LilBear

One year later.....

Today is April 16th, 2008.

A year ago today I was sitting at my desk at work, when I got an IM message from a friend mid morning. "They think there has been a shooting on Virginia Tech's campus." My first thought was not again.

You see, earlier that school year, in fall of 2006, on the first day of classes, a man escaped from police custody, shot a police officer and a hospital security guard and ended up hiding out near campus for most of the day. This resulted in classes being canceled, dorms locked down, a mess of the area in general.

So, like I said, my first though was not again. Turning on the radio, and the news, keeping an eye on what was going across the net and in IM's from friends and family, this was something much worse. In the end 32 students and professors of Virginia Tech were killed, many more wounded, and it still doesn't make any sense thinking about it a year later. I know it is just me, but I do not understand the mind set if you are mad at the world, or mad at "people", why you have to impact yourself on innocents. If you are going to take yourself and your life down in flames, what goes through your head to think I am going to take other people with me? What point are you trying to make?

Anyways.

Even though I graduated from Virginia Tech in 1998, it is still a place I hold close to my heart. I have been back to see friends, I have gone back for football games, it was a time and place I enjoyed very much. So I think for Hokies around the country, it certainly hit us hard. It saddened me and I can certainly see I was in a bit of a haze for the day or two afterwards. I was working, I was going about life, but I don't think I was completely there. I can't imagine what those that were injured that day, or the families of those that were killed were going through. I guess it also hit close to home just from knowing that campus, knowing that building, knowing those classrooms. In thinking back about it now I am guessing I might have had a class every semester I was there in that building. It just feels odd to picture those rooms in my head now.

But, here we are a year later, and it is a day to remember what happened, but not dwell on it. Lift up those that were killed and injured, and honor them by continuing to go forward.

And if we ever needed something to remind us of who we are as a school, Virginia Tech Professor Nikki Giovanni gave a wonderful address about grief, hope, and the future that still to this day brings a few tears to my eyes when I read it.

Transcript of Nikki Giovanni's Convocation address

Delivered April 17, 2007

We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

Music - Concert and Other Thoughts

So this past Thursday April 10th I got out to one of my favorite places to see live music, The Norva. It is an older downtown building renovated into a concert hall. Over the years I have been to a fair amount of concerts there, but they have something almost every night, ranging across all kinds of styles.

The show Thursday night was Michelle Branch, who some may remember for her songs "Are You Happy Now", "All You Wanted", and her duet with Carlos Santana, "The Game of Love". Another one of her songs is "Everything", which this clip I like because it is from the show Thursday night. This was how she opened up the show, and by midnight after the show, this clip was up on youtube. Damn things move fast now days don't they?

The show was very enjoyable and the band played very well. Her earlier cd's had more of a folk-rock acoustic kind of feel, but it does sound like her living in Nashville now and spending a year or two as part of a country rock duo called The Wreckers has rubbed off some country feel to her music, both new and old. And that really isn't a bad thing based on what I heard Thursday night.

Which I think a few of my friends would find very funny since I have had a pretty good dislike of "country" music for a very long time. It used to be the running joke I would not listen to country music at all in the car, except at the request of a few friends of the attractive female variety. So I guess you could say I am not quite a fan of what may be considered "old country", the things that used to be on Hee Haw and Grand Old Opry when I was younger. But in the last few years it seems that the line between country and rock is being smudged quite heavily. With rock artists that I like such as Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, ZZ Top, Jack White, Frank Black. and John Mayer bringing in a bit of the country sound to their music, I have to think you know, this isn't too bad. And from these bands and friends learning more about country music artists such as Brad Paisley (hell of an amazing guitarist) who are bringing in a bit of rock into their music, I slowly feel myself slipping to the dark site, country music.

No, I have not bought a country cd yet, but at least I don't go leaping to turn the station anymore.

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As a side note, I must admit something to you readers. Yes, all three of you. I initially started writing this with the intent of talking about some of my favorite female singers and musicians after Michelle Branch, but I guess the blog kind of took on a mind of it's own. Well, I guess I have a subject for later on then.

First Spring Drive - 08

You can tell it is springtime in Virginia. On Friday April 4th it started to rain. Today, April 10th, was the first day without rain since then.

And boy was it a beautiful day. Bright blue sky, temperature in the low 70s. And lucky me I had to go run some errands for work in the middle of the afternoon.

So of course, I grabbed the camera. Let me show you around a little bit.

Here I am heading up the road from the office. Such a clear blue sky isn't it?

Ah driving down the interstate, heading to downtown Norfolk.          

There is the Spirit of Norfolk, and other ships tied up to Waterside.

There is our battleship in downtown, The Wisconsin.    

And how about some random downtown pictures?

Now this hopefully you can see clearly, and needs some explanation. The City of Norfolk has a "mermaid" program I guess you can call it, where they have adopted a mermaid as a symbol of the city. So scattered throughout the city are mermaid statues, all the same statue, but each decorated uniquely by local artists, community groups, and various businesses. So as I was driving back to the office, I saw this banner hanging on a fence next to a construction site. It has the Norfolk mermaid logo, and its holding a hammer. The upper left corner says "It's hammer time", and the opposite has a note about downtown redevelopment and construction. I didn't get that good of a look at it.

So, there is a little bit from today's drive. Hopefully as the summer progresses, the weather stays nice, and I make more little road trips I will share pictures of the places I go.