I was on the left coast (NoCal) working in a fish pathology lab. Heard the news when I was heading in to work - and thought it was "just" a small plane that hit the towers, not a jet. Like everyone, we were numb. Still had to do the work in the wet-lab. For some reason we were having electrical problems, so we had the van down there to provide the electricty to run the centrifuge. We'd get bits of news while we were spinning down fish blood.

Meanwhile at my house I had a contractor coming to cut a hole in my livingroom wall to install a new window.

Boss let us go home after the experiment was run, and I found my contractor at work. He'd started the hole when he got the news, so he was doing what he had to do to install the window so I'd be safe, then he'd come back in a day or do to the finish work.

Later I found out I knew one of the guys on Flight 93. He was the refuge manager at Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge (and was one of the law enforcement types on the plane).

I lived in the flight path for our local small airport, and the lack of air traffic for several days was eery.