October 11th

Mention a plane has just hit a building in the city to any New Yorker and no one immediately assumes it was an accident. Coworkers gathered around the flatscreen by the front desk, which usually plays looping reruns of the company's television show and waited for confirmation of today's tragic circumstances before continuing with their day. Phone calls were made to family and close friends to ensure whereabouts. Terrence called from Atlanta and asked how far away my office building was from the plane crash.

"Thirty blocks south," I had replied. "Roughly a mile and a half." However, Sam's mother lives just two blocks away from the crash site on East 72nd Street. Sam is a guy who sits two computers down from me in the office. And within approximately 1000 feet of the accident is the apartment of my favorite blogger, Joe.My.God. Talk about a small world - it's a small New York in the big city.

Later, we learned that the owner of the plane was 34-year-old Yankees pitcher, Cory Lidle. It is still unclear whether he or his flight instructor were piloting the small private aircraft, but both have been confirmed dead. Lidle leaves behind his wife, who I heard tonight was also his high school sweetheart, and their son.