A Conflagration of Randomness

Thanks to The Collegiate Times for posting the timeline of the events:

 

VT article on shot officer: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2011/12/120811-unirel-crousememoriam.html

President Steger Letter: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2011/12/120811-unirel-stegerstatement.html

Collegiate Times Photos: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/galleries/330/shooting-at-vt-dec.-8

Collegiate Times Article: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/18960/violence-strikes-tech-again-shocks-campus

CNN Article: http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/08/justice/virginia-tech-incident/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Unfortunately, my time at Virginia Tech has been plagued with unfortunate circumstances.  Freshmen year I was plagued by the false alarm of a nail gun firing in a dumpster that alarmed the whole school of a possible shooting in Pritchard hall, the then largest all-male dorm on the east coast.  This was also the first time the new VT Alerts system was tested and everything worked except the text messages.  This wasbound to happen due to the sheer number of simultaneous text messages the school had to send out via an already cluttered cell network filled with texts and calls from students to parents and anyone else who would listen.

VT had a few months to fix the system before it was needed again during the tragic beheading that occurred in January of my freshmen year.  This awful event took place just feet from my dorm, occurring in the Graduate Life Center, right next to Vawter Hall.  This first major scarring event at VT left me feeling even stronger about my school.  VT is not defined by it’s tragedies,  but by how its students respond and react to these events.  They only make this school stronger.

Freshmen year passed without any further events, but of course within a week of sophomore year, there was a murder of two students at an off campus campsite.  I had planned on going camping a few days later and still managed to persuade my parents that I would be safe.  However, this was just a continuation of bad events here at VT.

Junior year passed without much of a hiccup.  However, this past summer there was the false alarm of a gunman on campus.  Now whether the person was carrying a banana under their coat or it was a real gun is hard to say, but regardless VT made it to headline news once again.    My boss’ boss at GE knew about the events even before I received a text message.  So it was no wonder one of my first thoughts after hearing the alert today was “It’s just another false alarm” followed shortly by “I wonder how long it will take for us to make the headlines” after I realized the alerts were legitimate.  Not to be condescending towards the victims of the tragedies, but VT has every spotlight in the world focused on any sign of trouble occurring on campus.  Obviously a result of the April 16, 2007 shootings, do we really need to be headline news for every murder that occurs on campus?  I’m saddened that we lost a valuable police officer today and possibly the other victim (depending on whether or not he was the shooter), but I do not believe we need to have every news station broadcasting our tragedy to the world.  These events occur and sadden us all, but the sheer media coverage all relating this event to April 16th is not necessary.  It’s hard enough getting over this tragedy let alone being reminded of the horrors that occurred on April 16th.

I sincerely hope this is the last major event that occurs during my time here at Virginia Tech and keep Office Crouse in your thoughts and prayers today.

A few weeks ago i was reminiscing about my Gmail account.  Years ago, in 2003, I heard rumors that a brand new email service offered by Google was going to be released.  Late in 2004, I finally discovered a way to get into the beta Gmail, Gmail Swap, since Gmail accounts were by invite only.

I remember in order to get a Gmail account, I had to write a poem.  I don’t remember or have a copy of this poem, but here is what the Gmail Swap page looks like.  However, I do still have my emails that I received to my Gmail account in October 2004.  That email is nearly 6 years old! And I still have almost every email since then.

Recently Javabat changed its name to Codingbat since it added the ability to code in Python. However, the exercises are the same as in Java, just to be submitted in Python format. I feel this addition will help people realize and learn about Python, as I have found it to be a very useful language. Below is a screenshot of the new Javabat homepage.