The past week and the tragedy of last night

Well, I haven't put anything here for a week or so. Today seems a good day to do so. Not much has happened with me. I heard back from one of the editors. I've got a few more edits to do on the preface, but I should be able to knock it out in the next day or two. I've been trying to get working on the instructor's material, but haven't gotten moving the way I want.

I got some playing with Inferno done. I finally worked out how to build a bootable CD that will let you install Inferno natively on a computer, like most any other OS. I've already had a couple of people try it out and give me some feedback. It's pretty cool, except that we don't really have good graphics support for PCs yet. But when we do, we should have a pretty cool install disk.

Around the house, I've done a bit of stuff. Over the course of a few weeks a while back we cleaned up the garage enough that I can finally get my car in there. We also did the work bench. I can now work there... Of course, then I had to wash and wax my car and about 3 or 4 days later it rained and now it's all dirty again. Murphy strikes again. I spent much of the weekend caulking and closing the pool. The sad part is these are better things to talk about than the weekend's football. Yes, I'm still an Irish fan, even this year. You can't go there and attend games in that stadium and not get it in your blood.

But the real thing to talk about is the reason I'm blogging now instead of teaching my class. Today the University of Memphis canceled all classes. Last night, a student was fatally shot. He had been on the football team, but no one yet knows why this happened. It won't be the basis of documentaries or nationwide mourning like Virginia Tech. But it's no less a tragedy. When Virginia Tech happened, universities across the country were bonded by the experience. A wise person said at the time that when such a tragic event happens at any university, all universities suffer the loss. Because the academic community is, by its very nature, connected, the whole community suffers the loss. And last night was no different. We throughout the world's academic community have lost a student, the person for whom colleges and universities exist, the person that we are committed to nurture and protect. We have all lost one of our own. Beyond that, the human race is diminished anytime something like this happens. Any time one person visits violence upon another, the whole human race becomes less. It is less civilized. It is less compationate. It loses the promise of what the victim would have contributed to the future. Any person lowering themselves to commit such an act lowers the dignity and honor of the whole world. We all woke up this morning to a world that is a lesser place as a result. Thus we all mourn this loss and pray for his family, whether we knew him or not.