I was working as a temp at Fred Jones Manufacturing, about of mile, as the crow flies, from the Murrah building. The week before our fire alarms had gone off. Someone on the third floor had run into one of the sprinklers with a forklift. Because of all the volatile chemicals present in the building, once the alarms went off we had to evacuate, even though we knew in five minutes what had happened. But alarms in our building went off simultaneously at the nearest fire station so we were required to wait until we had an all clear from the firemen before we could return. When we felt the blast we just figured this time someone had dropped a forklift. We got up and prepared to head downstairs expecting to evacuate again. On our way to the stairs we looked in the offices to the east to see if they, too, were preparing to leave the building. ThatÂs when we saw the smoke and all the papers flying around in the street below us. All the plate glass windows on the ground floor shattered, and you could smell the stench. Many of the smaller windows on the upper floors were cracked, and the blast put a crack in the east wall of the building, originally completed in 1916, that was not there before. Two of the men I worked with lost their wives. They both worked for HUD and were at the sign-in desk when the bomb went off. One had been married about 12 years at the time. They had spent most of their first ten years of marriage trying to have a child. Finally, about a year before the bombing they had a little boy. Until about a month prior to the bombing he had been in the day care center in the Murrah building. They had taken him back the week before the bombing for a birthday party. They took lots of pictures of all the kids at the party. He was asked to take those pictures and go to Denver to testify during the sentencing phase of the trial. Poor man, he was so grief-stricken at losing his wife that he moved back in with his mother to have help with the little boy and never again lived in the house heÂd shared with his wife. Another man had a "near miss" with his wife. She also worked for HUD and, under normal circumstances, would have been right there with the other two menÂs wives, but her job involved travel to Indian communities. She had a regularly scheduled travel date that conflicted with their only childÂs, a daughter, soccer game so she traded and traveled on the 19th to be home for the girlÂs soccer game. My daughter and her best friend, just two years out of high school, were both working evening shifts. My daughter was waiting tables at a restaurant near our apartment, and her friend worked at the sign-in desk at what was then the Westin Hotel downtown. I think itÂs now a Sheraton. Being accustomed to staying up late they didnÂt wake up until maybe 10 am. Once they heard the news they took off together to see what they could do to help. First they tried the Oklahoma Blood Institute which had put out a call for O negative donations (my daughter is not O negative, not sure about her friend), but every donation center was swamped. They had to turn away people because there would simply not be enough time in the day to take that many donations. They went to a fabric store to buy ribbons. No ribbon color had yet been selected to represent the city and the tragedy so they picked purple. Late that first night they took their spools of ribbon downtown and tied them around all the poles along the marked off perimeter of the area. The next night a policeman would remember having seen my daughter tying ribbons. Next they tried volunteering for anything that was needed. Again, they were turned away everywhere because everyone was swamped with people volunteering to help. They finally managed to convince someone, Red Cross I think, that they had something to offer most of their other volunteers didnÂt. They were young, worked evenings, and were accustomed to being up very late. They could be there to help in the middle of the night when most of their other volunteers needed to get some rest. Mostly they just served drinks to the rescuers, police, and others working on the rescue effort. This is when the policeman remembered seeing my daughter tying ribbons the night before. My daughterÂs friend "caught" a rescue worker buying himself a soft drink from a vending machine on the hotelÂs first floor. She "scolded" him and pointed out that one flight up, on the Mezzanine, rescue workers were being provided drinks for free. I remember a news article where some of the rescuers who came from New York remarked about how in 1993, the first time the World Trade Center was attacked, street vendors showed up charging outrageous prices for coffee and sandwiches. Here, we pretty much fed them for free. Cots were set up in the convention center for the rescuers to sleep rather than them having to pay for hotel accommodations, and the governorÂs wife worked with local florists to see that a rose was placed on each cot every night. Whenever the rescue effort put out a call for supplies, I specifically remember boots for the search dogs, in short order they would be literally inundated. WeÂd hear the local news people ask for something then the next thing you hear is, "Please, we have enough of this, no more!" I have a friend who was still active in Boy Scouts then, both his sons were in Scouting. He remembers sitting at the Channel 5 location with a semi trailer taking donations. He says the line of cars waiting to drop things off was enormous. He especially remembers a little old lady; he says she probably could hardly walk, driving up bringing goods and then insisting on also writing a check to help out. Sometime in the late Â90s I took my first, and so far only, tour of the Crystal Bridge. I donÂt remember where in the gardens it is, and I donÂt even remember what exactly it is, but somewhere is a tree, small when I saw it, with a plaque in front of it that states the tree is a thank you gift to the city from rescuers who came from Arizona. I canÂt explain how perplexed I was when I read the plaque. They came to help us. It is we who should thank them, but there I was staring at a tree these Arizonans gave us in thanks. I think that gesture says a lot about who we are and how we were perceived in the immediate aftermath of the bombing. We have another anniversary this week. While the environmentalists co-opted it some years ago for "Earth Day" for me it will always be the anniversary of the run of Â89. Thousands of brave souls came looking for a new life, but one that they would have to carve out of the wilderness by their own efforts and hard work, having no one else to rely on but themselves and their neighbors. Less than twenty years later Oklahoma Territory joined with Indian Territory, another situation where people had to make a new life in the wilderness by their own work except that it was forced on them and not their choice, to form the State of Oklahoma. We are the sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters of these pioneers. Through oil booms and busts and the associated economic ups and downs, the Dust Bowl, killer tornadoes, and the Murrah Building bombing we have continued to exhibit what Howard Witt, writing for the Chicago Tribune on the occasion of the bombingÂs 10th anniversary, called our "Âessential prairie stoicism--the same ÂOklahoma spirit for which they were lauded in the aftermath of the bombing, when Oklahomans demonstrated extraordinary decency, humility and bootstrap resiliency" based on "deep religious faith and unblushing middle American values." I agree with Dawn. April 19, 1995 was both our worst tragedy and our finest hour. I have never been more proud of my state and its people than I was in those dark days of April. IÂve always said that no matter how much nicer, prettier, easier other places might be to live, I wouldnÂt want to live anywhere else, and my fellow Okies are the reason. You are the best people in the world, and that goes just the same for all you "transplants" and "adoptees." YouÂre here now, and as my Granddad would say, "youÂre ourÂn." Debra

Okay, I made AnnT.'s rye bread, and totally messed it up. I first made a batch of my regular bread, and it rose just fine. Then I made the rye bread, and I know that rye flour is low in gluten, but this stuff just never rose. I waited and waited, till I figured it had risen as much as it was going to, so I proceeded to the next step, and formed it into loaves. I knew as soon as I touched the dough, they were going to be bricks, and that's just what happened. After leaving the loaves to rise for several hours, I finally put them in the oven, and yes, they're bricks. I'll try the recipe again in a couple of weeks, to see if it happens again. For the life of me, I don't know what happened, unless I measured wrong and didn't realize it. DGS was helping me, and I could easily have gotten distracted. Sally

From the looks of it, you're seeing the impact of a spring seeding--the death rate is fairly high in summer, and the probability of a disease on a young lawn is much higher than a mature one. For now? I'd back off on the watering as much as you can, but don't majorly stress the lawn during a hot July. Definitely don't back off during a period where you won't be there to observe it. Once temperatures start to drop, evaluate what you have--that should be in mid-August or so. Reseed if you have holes, water for the new seed, and back off again slowly once that's sprouted. The new seed will have all of fall, early winter, and spring to grow strong roots before summer hits again. The dying stems are giving up in the heat as they have too little root mass to maintain them. That's the danger with a spring seeding, although if you're going to get away with it, rye is the grass type that will do best. You just didn't get lucky. For now, you'll just have to live with them, although the constant watering is probably making that a bit worse. I'd try to find a happy medium. Existing dying stems will fall off, hit the soil, and decay. You can help that along by feeding organically around August 1, or feeding synthetically around September 1. Don't use a synthetic too early as it really stresses the lawn. I don't see much evidence of a current disease on the lawn, although the dead stems can and will grow fungi that eat dead material. They're no danger to your living lawn. Off the cuff and overall? I'd actually say this looks pretty darned good for a spring seeding in a harsh summer! I think you'll get some recovery in fall when temperatures start to drop and the situation will improve markedly--barring a disease set off by excessive watering, of course.

The contractor probably does not want to recalculate the load calculation because he may find a mistake and then you will use it against him. The calculation is probably correct. I am a little skeptical about the duct loss. What he has seems low. I would want an explanation on how that number was generated. There could be an additional 0.5 ton of loss that is missing just in duct losses. I am also concerned that this is the first time he has installed this equipment and in 5 trips he has not been able to solve the problem. When you talk to American Standard, tell them the contractor is having problems getting the equipment to work correctly. Installation issues are not their problem. Let them know you have a load calculation and the unit size is matched to the calculation, but the equipment does not seem to working as per the spec sheet. Tell them it is a new installation and with new duct work. Hopefully they will work with you and send someone to inspect the system.