Monthly Archive for October, 2007
So Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize. For what exactly? A documentary about climate change that is allegedly loaded with inaccuracies?
Let’s forget the inaccuracies for a moment. How does a movie about climate change fulfill the purpose of the award?
According to wikipedia (yes, I know, far from the pantheon of truthfulness, but I think they have this correct), Alfred Nobel’s will stated that the Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded
to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.
Please enlighten me as to how making a documentary about climate change accomplishes any of that. It’s absurd.
Not that any of it matters anyway. The Nobel Laureates lost all credibility when they awarded the prize to a terrorist.
I certainly didn’t mean to overshadow the events of last weekend with what happened to us on Sunday.
The Hokies whooped Clemson in true Beamerball fashion, and I have to say that I did not expect that at all. I foresaw our offense bogging down once again, and Clemson running all over us. Half of that did come true for a time, but the Hokie defense was magnificent in holding the Clemson running game to a paltry twelve yards. Outstanding!
We were running back interceptions, punts, and kickoffs for touchdowns like crazy. Tyrod played moderately well, protecting the ball for the most part, and exploiting the Clemson defense for some big runs. He even had a couple of nice passes, but overall, the offense is really going to have to improve for us to have a shot at another ACC championship.
Unfortunately, we lost Vince Hall for a few weeks due to a broken wrist. We’re really going to miss him against Boston College.
It was really nice to spend time and reminisce with old fraternity brothers. There were guys there last weekend that graduated in the late 1960s so it was a special weekend for them. It’s been 40 years since the local Alpha Pi Tau fraternity was founded at Virginia Tech, and it was surreal to see that these guys were still friends after all this time and that they shared the same sort of camaraderie that I share with the guys with whom I went to school.
Of course, I’m not the same person I was 15 years ago when I pledged Zeta Psi, but the bonds that I formed back then remain strong, and as the old guys showed us this past weekend, those bonds will continue to remain strong for many years to come.
We came back from Blacksburg today after another alumni weekend. There were over 100 alumni there as we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Virginia Tech chapter of Zeta Psi. We had a great time as usual.
The bad day part was today. On the way to Blacksburg on Friday, we had such a horrible time with the traffic on I-64 and I-81 that we decided to take US-460 back home. About an hour into our trip, we drove up to an intersection and noticed some shredded tires in the road and a tractor trailer on the side of the road. At first I thought he just blew a tire, but then I noticed a Jeep Wagoneer on the side of the road facing the wrong way with gasoline and oil leaking out of it.
And then both Monica and I noticed the woman lying on the side of the road.
I stopped the car immediately, and Monica jumped out and ran over to assess the woman’s condition. I pulled the car over on the side of the road and talked to a bystander who said that the paramedics were called. I was making my way over to Monica when I noticed two other people on the side of the road. There were several people around them, and I saw that there was one woman who was conscious and one man who was also conscious but bleeding from his head.
I walked over to Monica, and she said that she was unable to find a pulse on the elderly woman and that one pupil was pinpoint and the other was completely dilated. I looked at her face, and I saw her eyes were open but she was unresponsive. There was one woman there that said she knew her, and she kept calling her name but there was never an answer.
The paramedics and fire fighters arrived within a few minutes. One came over to the elderly woman on the ground, checked her pulse, then walked away while saying, “She’s dead.” I figured this was the case, but to have him officially confirm it freaked me out a bit.
I walked past the other two people who were being looked at by the paramedics and just stood on the side of the road. Monica saw that the everyone was being taken care of so we decided to get back in the car and continue on home.
I haven’t been able to get the empty stare of the elderly woman out of my head all day. Seeing a dead woman on the side of the road has just freaked me out. I’ve seen two other dead people in my life but that was at funerals. To see this poor woman just lying there like that was just weird and has given me a heavy heart the rest of the day.
I looked on the Roanoke Times site for information about the accident, and I found it here.
