Positives
I'm still a little numb, but I think I've begun to wrap my brain around yesterday. It's amazing to me how much Virginia Tech still affects me, but I really did love my time there and love the people I met there. I've often said that Blacksburg is one of the few places in this country outside of the Northeast that I could live, and nothing will ever change that.
Inevitably, in times like this, people's minds run to the negatives. What could have been done? (Nothing, really, in an open society a deranged nutbag will do damage if he wants.) How could this happen? Why here? Why now?
I'm not going to wallow.
Positives.
What happened yesterday isn't Virginia Tech.
THIS is Virginia Tech.
That's how I remember campus. A gorgeous day in late February, as I wondered around campus taking pictures, realizing that in just a few months I would leave the Blue Ridge Mountains and head back north. Campus is a gorgeous place, and I'm awe-struck every time I go back and find the nestled buildings of Hokie Stone set in a small town in the mountains.
Virginia Tech is, obviously, a tech school. And a damn good one. It's where I got my learn on, and I'm doing ok. It's students understand how to leverage the internet. Which is why I'm proud of the 22000+ students, alumni, and friends who've joined a Facebook group in rememberance.
Virginia Tech is home to an awesome sports program, and a cozy basketball arena that Bob Ryan mentioned as being the best kept secret in college basketball:
Virginia Tech's Cassell Coliseum. Why no one ever talks about this place, I don't know. The 10,000 seats all feel as if they are breathing down the back of every player. This is an electrifying atmosphere.
Virginia Tech is the type of place that a national correspondent goes on TV and talks about her love for her campus, even while all of her peers are focused on second guessing and stirring the pot.
Virginia Tech creates the type of people who engender such good will and leave such a mark on the world that people who don't know them write hundreds of posts about them. When all they shared was a love of the Detroit Tigers. VT creates the type of person who leaves such an indelible mark that someone like Curtis Granderson of the Detroit Tigers will make a really nice gesture and make a Hokie his #1 fan on MySpace. (By the way, this is just one reason Curtis Granderson might be my favorite non-Red Sox player.)
Virginia Tech is the type of school, the type of community, that causes a 22 year old student, on the verge of graduating, to recall how he ended up at Virginia Tech, from a small town in Central Massachusetts, and what it meant to him:
As my days at Tech come to a close, I just wanted to say some things about how this university, and this website, have influenced me. Parts of this will probably ramble, some may be incoherent, and some may be offensive. I really don't know what's going to come out; this is just an outlet for the myriad of feelings that have been going around in my head as I get closer to the last moment of my college life.
It was about 4 years ago, late August 1996 that I first set foot in Blacksburg as a Hokie. Tech hadn't really been a school I was considering, it was an afterthought. To this day, I'm still not sure what compelled me to apply here. I had never visited the campus, knew the school mostly through A-10 Basketball (growing up in Massachusetts, I was a UMass fan). I had applied to Tufts University, Oberlin College, and WPI. I had my heart set on Tufts, and it seemed to everyone around me that it was a lock. I wanted to apply to a 4th school, CalTech was promising, as was Carnegie Mellon, but neither was really in an area of the country I wanted to be in. For some reason, Tech had sent me an application .... so I filled it in.
Within a week, I had heard back from Tech. A few weeks later, Tufts decided to break my heart, as they accepted only *9* freshman into the engineering program. Of course, they said, if I reapplied for general admission, I would probably be accepted. Fortunately for me, I'm spiteful and told them to shove their application. With acceptances to Tech, Oberlin, and WPI in hand, I had a decision to make. Stay close to home, go to Ohio, or go to Virginia. Right about this same time, I believe there was a bowl game on TV ... the Sugar Bowl I believe. I caught one part of the game, a Brian Still punt return. A few days later, Tech had my parents money.
Back to that fateful day in 1996. Here I was, a young 18 year old, 750 miles away from home, setting foot on a campus that I had been on for a total of 16 hours previously (orientation). Tech was a large, scary place, and somewhere I wasn't sure I wanted to be. My, how things change. Four years later, Blacksburg is my home, and my heart doesn't want to leave.
Over the last 4 years, VT grew to be my home. I've learned it's history, explored it's campus and surroundings, and been educated by some of the best (and worst) people in the world. Saturday, I get my degree in Computer Engineering ... the product of hard work, no sleep, and many hours on HokieCentral. HC has been a huge part of my life at Tech. I'm a die hard sports fan (you have to be if you are a fan of the Red Sox and Cubs!), and I'm a diehard Tech fan. Whether it was football games versus Akron, basketball versus Coastal Carolina, or baseball versus Rhode Island, I was there. Of course, that's probably a big reason my grades weren't what they should have been.
I discovered HC my freshman year. I don't think I started posting until my sophomore year, but it was that year I started posting basketball game reports. I don't know if anyone read them, but it was good to be involved in a community that cared about Tech sports as much as I did. Over time, I've never met any of you. But I feel as though I know you all. We've disagreed and agreed, argued and concurred ... but through it all, we share a thread, the love for Virginia Tech, and the love for Virginia Tech sports.
I can't tell you the nights that I sat at my computer, constantly refreshing the screen to see about a new recruit, or waiting for the next message in a particularly heated thread. They say that college is all about experience - HokieCentral, and all of you, were a large part of my college experience. Tomorrow, I become an alumni, like many of you already are. I hope I can make you all proud.
I'm incredibly proud of this school. I've developed such a deep found love for this place that I find myself spouting it's virtue to all that will listen. I'm so grateful to have been here when I was. The last 4 years will probably go down as 4 of the most importand in Tech history. When I was accepted here, and people asked didn't know what Tech was all about. 4 years later, thanks to people like Pres. Torgersen, Ace Custis, Frank Beamer, Corey Moore, and Michael Vick, everyone knows the name of Virginia Tech. Even more thanks go to the faculty, staff, and administration who've worked incredibly hard to pin a label of outstanding academics along with our athletic prowess.
That's it I guess. I'm of such mixed emotions heading into tomorrow, but I felt I would share this New Englander's thoughts and feelings with some of the people who've been a part of my life over the last years. I'm moving back to Massachusetts Sunday, to work in Woburn, MA. I'm going to miss Blacksburg more than I ever anticipated. I'm going to miss the friends that I've made here. But, you won't be getting rid of me. I won't be at the games, but I'll be watching. And posting. And someday, I'll make a HC tailgate, and meet all of you. And you can all laugh at me for being a northerner.
Thinking back, one thought sticks with me ....
Tufts not accepting me was one of the greatest moments of my life.
Thanks VT
That was something I posted in the wee hours of a May morning in 2000, just a few days before I graduated. It was posted to a website called HokieCentral, which has since become TechSideline.com, and has been an invaluable resource for me in keeping true to my Hokie roots, following the athletic side of my school. The community at TechSideline was invaluable yesterday, yet another wonderful feather in the cap of the Virginia Tech community.
I got so many phone calls, text messages, and emails yesterday. Messages from people who I haven't talked to in months, or longer. Messages from people who've only met me recently. It made me wonder a bit about why exactly everyone felt so compelled to talk to me about it. And, of course, it dawned on me: I talk about my damn school all the time. I really love the place. I still wear my VT gear. I talk about Blacksburg like I lived there all my life.
I still use my vt.edu email address. Every time someone asks me for my email, I make sure they know I went to Virginia Tech and that I'm still proud of that.
It's going to be a trying few months for the Virginia Tech community. Realistically, it will probably be a trying few years. But we will survive. This will not be our defining moment. Clarity will come with the passage of time, but the negativity of yesterday will surely be drowned out by the strength, faith, service, and humanity of the Virginia Tech community.
Positives.
Shooting at Virginia Tech
I'm 7 years removed from being at VT, but I've still got a huge pit in my stomach. If you're away from Blacksburg and trying to keep up with what's going on, here are some resources:
Umm .... seriously ... enough with the rain
I guess it's better than getting like a foot of snow, but this miserable 3 day long driving rain storm is starting to annoy me. I don't really mind the rain, generally, but I'd love it, you know, if the sun came out. And maybe if it got warm enough that I could run outside. That would be fantastic.
The only good thing is that everyone who has today off and was going to enjoy the whole Patriots Day festivities of watching the Sox and the Marathon are going to be stuck inside like the rest of us suckers. Serves them right for taking off a fake holiday.
I didn't know what to make of Twitter. If you've sort of missed out on what it is, figure a cross between blogging and updating your IM away message. It's all about sort of micro-updates about what you're doing. It's limited to 140 characters, which forces you to stay concise, and allows you to do updates via a text message, or the web, or any sort of app you want to build that interfaces with Twitter.
Then, people can "follow" you or "friend" you, just like on pretty much any social network, and get updated to what you're doing. People can have updates sent to their phone, IM, or just over the web (HTML or RSS). It sounds so egotistic and silly: who would want to know what you're doing all the time? Do people care that much?
It sounded so stupid. I checked out some of the more famous Twitterings (?) online and I wasn't sold. Then, I went to Vegas. I wanted to send notes back to people at home--you know, just silly stuff. I signed up for Twitter and gave it a shot. I really haven't stopped using it since. The ability to just send a text message off to a phone number and have it update a little blog is pretty powerful, and can (depending on how many people use Twitter in your little network) be pretty helpful if you're looking for some quick info from your friends.
I can think of a whole bunch of other uses (some of which I'm going to try to implement at work ... we'll see how that goes), but, fundamentally, it can be a useful way to get some information out when you don't have enough in your brain to do anything too big (like update your blog ...).
I'm guessing it'll fade out, but Twitter is a handy fad. I'd almost like to sync my Twitter status to my IM status/info, so people can sort of follow me however they'd like.
The other good thing about Twitter is that it's one way. It's only outward communication (though you can use it to sort of carry on a conversation) which is nice, particularly these days when there's just so much data flying at you (for instance, at work, I'm on 4 IM networks, plus two email accounts, plus normal web stuff). Twitter's unidirectional (monodirectional?): I just spew and I don't have to listen back. Not very friendly, but sometimes it's what you need.
I'm going to try to add my Twitter feed to my blog (look that way ---->). We'll see how it goes.
Wow ... Slashdot's Playing April Fools
I poked over to Slashdot this morning before I ran off to basketball. I saw this:
Holy crap. That's ugly.
Clicking the little link to vote takes you to a Thank You screen that says that voting will help ensure the best stories are presented. I would have expected something more interactive, more (dare I say it) Web 2.0-y.
Then I actually read the Thank You message:
"Thank You for participating in the Slashdottit Rating System
Your vote in the Slashdottit system will help insure the best stories are presented to our readers, with hyper accurate numbers to indicate their relevance and general awesomeness. Only by requiring the contribution of every random user of the internet can we guarantee the most scientifically perfect numbers will be generated. These numbers will guarantee that every story that appears on Slashdot will be interesting, insightful, and flawless. Vote early, vote often."
Ha. Clever. April Fool's. Well played.
So Far Behind
For whatever reason, I've been busyish lately. Work got crazy, then I had jury duty which made work crazier, then I went to Vegas for my boy's bachelor party. I made it through it alive, and probably only gained like 10 pounds eating burgers and drinking beer. And I would have made some money in Vegas if Kansas didn't suck.
But, I'm now back a week and I still feel behind. I tend to collect a lot of media -- podcasts, stuff on my DVR, Netflix movies, books. I'm usually pretty good about working my way through stuff, but I just haven't been able to get caught up. I still think I've got 5 or 6 unheard podcasts that I'll probably get through over the next few days of work. I've got a couple of Netflix movies that I've had since January that I ended up ripping to my Mac just so I could get some new ones (really, I'll delete them when I watch them!). I'm midway through a couple of web-dev books (Perl and CSS) that I'd hoped to be done with by now.
I'm at least caught up on the DVR, which is good, since most of the shows I like are off for a little while.
Hell ... I bought the new Kaiser Chiefs CD on Wednesday and only started listening to it today (I like it so far; not sure why PopMatters and Pitchfork shit all over it).
So, if I can make it through all of this fun media in the next week or so, I'll probably finally get back in gear and do some of the stuff I've been meaning to do (new podcasts, a new website I've had mocked up for about a month now, writing more here). Which will be good, because I'm far more energized when I'm doing something productive.
More on TiVo + Amazon Unbox
Last week, I tried out Amazon Unbox downloading to the TiVo for the first time. The experience went pretty smoothly, though I'm pretty certain it won't replace Netflix or OnDemand in my usage.
I finally had a chance to actually watch the movie, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. The quality wasn't too bad, and I was able to even stretch it out to fill my 16:9 TV. The quality was about what you'd see on digital cable, which is better than what I normally get on TiVo, but obviously worse than DVD. But, for a movie like Idiocracy, it was perfectly acceptable.
Given that I've still got some money left on the initial $15Â credit, I'll probably keep grabbing cheap movies where visuals aren't important. There's still slow download times (I've got an older TiVo and an older wireless adapter, so I don't get great transfer rates) that mean this isn't instant gratification. But, it's not a bad thing to grab a movie every now and then to watch when I have some free time.
Honestly, the worst part about the service is probably the Amazon end, where the search and navigation is nauseatingly bad. It's impossible to quickly browse and easily distinguish TiVo-compatible movies from those that aren't available for the TiVo. That's going to be something that needs some refining if this is going to catch on with more than the early adopter crowd. The iTunes Movie Store interface is far easier and significantly more attractive.
iTunes + Apple TV are probably going to defeat Amazon + TiVo in the long run, as the Apple combo has better quality, faster downloads, and a nicer interface. But, since I'm not shelling out another $300 for Apple TV, I'll probably stick with Netflix and BitTorrent, which, for me, is the best of all options.
Phew! VT Pulls It Out
My Hokies played a horrible 32 minutes, followed by a pretty solid 8 minutes, to pull out a 54-52 victory over Illinois. I hope to hell they work on free throw shooting all evening.
The good news (besides the victory) is that they got a game under their belts and got a bad game out of their system. They'll need to bring it when they play the second round game against either Southern Illinois or Holy Cross.
Champs!
EA calls it! Virginia Tech to win the NCAA Title during March Madness. Go Hokies!