Sunday, April 22, 2007

Day 59 - 04/20/2007

Supposedly it's hemp day today...or something like that. The things they have these days; they never had that when I was growing up! Actually, a quick check of snopes.com says it's been around since 1971, so I must've not been that hip as a misspent youth. And now that I'm a mature, responsible adult with charges of my own to look out for, I have no interest in pursuing such folly. Ah, wisdom, what would I do without you?

Now that that's taken care of, I was smart enough to ride my bike to work today and got a great morning workout at the gym. I was somewhat surprised to see a turkey over by Stonecroft Boulevard on the way in. I've only seen one one other time in this area, so it was a nice treat for the morning ride. (Looking back on it, I wonder if there was any significance to me seeing it and it being a day of remembrance for the Hokie students and faculty gunned down earlier in the week. I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but the thought did make me think twice about it.) The weather was a bit cool when I started, but I dressed appropriately this go-round and I ended up a bit on the warm side by the time I got to the office. After working out (weights only this time, the ride in to the office served as my cardio/warmup), I hit the showers, got dressed and went to work.

I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of colleagues wearing maroon and/or orange as a visible way to show support/grief/acknowledgement of/for the victims of the shooting at Virginia Tech. The director of our group is a huge Tech fan (he graduated way back in the day) and he stopped by to thank me for wearing my orange shirt in support. Uh, certainly, Mark, I wouldn't have thought not to do so. The tragedy that occurred down in Blacksburg didn't just affect those on campus, but, as evidenced by the impact it's had on the media, is a nationwide affair. (I would add that it may even be an international event, but I doubt not all the world is impacted by this event, even though some of the victims were from other countries.) As it turns out, the shooter went to the elementary school less than 1/4 mile from our house and one of the victims went to M's school. When D told me that she went to St. Tim's, I thought she meant she went to the church, not that she was a student there. That's when it really hit home for me. Is there something about this area that makes kids grow up dysfunctional? Last year a Westfields student killed two police officers at the local police station. This year a Westfields grad kills 32 of his fellow Virginia Tech community members. Is there something more to it or is it just a coincidence? I hope it's the latter and we don't see more events like this one coming out of our community.

Headed out to sushi for lunch. I hadn't been to the sushi-house in a couple of months, so Matt and I headed down 28 for some raw fish and seaweed. Of course, not all of the sushi consists of raw fish and seaweed, but we had our fill of both of those (especially the salmon and tuna...yummy!) before heading back into traffic to finish out the day at the office. Matt had taken the doors off his Jeep, so the ride to and fro was a bit chilly, but after the past week, the weather was beautiful. Like I told him on the way to lunch, it was a Ferris Bueller day. Unfortunately, we had work to do back at the office so we couldn't emulate Ferris and take the day off...but we did consider it.

The ride back home was uneventful. I got home to an empty house (well, empty except for D, who was on her way to Molly's to watch the kids). There were pot pies in the oven for dinner (one of which was for Molly and her girls as they are without a kitchen until their new one is installed). I delivered hers to her house and got the grand tour of their new kitchen. It was neat to see what a difference taking out a couple of walls, cabinets, posts, etc., made and it completely modified the flow. It also gave D and I some ideas on what we can do to ours to better utilize our space. (Molly's floor plan is very similar to ours, so it's fun to compare the various projects we've both undertaken.)

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