Electric Heating Co., Inc

Virginia Tech

Today we depart from the usual TGID format to share a note from an Eli Whitney friend who will graduate this spring from Virginia Tech with a degree in architecture. Two years ago he was about to enter Norris Hall when all hell broke loose. On this anniversary of the shootings he shares his thoughts:

Exactly two years ago today (4/16/07), I sat in a dark, locked room wondering what was happening on my campus. A couple hours later I would realize hell had only been a few steps away.

I remember getting back to my off-campus apartment and watching nationally-televised reporters ask themselves, "Where and what is Blacksburg, VA?" As the day went on, my roommates and I watched in disbelief as the stories changed, the death toll rising from 6 to 12, from 12 to the low 20's, from the low 20's to the low 30's, before eventually coming to rest at the horrific total of 32 dead.

I will forever be thankful for all the calls and support I received during the course of that day and week.

I send this email not with the intention of trying to make you sad, but with the hope that today you take a moment to really appreciate your own life and the lives of those both close and not so close to you.

This is a note I scribbled in my notebook this morning as I walked around campus: Every time I walk by a building there is a conversation. The architecture tells me something about itself, and I tend to ask it why or how. A facade skin sometimes tells me "I am staggered to make life difficult for that pesky rainwater," and I ask, "But how are you attached to your skeleton?"

On my way to studio today I placed a yellow rose with red trim in front of Norris Hall, and realized it was the closest I had been to the building in two years. Its architecture seems to sleep during the day, but late at night it speaks to me often, in painfully loud whispers. I am never able to respond and I find it too difficult to make eye-contact with even a single stone in the wall, so I drop my gaze to the ground and walk by.

Friday Funnies

Wordsmiths at it again !!!

Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like,the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Dalton Electric Heating Co., Inc (978)356-9844
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