Through an employment agency I got a job as a tech writer at Sony in Rancho Bernardo. Now to say Sony and Rancho Bernardo is almost saying the same thing. Sony has over a dozen buildings spread out over Rancho Bernardo. The interesting thing about this office was that it was right next to the building that housed TV/COM and I watched this Sony building being built. I watched from the first ground breaking, to the steel girders being put into place, to the windows and final siding being put in place. I knew this building inside and out. 

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Sony had decided that the flat screen TV set was going to replace the console sets and this division made console sets. So they found another use for the console that would give it a much longer life. They took a 14-inch set and placed it on end and made a housing that made the console a computer screen.

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Their plan was to create a system that would connect to the Internet and they would sell these to hotels who could offer Internet service to their customers. My job was to document the entire system both hardware and software. Nothing had been documented when I started. I created the technical specifications for the Sony eVilla Internet Appliance that consisted of 8 hardware and software documents.

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The system was being tested at a hotel and it was going great. It seemed that Sony had a big winner.

Then it happened. On my way to work on Tuesday morning I was listening to the classical music station I  always listened to. There was an interruption in the programming and an announcement said that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Towers in New York City. I immediately switched to a news station and rode the rest of the way to work listening to what had happened. When I got to work I went into one of the rooms that had a TV and we watched as the second plane hit the other tower.

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As you know the travel business and therefore the hotel business almost stopped after 9/11. This meant the end of the Sony project and the management was wise enough to understand that and they closed the project. Once again I was laid off.

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