relief.  Even on September 11, 2001 I had that (false) sense of security upon seeing them intact.    

My next significant memory of that morning occurred shortly before 9 am.  My home phone service had inexplicably been malfunctioning for a few days and I finally got around to calling Verizon.  I was dialing customer service when a colleague, Jason Brown, entered my office to tell me that he heard on the radio that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center Towers.  I looked out my office window and saw dense clouds of paper fluttering high across the sky towards Brooklyn.  It reminded me of the many ticker tape parades that I had seen along lower Broadway after a championship season or during a world dignitary’s visit.  But I knew there was no parade that day.  Something was wrong.    

A bunch of us went downstairs to get a better look.  Standing on the sidewalk in front of 175 Water Street with an ever-growing crowd of upward-looking gawkers (much like the throngs in a 1950s science fiction film watching descending UFOs on a city street), I remember thinking, or perhaps hoping, that helicopters with fire hoses would show up…of course, they didn’t.  

Mesmerized, a colleague, John Feniello, shook his head and said, “That fire is going to burn for days.”  Of course, he had no idea, nor did I, that the fire would burn not for mere days but for months – but not high in the sky, rather much lower, among the ruins of the Towers.  But it seemed logical at the time; it was the only thing that we could believe.

When the second plane hit the South Tower, any doubts I had that this was a terrorist attack were immediately erased.  We knew the country was under attack.  Shrill screams could be heard and genuine panic started to set in, even though the worst was yet to come.  Security guards announced that our building was closing for the day and told everyone to leave the area immediately.  Much of the crowd started heading toward the ferries that were gathering at the foot of Wall Street.  Others started walking uptown toward subways or buses that might, or might not, be in service.  People also began walking across several bridges to escape the city. 

It was a horror movie coming to life.

But I couldn’t leave, not at first anyway.  I wanted to watch the firefighters battling the blazes.  There’s no rational explanation, but I didn’t want to move until I knew that the situation was under control.  

After a while of just staring up at the Towers, I heard a deep rumbling, like gigantic concrete bowling pins colliding.  The noise didn’t last long, maybe five seconds at most.  Before I knew what was happening, the South Tower slipped down out of my sight.  It just disappeared…like a high-rise house of cards, its base kicked out from under it by an angry child.  Moments later, the three-story building in front of us stood taller than the 110-story tower in the distance that had just been compressed back into its foundation.  It was the sickest feeling, one that I don’t think I can quite explain.  I saw it and I heard it and I felt it but I still can’t believe it.  The Twin Towers seemed like the 100-year-old oak trees in your front yard: they couldn’t be moved or bent.  If anything, they held up the sky.  They anchored lower Manhattan and provided a sense of direction for every New Yorker who’d ever lost his bearings.         

The collapse and disintegration of the South Tower seared my brain.  I sincerely hope that I never see anything as stomach-churning again.  People around me started screaming and crying.  Everyone on the sidewalk knew someone who was in the Towers – a relative, a friend or a business acquaintance. Some people threw down briefcases and started running.  I kept staring in shock.  At that instant, I think everyone on the sidewalk knew that we had just witnessed the death of an unimaginable number of people.  It occurred to me almost instantly that even the most battle-hardened soldiers never see so many people killed in a single instant.  The aircrews who dropped the atomic bombs in World War II were not five blocks away at ground level when their payloads did their dirty work.  And five blocks was relatively far in a sense; hundreds of firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and other heroes were right on site.  One firefighter later described the scene in this way: “Everything was on fire, everything you saw was burning.  It was what I imagine Hell to be like.”

Quickly, certainly more quickly than I’d have imagined, a thick white cloud of smoke came rolling at us.  It was a five-story-tall fog and it was moving fast.  For a few seconds I froze.  The bright September sky was being obscured.  Then a guy not ten feet away from me breathlessly shouted “Run…ground smoke…it could kill us!”

I suddenly realized that there might have been deadly chemicals in the plane.  There was no rational basis for this belief; but then again, nobody knew anything for sure at that point.  The frenzy spread instantly: people dropped briefcases and bags and started running, screaming, just trying to get away from the smoke as quickly as possible.  I remember thinking, “Those bastards, they might get me too, this could be how I die…” The fear of death was real and it was everywhere. 

About two or three hundred of us ran straight toward the East River, only a block away, and then north past the South Street Seaport.  I’ve since heard that some people actually jumped into the river to avoid the smoke but I didn’t see that.  As we ran up the closed FDR Expressway the dense white fallout followed us.  We formed a seemingly endless herd of stampeding business suits.  Burning smells and the piercing screams of emergency vehicles joined to assault our senses.  It was a war zone, although until that moment I don’t think that I had ever actually thought to imagine one.  The word that describes it best and one which I’ve never truly experienced before: Bedlam.  

I was alternately running and walking with four coworkers as we headed to my apartment about two miles away on 18^th Street.  A friend from San Francisco who was in town on business, in the lobby of the North Tower when the first plane hit, had – by some unbelievable stroke of good luck – noticed me amidst all the confusion and joined our group. When we were about halfway up the FDR, a guy who had been listening to a hand-held radio via earphone yelled out “The second tower just fell.”  People gasped but we all just kept running.  A few looked back.

When we got to my apartment, I wanted to tell the outside world the names of those who were safe.  However, I still had a dead home phone and cell phone service was, at best, sporadic.  Fortunately, my computer’s internet connection was working so I sat down and composed a message to everyone in my e-mail address book.  To this day, many years later, I have not re-read that e-mail because I know that it will bring back many painful memories.  But, I later learned, it was forwarded around the globe to those interested in first-hand accounts of the events in New York City on that dark day.  My friend’s wife, who is an elementary school teacher, said that she used it in her classes as an example of a first-person account of September 11th.  Here is that note:

                                   ______________________

From: LG727@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 12:58 PM
To: Larry.Goanos@aig.com

Bcc: Everyone in my address book
Subject: The Surreal Events of Today

I am shaking like a leaf in a windstorm as I type this.  I cannot believe the events of today, as I'm sure you can't. I was in my office at 8:50 this morning when a colleague came in and said
that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center and papers were flying everywhere.  I looked out the window of my office and saw a ticker-tape-parade type stream of papers flittering across the sky.  After a few short minutes and various reports, some erroneous, a group of us descended in the elevator to the ground floor of our building, where we exited and looked to the left a bit where we saw Two World Trade Center, five blocks away, ablaze from the top third of the building.  It was unreal.  The black smoke and red flames framed against a clear blue sky.

The crowd on the sidewalk grew exponentially until we were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, at least 300 people staring upwards.  One of my colleagues had just been in the lobby of One World Trade when the plane hit. He said smoke immediately came shooting down the elevator shafts and filled the lobby as people exited in terror. Pandemonium.  He ran back to our
building, covered with soot, where he stood with us to watch in horror. We all stood around gaping at the flames, not aware of any possible danger to us.  I sat and thought about how many people I know in those two towers who have no doubt perished.  I'm aware of at least seven people from my subsidiary of AIG who were in one tower on a high floor.  We do a lot of
business with Aon, an insurance broker on the top three or four floors of Two World Trade Center.  As I type this, emergency vehicles are swirling by on the street outside my apartment on 18th Street.  The massive cloud where the WTC used to stand is visible out my living room window.

As we watched the flames, after about twenty minutes, all of a sudden World Trade Center Tower One, which we could only see above the 40th floor or so ,collapsed before our eyes.  It was the sickest, most surreal, most stomach-churning thing that I have ever seen in my life.  My nerves became electrified, in a bad way, and I felt almost like I would collapse as well. Other people did. People started crying and getting hysterical, obviously because they knew people in WTC One and/or know any of the many, many police and firemen and rescue workers who were in and around the building trying to extinguish the fire and save lives.  I just heard the mayor on the radio and he said he can't even get a rough estimate of how many firemen and police and EMTs died in the two WTC Tower collapses, he just said the number would be very large, staggering.

This whole day is unfathomable.  

As I type this I continue to shake.  I think about all the people who I know in those two towers and I can feel tears well up. There will be far too many funerals to attend.  Many bodies, I'm sure, will never be identified.  It is unbelievable.  At least 50 to 100 people I know died today.  Can you imagine that?  Unless you're in a war, which I think we will be soon, that doesn't
happen.  Many of you too, if not all, are in a similar situation, maybe you know even more who passed.  Hopefully many of our friends and acquaintances were away on business or vacation, or running late.  Our lives are changed forever and I don't think I'm being dramatic in saying that.

A few seconds after WTC One collapsed, a large, probably five-story high plume of white smoke erupted, far denser than any fog I'd seen living in San Francisco.  All of a sudden, someone yelled "ground smoke, run, it can kill us!" and people began panicking, although, I must say it was a controlled panic if there can be such a thing.  Hundreds of people began running, although not trampling each other, actually helping each other to some extent.  Although one friend of mine asked a car service to give him a ride to Westchester (the car was empty but for the driver) and he said, "Sure, $2,000."  I'll let that statement stand as its own condemnation of mankind, or at least one (hopefully small) segment of mankind.

As we walked/ran up the East Side under the FDR, past the South Street Seaport, the white cloud of deep dust/soot/whatever, followed us intently.  It was moving at a good pace and, I must say, I feared for my life briefly, either from dying of smoke inhalation or being trampled.  I don't think I was
alone in that feeling, it was very, very scary, and my words don't do it justice.  We continued running and walking up the East Side, myself and four co-workers.  All of a sudden I heard someone say "Larry Goanos!"  I looked and it was Fran Higgins, a friend from San Fransisco who's brother-in-law, John Doyle, works with me at AIG.  He was scheduled to be in a meeting at Two WTC at 9 am and was running late, it took him an extra hour to get in from his sister's house in Westchester and he was in the lobby when the first plane hit.  He ran outside and saw debris falling and three people actually jumping off high floors in order to kill themselves via the impact rather than await being burned by the intense flames.  Reports are that many other people jumped as well.  Fran didn't know where to go so I invited him to join me in the trek to my apartment about two miles north.  He had two heavy bags but lumbered on.  His father narrowly missed the bombing at WTC in 1992. Two bullets dodged by his family at the WTC.   

Cell phones weren't working. People were screaming out names.  It was sick (to re-use a phrase again and again; it is, sadly, the most appropriate.) The FDR expressway was closed.  People were running everywhere, keeping an eye on the large cloud following us.  Some were ready to jump into the East River to escape the smoke if need be.  As we got about six or eight blocks up the FDR someone who had an earphone of a radio in their ear reported that WTC 2 had just collapsed as well.  The whole thing was the sickest, most twisted, surreal, screwed up thing that I had ever heard or imagined.  

Eventually we made our way to my friend Jim Riely's place on East 22nd Street. As fate would have it, my phone had gone out of service last night and I was going to call Verizon to fix it this morning.  My cell was working only in spots because of the great strain on the system.  At Jim's we found Jim, Dan O'Connell, Colleen Dempsey (Doreen, Jim's wife, works uptown and ,I'm sure, is safe) and Chris Doyle, Jim's partner.  Because a lot of you know a lot of these people, here are the names of people who I know are safe beside those above (a lot of phones are down but my internet cable connection is working, at least for now): Dennis Gustafson, Rose Mosca, Peter Wessel, John Feniello, Sandy Nalewajk, Kirk Raslowsky and Jennifer Raslowsky and their young daughter Alexandra (who they were just about to drop off in day care at the WTC when the first plane hit; they made it our office in tears, clothes askew, Kirk had just thrown down his briefcase, grabbed his wife and daughter, and ran) John Iannotti, Ray DeCarlo, Greg Flood, Mike
Mitrovic, Kris Moor, John Doyle, Susan Eagan, Gail Mazarolle, Dawn Paolino.

  
If you know any of their families and don't know if they've been contacted, please call them if your phone works.  

Many more are safe, I'm sure, it was just hard to get a gauge with all the smoke and pandemonium.  There are now six of us in my apartment watching CNN.

 
I stopped and picked up more bottled water on the way here because people were saying there are rumors of chemical warfare and possible contamination in the water (probably not true but why take a chance.)  Things seem to be calming down a bit now (I've been taking a break between typing to let others send e-mails) but I'm sure our lives will never be the same.  The tranquility of life in America has been shattered, we have been dragged into the trenches with the rest of the world.  Our soil is no longer sacred, protected ground.  Anyway, the people who I've mentioned are all safe, as am I.  God bless America and God bless us all.  

                                   _____________________

Excerpted from "Claims Made and Reported: A Journey Through D&O, E&O and Other Professional Lines of Insurance," 2008; Soho Publishing, New York 376 Pages (www.sixthandspringbooks.com)

It Comes in a Tube

[Editor's Note: This is mostly a re-post from January of 2010 with some minor changes to the original. This is a tribute to all fathers, and their unique quirks, which make them the special people that they are, on Father's Day 2013. Feel free to leave a comment about your dad's unique characteristics below.]

___________________________________________________________

LG's dad is on the right, circa 1958.

LG's father emigrated to the United States from Greece in the 1950s. His first job was working for his uncle, also a Greek immigrant, who owned a diner/coffee shop on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. LG's dad started out washing dishes but, over time, he learned the diner business inside-out and went on to own at least seven diners of his own (LG may have missed one or two in his count.)

Being a blue collar worker, you'd think LG's dad was pretty handy with tools.

He wasn't. Not in the least.

He was, however, very talented at running diners. He had all the requisite skills. He picked good locations. He knew shrewd strategies for negotiating with suppliers, hiring and retaining help, and hiding cash income from the IRS. In short, he had a special aptitude for the diner business. LG's father could also cook up a storm. But, for all of his blue collar-ness, LG's dad wasn't handy. Whenever he assembled something pursuant to a set of directions, vital parts would, without fail, be left over.

Who really needs handlebars and a second wheel on a bike anyway? It's now a unicycle, enjoy!

LG's father's lack of handyman skills must've been especially vexing to him in light of the fact that his younger brother, LG's Uncle Leo, became a highly-skilled carpenter after arriving in America. Uncle Leo owned a successful contracting business in the United States for about 40 years. He was a perfectionist and everything he built reflected that.

Now, switching gears for just a second, here are some everyday products that come in tubes:

Whenever LG's father came to an impasse during a repair or assembly project around the house, usually caused by his lack of expertise, his fallback remedy was to send LG to the hardware store for some magical, yet-to-be-invented item that, invariably, "Comes in a tube" according to what he'd tell LG.

If you saw the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," you know that Nia Vardalos's dad used Windex as a panacea for all the world's ills. LG wishes it was that simple with his father. Keeping an ample supply of Windex on hand would've been easy. But, no, that's not how it was in LG's house.

Here are some examples of how LG's father would invoke the Miracle of the Magic Tube. The heavy Greek accent is hard to replicate in writing, so you'll have to use your imagination:

"Boy! Boy! [He usually called LG "Boy!" reserving his real name, Lazarus, for times of anger.]

Boy! Gee Gee Christ, this window won't open. Go to de hardware store, they have a new thing to loosen windows, it comes in a tube."

So, off LG would go, in search of the Magic Tube.

Believe it or not, the hardware store never specifically had "Window Loosener" in a tube, but they did have some type of oil. But that was an easy one, LG is just warming up. Moving on to the next level....

"Boy! Boy! The boat won't start. Go to de hardware store, they have boat starter. It comes in a tube."

That's not actually a picture of one of LG's father's boats, but it's not too far off. His last boat was bigger than this, but, of course, that only meant it caused bigger headaches. And, if you're wondering, there is no such thing as "Boat Starter" in a tube. LG could write an entire book on his father and boating, but that will have to wait [If you're interested, you can read a tale about LG's father and boating by clicking HERE]

It was, of course, embarrassing to ask for these tubes of crazy products that LG knew didn't exist, but he had little choice. His father had sent him on a mission. LG eventually developed a method of asking the clerk for these items that furtively included a denial in the question.

"You don't carry a tube of anything that will repair a broken lawn mower engine, do you? No? I didn't think so, I was just checking, thanks..."

LG's father's cure-all Tube Mania seemed to grow stronger as time went on. He was never discouraged by the fact that there was never a product "In a tube" to fix his latest repair problem. He persevered because he always believed in his heart of hearts that there was "A New Thing In A Tube" to handle the latest task at hand. What perplexed LG most, in that pre-internet era, was where his father was reading about these supposedly new miracle products In A Tube. LG was pretty sure that advances in technology weren't discussed in the only periodical that his father regularly read, The Daily Racing Form.

Eventually, LG's father was sending him to pick up Miracle Tubes that could repair home appliances, fix transistor radios, fill driveway potholes, replace leaky plumbing and, even, regenerate limbs.

Add caption

The mechanical arm pictured here, LG believes, came from a tube. Or, rather, it would have if his father had his way. In a perfect world, LG's father would've worked for General Electric. or NASA in the Innovation Department.


Whenever LG would return from the hardware store empty handed -- his father never went himself, as you've probably gathered -- the failure would be attributed to LG's poor search skills. It never occurred to LG's father that this product didn't actually exist. And, of course, the lazy American stock clerk's own incompetence was a contributing factor.

That's the abbreviated story of LG's father and the Magic Tubes. All of this bending over the keyboard has stiffened LG's back quite a bit. He's going out to buy some Ben Gay for his muscles.

LG thinks it comes in a tube.

Helpful Tips for Internet Scammers

Let's face it, we've all been the recipients of the occassional internet email scam.  Not often, certainly, only three or four times a day.

But we're all honourable (spelled the British way, of course) people and the overseas scammers know that.  It's easy to find most of our names and contact info in the International Directory of Honourable People Who You Could Trust With Large Sums of Money. 

But what internet scammers don't know is much about the English language. 

Or common sense.

So LG is here to critique some of the recent scam attempts he's received in the hopes of helping scammers step up their game a bit. 

Consider this just another U.S. foreign aid package to the less fortunate (and, believe it or not, all scams below are actual emails copied word-for-word from the original). 

There's no fun, or challenge, to a scam when someone tells you that you are "a honorable personage with greate reputashun in my countree." 

Oh please international scammer community, you can do better than that.  

So scammers, pull up an upside down Home Depot bucket (or whatever else you use for a chair in your scam laboratory) (scamatory?) and take note of these constructive criticisms:

Scam #1:

Attn Package Beneficiary:

Please send the diplomat who is stranded at Atlanta Georgia International
Airport with your Consignment Box. your
address that will help him for smooth delivery. The
bellow is his contact. Don't let him know the content because it contains 7.5 million U.S.
A Dollars.

Email:(agentfredugo_6001@rocketmail.com)
Your full name_________
Your Address____________
Your phone numbers_________

SINCERELY
REV.DR. DOUGLAS MORRISON.
DHL DIRECTOR
cell +229-9831-0676

The Critique:  Ok, this person must be a crayon eater.  He misses the mark in so many ways. 

First, what legitmate delivery service ever addresses their customers as "Package Beneficiary?" Maybe Johnny Holmes called his girlfriends that. 

 

And even the least-traveled among us know that one of America's busiest airports is not called "Atlanta Georgia International Airport."  Although, next time I'm there, I'll certainly get myself a "Consignment box," since those things are all over every major American airport.  Not. 

And why are we being told not to tell this "diplomat" what's in our precious consignment box?  Is he untrustworthy? LG will have to check to see if he's listed in the International Directory of Honourable People.

Curiously, the note says that "The bellow is his contact."  Does that mean that all LG has to do is bellow for the guy and he'll contact me?

 

Also, we all call our money "USA Dollars." Sure we do.  

 

But who couldn't trust a package delivery executive who is both a "reverend" and a "doctor."  Bravo!  This scam gets an "F" for content but an "A" for ambition.  However, LG is going to consign it to the junk bin for today.  No USA dollars for this guy.    

 

Scam #2:

 

From: Mrs.Rebecca Lemonde

Greetings to you and sorry if this message came to you as a surprise. My name is Mrs.Rebecca Lemonde widow, I found your email address through my husband internet dater late Mr.Lemonde

I am presently admitted at the hospital suffering from a blood cancer and Parkinson diseases. I have some funds at bank inherited from my late husband account the amount of $5,500.000. I wish to know if I can trust you to use the funds for charity project and %10 will go to you as compensation. Kindle get back to me so that I will give you more details.

Yours in Christ,

Mrs.Rebecca Lemonde

The Critique: Phew, LG had to catch his breath for a moment there, this email came as a surprise.  Mrs. Lemonde should warn people before sending an email like that.

As an initial consideration, you have to trust a widow, and, on top of that, poor Mrs. Rebecca Lemonde is suffering from the double whammy of "blood cancer" and "Parkinson diseases"  (who know there was more than one?)  

 

Of course, why should she mourn the cad since he was an "internet dater."  He was probably all over Match.com while poor Mrs. Lemonde was in the hospital dealing with her maladies.

 

She's offering LG %10 of the $5.5 million USA dollars that her husband left her.  LG is not sure if that means ten percent or .10% or something else.  Only if she were a reverend doctor, then she'd have a stronger command of the English language and, no doubt, would be more trustworthy. 

 

However, Mrs. Lemonde seems to be a sophisticated lady since she says "Kindle get back to me."  LG assumes she's figured out a way to email through the use of her Kindle. 

And, of course, she's ours "in Christ" so she must be an honest woman.  Had she said "yours in Satan" LG would've suspected a scam.  LG is going to give her the full contents of his consignment box at Atlanta Georgia International Airport.

Scam #3:

 

The next rocket scientist sent this one: 

From: support_id803@apostille123.com

 

Fed Ex
Dear Client,
Your parcel has arrived at May 25. Courier was unable to deliver the parcel to you. To receive your parcel, print this label and go to the nearest office.
	Print Shipment Label
FedEx Customer Service Team.
FedEx 1995-2013

The Critique: This is an interesting one. 

First, you'd have to have rocks in your head to think that Federal Express sends emails from a domain designated as "apostille123.com."  Yeah, sure. 

 

Second, this email arrived only 12 days after the date that the package had supposedly arrived.  Everyone knows that Fedex waits 12 days to notify you of a package delivery.  Not. 

 

LG is not sure what the scam is however, since going to a Fedex office with a phony "shipment label" gets you nothing but laughed at. 

Maybe by clicking on the link, your bank account gets emptied through the use of spyware (that's an actual scam going around on Facebook.)  LG wouldn't know, however, since he didn't click.  Plus, all of his money is in a Consignment Box at Atlanta Georgia International Airport.

 

That's all for today folks.  May you all have a happy and healthy day and swim in the arrival of USA dollars.  Go in peace!

- The Honourable Reverend Doctor President General LG

 

 

 

Ping Pong Apocalypse in Pictures

Some of you may remember Geo from previous LG Reports.  If you don't, you can click HERE   for a quick refresher course in the Internet phenomenon/oddity that is Geo.

This past weekend, on Saturday night, LG and his lovely bride visited Geo's weekend house at the Jersey Shore. 


In case you forget what Geo looks like, here's a recent photo:

 



Out of the blue, Geo challenged LG to a ping pong match.  LG had no choice but to defend his family honor by picking up the gauntlet that Geo had thrown down.  In case you forgot, LG looks like this:

LG and Geo played a few warm-up games of no consequence.  LG can't even remember the scores of those games. 

When Geo is engaged in a competitive endeavor, he can get ugly.  On Saturday night, Geo looked like a cross between these two fellows:

Geo Bin Laden

 

BenitoGeo Mussolini

LG didn't care, he was out to enjoy a friendly game of ping pong, just a relaxing, leisurely match.

But no, Geo wouldn't hear of it.  He has to turn every lighthearted game into a fight to the death.  This is one of many reasons that he has no friends. 

Geo broke out to a fast lead in the initial match to 11.  As everyone knows, all legitimate championship matches are played to 11 with the winner having to win by at least 2 points.  
But LG fought back! 

He displayed his patented Eastern Asian form, honed during many years of living in monasteries in Japan and China and studying ping pong at the feet of the masters.  Here's a picture of LG in action, about to slam a return into Geo's ugly kisser:

  
LG was getting fired up.  He yelled to Geo:  我是最伟大的！

The first game finished at 11 - 8 with the good guy (LG) being victorious.  The Navy Seal Team Six of ping pong was rolling along.

The second game posed another tough challenge. 

Geo cheated again, as usual, by, among other things, using a full-sized tennis racquet and slathering olive oil all over the floor on LG's side of the table. 

Geo jumped out to a 6 - 2 lead. But the crowd was on its feet and getting louder in its support of LG.

"Lazarus, Lazarus!"  they chanted as LG closed the gap with diving saves and impossibly twisting returns. 

It was a vicious, hard-fought battle, but finally, down the homestretch, LG unleashed a furious attack on Geo.

 



To make a long-and-interesting story short-but-still-very-interesting, LG came back to claim an 11-7 victory and complete the two-match sweep in the Ping Pong Championship of the Galaxy

The frenzied crowd of onlookers chanted "Lazarus has risen, Lazarus has risen!" as they carried the champ away on their shoulders. 

Geo was a broken man:

The moral of the story:  There is no moral.  We hope you don't come to The LG Report looking for morals; if so, you're in the wrong place!

See you next time for another interesting adventure.... 

The LG Interview Series Continues...

LG recently decided to cut through all the hype surrounding various controversial celebrities by sitting down to interview them himself.  LG asks the hard-hitting questions.  He drills down to the unadulterated truth as only LG can do.   He's a no-nonsense, tell-it-straight, former Mr. Universe (2005 thru 2009), amateur FBI Profiler, volunteer Navy Seal, almost Heisman Trophy Winner and Raspberry Beret.  But, of course, LG doesn't like to brag.  

_____________________________________

 

Here's an excerpt for readers of The LG Report from LG's exclusive interview with Lance Armstrong, Manti Te'o and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 

 

 

 

 

 

LG:  We'll start with you Lance, you lying bastard.  Why did you choose Oprah to interview you for the big revelations?    

 

Lance Armstrong:  Well, I was hoping to get interviewed by skinny Oprah so that she'd look all emaciated from taking diet drugs and maybe I'd look better in comparison, but I got fat Oprah instead and so I just looked like an idiot.  You can't choose which Oprah you're going to get when you sign up, just depends on whether she's been hitting the snack food aisle or not.  

 

LG: Did you really date Cheryl Crow or was that just a figment of your imagination?

 

Lance Armstrong: Hey, that's not me with the imaginary girlfriend, it's this other w'acko over here, Te'o.  I really dated Cheryl Crow, that is until she got cancer and then I dumped her immediately so that I could devote more time to Livestrong and fighting cancer.  And dating other, healthier chicks.   

 

Oprah: Lance, I have a question for you as soon as I finish this Yodel from my private stash, stored away in case of Hostess's bankruptcy.  I have three million of 'em.

 

LG:  Whoa, whoa, not so fast Oprah, you already had your shot at him, this is LG's interview, back off bee-atch.    

Lance Armstrong:  I used to inject steroids into Yodels.  Tastes great and gives you enough energy to stay up all night eating more of 'em.

 

LG:  Speaking of food, Kim Jong Un, what's that you're eating if you don't mind me asking? 

 

Kim Jong Un:  Dog sandwich.

LG: What?!!!

Kim Jong Un:  Cocker Spaniel.  Mmm...pretty good too.  Ow, I just bit into a piece of collar.  Oh no, wait, it's a metal I.D. tag shaped like a bone.  We eat dogs all the time in North Korea.  We get it at a place called "McDonalds."    

 

LG: What's with the long-range nuclear missile you guys are developing?    You have the U.S. government quite concerned.

 

Kim Jong Un: Ah, it's nothing.  We don't have enough food for our citizens but we like to spend government money experimenting with costly rockets.      You have any dog seasoning around here? 

 

LG:  Manti, when did you first realize that your girlfriend was illusory?

Manti Te'o:  Far too late, I admit.  I should've figured that she was imaginary when she said that we had a chance at beating Alabama.      

 

LG:  Well, I can understand that.  It seemed like Notre Dame was playing with an imaginary defense in the national title game. So why did you choose to do your first interview after the scandal broke with Katie Couric?   

Manti Te'o:  Because I have a thing for imaginary women who don't exist and I figured she must be one because nobody I know ever saw her anchor the CBS Evening News.    

 

LG:  What's with the apostrophe in your last name?  

Manti Te'o:  I' don't rea'lly kno'w wha't you're takin' abou't.  It's th'e wa'y we' spea'k an'd spe'll i'n Hawai'i. 

LG:  O'K.  I think that about wraps up today's interview session, you're all free to go see Dr. Phil now.  

 

Christmas in New York

LG used to live in New York City, as many of you know. 

Three different stints, totaling 20 years. 

Now LG lives in the sticks of Pennsylvania farm country. The S-T-I-C-K-S. [LG doesn't know why he wrote "sticks" like that, it just seemed to give it a more stick-y feeling.] 

More people lived in LG's former NYC residential building than in his whole town in Pennsylvania.  But there's more deer poo in his town in Pennsylvania than people in his building in NYC (that is, if you could figure out a way to equate people with deer poo for census purposes.)        

You've probably seen the humongous Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.  LG used to see it every year.  He'd marvel at how big it was and would wonder from what God-forsaken corner of the universe such a big tree would've come.  LG now lives in that God-forsaken corner. 

This year's tree probably came from LG's town.  Come to think of it, LG has noticed a big tree missing from the town square...

Actually it's not that bad here in Pennsylvania [Note to authorities: The Wife just slapped LG after reading the previous paragraphs over his shoulder.  Send help!]

LG still visits New York City about two or three times a month when he's on parole for work. 

LG was there recently and took a few photos at Rockefeller Center for the viewing pleasure of readers of The LG Report who couldn't visit in person this year.  Please enjoy responsibly.

This is a view of the tree from the north side. It's a big mofo.  While LG was taking this picture, his wallet was pickpocketed.  Luckily, he made up for that loss by offering to take a photo of the couple in the foreground who were taking their own self-portrait.  They handed LG their camera and he ran off with it.  LG got $200 for it at a pawn shop.  What goes around comes around...

 

 

Here's an aerial view of Rockefeller Center from a helicopter that LG hired just for the ocassion (billing the cost back to The LG Report, of course.)  No, that's not a Lego structure and those aren't children in the foreground.  Those are mutant zombies that LG had to fight off in order to get this picture.  You're welcome. 

 

 



 

Ditto here.  Scary mutant zombies in foreground.  Zowie! 

 

 

 

 



Funny caption for this photo under repair.  Please come back again soon. 

 

 

 

This is the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center.  Here, get your learn on:  According to Greek mythology, Prometheus was a Titan who defied the will of Zeus and brought fire to Earth, helping mortals while risking harsh retribution from the authorities. The mountain-like-pedestal at the base of the statue symbolizes the earth, while the circle containing the signs of the zodiac represents the heavens. The red Balmoral granite wall behind the statue has a quotation from Aeschylus: "Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire to earth that hath proven to mortals a means to mighty ends."  Next time you're there, you can impress the hobos with your knowledge!

 

 

 

Seen here is an elaborate decoration sponsored by the swanky crystal company Swarovski just moments before LG inadvertently knocked it over.  Stuff happens Mr. Swarovski, LG is sorryski. 

 Another view of the tree.  Pictured in foreground: People who had no idea they'd ever be lucky enough to make it onto The LG Report. They probably would've dressed better if they had any advance notice.

 

 

 No, he's not a real person.

 

 In honor of the NHL strike, ice skaters refuse to use the rink at Rockefeller Center.  If you believe that, LG has a bridge to sell you. Actually, this was a skating party for all of the effective and reasonable members of the U.S. Congress. 

 Finally, a photo of LG's and The Wife's Christmas stockings.  As you can see, Santa thinks so highly of LG that he forces LG to have a Costco-sized stocking to be stuffed with all of the goodies that LG deserves.  This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that LG was in charge of purchasing both stockings last year.  

That's it for this time kidz.  It appears that The LG Report is only publishing monthly at this point, but LG will try to post a bit more frequently in 2013 (as if you care, we know...) 

From everyone here at The LG Report (a staff of thousands, internationally), we wish you a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2013!

Doggie Door Challenge 2012

Gather 'round folks to hear (or read, technically) the tale of the Great Doggie Door Challenge 2012.  It is, as you know, a world-wide phenomenon (in LG's mind anyway) and has taken the internet by storm.

It all began in 2010 with the Snowpocalypse that battered the Jersey Shore (yes, a precursor to Superstorm Sandy.)  LG was at his sister MIG's house when the Snowmageddon-like blizzard struck. 

The white stuff was so high that it blocked the doggie door.  This was problematic because MIG's two dog friends, Jake and Sophie, couldn't get outside to do their business.  And nobody wants their dogs conducting their business from a home office.    

So MIG grabbed her shovel and headed out through the doggie door (the only feasible way to get into the backyard, since the gates were blocked with 3+ feet of snow) so that she could clear an area for the dogs to relieve themselves.  Being a chivalrous brother, when MIG grabbed her shovel, LG grabbed his video camera.  He knew that readers of The LG Report would need to see this.

In case you missed it, you can see a video of MIG crawling back through the doggie door by clicking HERE .   

This is NOT Dannie.  Close though.

Fast forward to sometime thereafter.  LG and The Lovely Wife were dining at the home of some friends.  These friends happened to have a doggie door.  LG's buddy Dannie, feeling his oats (or Alpo), bet LG five bucks that he, Dannie, could successfully crawl through the rather small doggie door.   

And gosh darn if he didn't.  Woulda made Snoop Dogg proud.

LG paid Dannie the five bucks and threw in some Milkbones too.

Of course, as Dannie was pushing his way through the doggie door from outside the house, he got momentarily stuck and received a number of wet kisses from Mark's affectionate pooches who were anxiously awaiting Dannie's arrival on the other side.  Unfortunately, no video record of this event exists. 

Fast forward again, this time to last weekend. 

LG and The Lovely Wife hosted a bunch of friends at their house for a dinner party on Saturday night.  LG, always being the gracious and entertaining host, jury-rigged a makeshift doggie door (and a narrow one at that) to further test Dannie's doggie door abilities.  It should be noted that Dannie has become a P90X workout fiend and has lost 20 pounds or so since his last doggie door foray.  LG made the doggie door a tight one.

To see a short video of the pre-attempt interviews that LG conducted with Dannie's legion of doggie door fans ("Dannie's Doggs" they're called on the Professional Doggie Door Crawlers Circuit, or PDDCC) shortly before his first try at getting through the door on Saturday night, click HERE.

Now here's where things got a bit tricky. 

Due to a technical malfunction with the video equipment, and through absolutely no fault of LG's or the homemade wine or the homemade limoncello, the camera failed to record Dannie's first attempt at squeezing through the door. 

Which was just as well. 

Dannie rose to the challenge rather easily, so LG tightened up the adjustable door (which LG has since patented, given the high deamand for makeshift, non-functioning doggie doors in America today) and asked Dannie to try again.  Dannie graciously agreed. 

If you'd like to see a short clip of interviews with Dannie's Doggs before the second attempt, you can click HERE.

[NOTE: Dannie doesn't spell his name as "Dannie" with an "ie" at the end.  He seems to prefer just plain ole "Dan," but LG spells it that way in an attempt to annoy him -- even though it never seems to have that effect.  In fact, Dannie has never even commented on the weird spelling.  But, of course, LG won't let up...Dannie, Dannie, Dannie, Dannie, Dannie, Dannie...]

So now we come to the moment of truth, the spectacle that you've all been waiting for...the video clip of Dannie actually attempting to pass through the World's Narrowest Doggie Door (which may not be a strictly true statement, but it's written in the best tradition of the P.T. Barnum School of Blogging).

The LG Report's team of lawyers has advised us, however, that we must post this notice:

WARNING:  Do not view this video of Daredevil Dan and the Doggie Door Attempt 2012 unless you are over seven years old (chronologically, not maturity-wise, that restriction would exclude half of our readers) and you do not have any cardiac health issues.  This video has been rated "I" (for Inane) but the Motion Picture Academy of America.  Any resemblence to any person, living or dead, is strictly coincidental unless it's actually them in the video.  Void where prohibited.  Not valid in Canda. 

Now sit back, grab your bowl of snausages and prepare to be amazed by clicking  HERE! 

That's it for today folks, thanks for stopping by, we hope to see you back here again soon.  Our doggie door is always open. 





 

Why LG is Leaving Facebook

Editor's Note: When LG wrote this post, he was sincerely intent on leaving Facebook, but has since been talked off the ledge.  He is now going to limit his FB activity to once a week or so.  But in the meantime, he saw no reason to allow a perfectly good blog post to go to waste, so it appears below.  Please enjoy responsibly. 

LG knows, this sounds dramatic.  HE'S CLOSING HIS FACEBOOK ACCOUNT!

But it only sounds dramatic because... IT IS DRAMATIC!

LG is leaving Facebook for a number of reasons.  He's not sure if he's permanently signing off or just taking a hiatus, that's TBD.  Reportedly, it takes at least ten minutes and the execution of a very complicated series of maneuvers (involving eye of newt, bat wings and a dead rabbit) in order to actually close down your account, as opposed to merely suspending it. 

If if you simply "suspend" your account, Facebook makes it very simple to reactivate it.  Just trying to log in will automatically reinstate your account and thrust you back into Facebook's sticky web of privacy invasion and annoyance.  And even when you close your account, as we all know, your posts and other information stay in Facebook's archives forever - or at least until the impending Mayan Apocalypse.

So why exactly is LG leaving Facebook? 

Good question, he knew you'd ask.  Here, in no particular order of importance, are LG's reasons:

The privacy invasions are out of hand.  Facebook takes every opportunity to share all of your information with not only advertisers but also other members.  Their thinking, LG believes, is that the more "friends" you have on Facebook, the less likely you'll be to leave.  Thus, they randomly post your comments from other people's pages on your page so that people can see what your friends (who are not their FB friends) are up to, thereby possibly motivating them to extend a friendship request.  When LG tells Friend A (who is not connected to Friend B) that Friend A is not as big a jerk as Friend B, he doesn't want that posted on his Facebook page for Friend B to see (in all fairness though, LG also needs more friends who don't just go by first letters.) 

Another example: The other day LG caught Facebook going through his attic looking for girlie magazines from the 1970s (there are none up there, of course, but LG is quitting FB before it gets to the basement...)

It's a gigantic time suck.  It not only distracts us from more important pursuits (like Angry Birds and ESPN.com), but it also takes time just to explain why you're leaving it.  LG finds himself wasting far too many minutes checking FB and providing witty commentary (some might say "snarky" but he'll ignore those haters) on the posts of far too many people.  Of course, now LG likes some people on Facebook who he's never met in real life better than people who he has met in real life.  Oh well, that's the way it goes..  

Honey Boo Boo beckons.  Facebook eats up valuable time that LG could be using to watch Honey Boo Boo and her exceedingly talented clan.  LG realizes that Honey Boo Boo is still very young and he doesn't want to jinx her, but if the girl plays her cards right...she may grow up to be as talented and intelligent as Snookie!



Snookie is reportedly living in the beautiful house behind Honey Boo Boo in this photo. 

The election season is gearing up.  LG generally (with a few notable exceptions) uses Facebook for his own amusement, not to try to sway others to support a particular candidate or cause.  The multitude of political rants are getting annoying and they'll only grow more frequent and strident as election day nears.  LG realizes that everything that everyone posts on Facebook is true, but he already know these interesting facts so there's no reason to remind him that President Obama was born on Venus and the U.S. Government actually pays taxes to Mitt Romney. 

LG is fed up with being mistaken for George Clooney.  When women see LG's photo on Facebook, they immediately try to friend him, assuming that he's really George Clooney operating under a pseudonym.  LG knows that it sounds ridiculous, but it's true.  To set the record straight, here's what George Clooney looks like:

And here's a recent photo of LG: 

As you can see, there's a significant difference, so why the confusion?

They don't allow you to eat KFC on Facebook.  That one is self-explanatory.  Facebook says it's too greasy and messes up the "Like" buttons.

Cat photos ad nasuseum.  And not even actual cat photos of Facebook member's pets; we're talking stock photos of cats typing on computers, talking on phones and using the toilet.  Facebook Feline Fanatics: When your effin' cat can actually drive a car, then LG would like to see the photo.  Until then, stick it!

Getting off Facebook seems so much more Gangnam Style than staying on it.  Self-explanatory.

LG needs to spend time helping Big Bird polish up his resume.  Again, self-explanatory.

The Tanorexic Mom.  It turns out that she actually got her deep bronze tan from spending too many hours in front of the computer screen posting Facebook updates.  She's actually an albino underneath all of that Facebook glow.  

Fear not friends, The LG Report will continue to publish, weekly or so (The LGR has been on a particularly long hiatus, LG knows...) and if you don't have LG's email address and need to get in touch, you can do it through the blog. 

Keep it real out there folks.  Maybe LG will see you soon in real life.  But not on Facebook. 

[Another Editor's Note: The last sentence above struck LG as fittingly dramatic for his Facebook exit blog post but, alas, it doesn't ring true now that he's sticking around FB.  If you're one of LG's FB friends, you can assume he's staying on because of you and you alone.  Thank you.]