1 October

 I remember sitting at home in Houston this night, four years prior. 1 October, 2017.

It was a normal night, Mrs. TPM and I were at home watching college football, I was on Twitter when I started seeing the tweets that there were some shootings in Las Vegas.  At first, as is usual in a chaotic situation, there was confusion, misinformation and panic. As cell-phone video and news reports started to filter out we realized that something very bad was happening.

We stayed up until around 4AM that morning, refreshing Twitter and trying to make sense of what was going on.  We knew it was bad, we did not yet know just how bad it was going to be.

When that deranged individual executed his plan, it forever changed the lives of Millions, but especially the ones in the families he left behind. Those that he deprived of fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, family members.

For the rest of us he reminded us that, even in our happy place of Las Vegas, we're never truly safe. As long as there are deranged individuals out there we go forward by the grace of God.

In the aftermath I sort of tuned out the news as the usual political mumbo-jumbo took hold. Those who use these things to forward their political agendas, forwarded their political agendas. Many stories were written, foolishly, about how video poker is the crack cocaine of gambling etc. Guns were, of course, the enemy, as was Las Vegas itself, by the National media that is.

For the rest of us, the normal among us, it was a tragedy, one that still lives with us, even if we weren't there.  The Vegas bubble had been broken, and their was no rebuilding it.

Today, even 4 years later, I cannot walk past the Mandalay Bay hotel without looking up where the window was, and thinking about it just a little. But we need to keep travelling and keep visiting places we love.

While the terrorists certainly won after 9/11 we cannot let the crazy win after 1 October.

We are, always #VegasStrong.