First let me say - Virginia Tech, my prayers are with you and your families. I may not be able to identify with the grief and horror you’ve experienced in the last couple days, but my heart goes out to all of you, and hopefully you can find some peace in all of the turmoil.
That said, HSU had it’s own little tragedy Friday afternoon… a 4” water main in the ceiling of the 3rd floor of the Johnson Building busted, flooding the third, second, and first floors. While I didn’t see it, I hear there was a nice waterfall flowing from the 2nd floor balcony. What I think is remarkable is that we had class in the damaged portion of the building on the following Tuesday - the company that came to take care of the water damage actually had the building mostly dried out in about 60 hours, using fans and giant dehumidifiers that pumped out barrel after barrel of water, and the construction team re-painted and re-tiled the ceiling of most of the building in just a couple days.
Tuesday evening I attended an awards dinner for the Kelley College of Business. While I didn’t actually receive an award, I was a nominee – though I didn’t think I’d win anything this year. Several people had wondered why I went alone (no date)… but it actually ended up being a good thing – President Turner’s wife was unable to attend, so I had the honor of sitting with President Turner and Doyle Kelley – the man for which the Kelley College of Business is named - and it turned out to be a very interesting evening to say the least!
Mom bought me and Copper some squeaky tennis balls for him to play with… problem is, he doesn’t like the squeaking sound, and I – being the mean person that I am – have been scaring Copper with it the last couple days… so when I heard Copper making a lot of noise behind me just now, I turned around to see him attacking the tennis ball with paws of fury… oh Copper.
Ok, so this got a little longer than I anticipated, but I have one last thing. If you listen to internet radio (being any kind of music you listen to on the web, examples include Pandora and Last.fm, but also services provided by Yahoo, AOL, MTV, and RealNetworks) listen up. The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC has decided to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites, and the new royalty rates are irrationally high - more than four times what satellite radio pays and broadcast radio doesn’t pay these at all. What this means is that broadcasting online just got a whole lot more expensive – expensive enough that most if not all internet radio broadcasters will have to shut down, and what makes it worse is that the fees are retroactive back to January 1, 2006 - which will mean instant bankruptcy for many internet radio broadcasters. That being said, if you listen to and enjoy internet radio, please visit www.savenetradio.org, read the information, and show your support. They’ve made it quite easy to send an email to your local Congress officials, and there’s a petition you can sign. I listen to Pandora when I’m at work, and I know several of you use Last.fm… it would be a shame to see these great internet radio broadcasters shut down because of a misguided (by the RIAA) decision by politicians.