Entry bubble Virginia Tech Massacre Remembrance

By: Jake | April 14, 2008 | Category: Home and Family

I am sure I'm not the only person whose stomach goes into a knots when I think about the tragedy at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. As you probably know, 32 students and professors were gunned down in a residence hall and academic building that day by an individual who was in severe need of mental health services.Hokie Ribbon

I'm an alumnus of Virginia Tech ('01 and '03) and while I did not know any of the victims, I knew people who did (one of the victims went to my high school and was a classmate of my brother). My pain over this tragedy was nowhere near as deep or harsh as those of the victims or their friends and families, but the tragedy was still hard to digest. Virginia Tech was one of those rare places of peace in my mind and it was torn to pieces.

Wednesday will mark a year since the tragedy and Virginia Tech will hold a "Day of Remembrance." The university has canceled classes "to allow students to remember those lost in their own way." There will be events around the country for people to remember those lost.

The thing I've learned from this tragedy is that if I see someone who seems down or withdrawn I try to talk to them instead of ignoring them like I might normally do. I never know what effect this will have, but generally it help knocks them out of their funk.

I notice a lot of links to mental health services on the Virginia Tech remembrance page for students who may still need to talk to someone about the tragedy. I've never had to refer someone to a mental health professional, but I am not afraid to since lots of worse things can happen if I don't.

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Entry bubble Wright Brothers Day and Air Travel Tips for Modern Travelers

By: Jake | December 17, 2007 | Category: Travel

Pardon the interruption from your regularly scheduled holiday season, but today is Wright Brothers Day. You don’t have to deck your house with paper airplane streamers, but it’s worth remembering for a moment or 11 seconds to be exact.

Eleven seconds is how long Orville Wright flew his “glider” at the bottom of sandy Big Kill Devil Hill in North Carolina at 10:35 a.m. 104 years ago today. Before noon that day the Wright Brothers would also make the second, third and fourth successful powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine.

Wright Brothers National Memorial now stands near the spot where Orville went airborne that day. I say near because it’s not in the exact spot where the flights occurred since sand had covered most of the area when witnesses went to retrace it in 1929, but it is the site. To make the site permanent the monument builders grew grass to build a foundation for the memorial.

When I visited the memorial a couple of years ago the hill, wind and smell of the ocean gave me a sense of how secluded and exciting those first flights were.

The Wright Brothers’ flights were a far cry from today’s excitement of airport screenings, delays, lost baggage and other air travel concerns. The links I provided in the last sentence or the Transportation Security Administration’s air travel tips page and Pueblo's fly rights should help make your flight experience more like Orville’s.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

| Comments [1] | envelope Email This Entry | Tags: airplanes  airport  brothers  memorials  security  wright