Monday, December 12, 2011

Another Great Mark Albert MTConnect and [MC]2 Article


We have no better friend of MTConnect than Modern Machine Shop's Mark Albert.  Here Mark has another great article on [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference and MTConnect.

Thanks Mark!

Not Again....



This past Thursday, December 8th at 1:14pm, I get the following text from my son Michael, who is a junior at VT:


      We are alright FYI


When you are a parent who had a son at VT for that horrific day on the 16th of April in 2007, the absolute first thoughts are, "oh my god, another gunman at VT?"


I did not think they was a fire, or some type of car accident or any other rationale thought.  I immediately thought a gunman at VT.    Thank god it was NOT another 4/16 event.  My mind immediately went to VT's Collegiate Times photo back in 2007.  




I remember how hard my son John worked on the Collegiate Times with his room mate Gabe Martinez as they were the two individuals that were responsible for the website.  They had to rebuild the website when it got over 50 MILLION hits that day.

Thankfully, this time VT did react properly and let everyone know what the hell was going on.  This was much different than how they handled it 2007 where certain VT staff members decided to let their family and friends know of the first  shooting on April 16th, 2007, but chose not to tell the rest of the VT students and faculty until almost two hours later.  How NO ONE WAS FIRED FOR THAT is still a freaking mystery to me and that they are appealing the $55,000 fine is morally wrong.   It was tragically ironic that senior VT police officers and university officials were all in DC as the university appealed that $55,000 fine by the Education Department in connection with the 2007 rampage at the time of this latest gunman on campus.

VA continues to be a backward state and allows the gun show loophole.   I also called into the Kojo Nnamdi Show when he had an anniversary show on the VT shooting.   If you go to the 11:52 mark, you can hear my statements and question that goes until the 13:14 mark.

The best news that came out of this is that VT's admins appear to have learned a very valuable lesson and are now a model for the rest of the world in terms of how to deal with a loose gunman on campus....