We have lost another example of the "Greatest Generation"

Before 9:30 in the morning of April 16, 2007 only a small group of people knew the name of Liviu Librescu. I was not one of them. Mr. Librescu was a member of the "Greatest Generation" that knew the Depression, World War II, The Cold War and 9/11. He knew World War II from the inside of a Nazi concentration camp. He saw more death and torture during World War II than 10,000 people see in a life time. He was 76 years old.

For the last 20 years he has taught aeronautical engineering at Virginia Tech. The number of lives he has molded there are in the low thousands. In any life a great accomplishment. But unfortunately Mr. Librescu will not be remembered for that great achievement by a handful of people, but will be remembered by millions around the world for something, I am sure, he would rather not be remembered for even though it is the highest and noblest thing a human can do. He sacrificed himself so his students would have a chance for survival. But from the reports I have seen and heard of him, no one should be surprised of his sacrifice. Remember, he was a member of the "Greatest Generation," a generation that put service and the "right thing" above all else. They defeated fascism and socialism in the face of bullets in the past. They sacrificied.

Was he afraid as he stood at the door using his body as a lock and shield? As more wise men than I have said about life and death situations, if you aren't scared, you’re crazy. But that fright didn't seem to stop Mr. Librescu from doing what can be called a martyr act. We will never know what his last thoughts were as Cho Sueng-Hei fired round after round through the door that Mr. Librescu was standing behind trying to keep him out as his students escaped through the windows of the classroom. But I think we can guess his determination for keeping Cho out long enough for the escape to work from many years ago from the Nazi concentration camp that must have been playing in his head like an old familiar film. He was that last line of defense. He knew it. Didn't shriek from it. Stayed calm and clear headed and knew that was what he had to do. And he did it. And if he lost his life in the process and it only saved one life, it was still worth the effort.

Well he did more than that. He saved many lives. He made a statement for life and the love of life. He made a place in Virginia Tech history and the world for himself. It was obvious standing behind that door was not what he wanted to be doing on that Monday morning, but when history and fate called on him, he once again answered the call as he did in World War II and didn't hesitate.

Mr. Librescu held the most important class he ever taught Monday morning. He taught more in 90 seconds to the world than he had in a lifetime. He taught courage, love, bravery and sacrifice. As a teacher, he fulfilled a teaching destiny that very few teachers ever achieve.

To the nouns that describe Liviu Librescu; cancer survivor; holocaust survive; husband; father; aeronautical engineer; teacher; we now, reluctantly and with great sorrow and humility, add maybe the most important noun to his name, life giver.

We say, "Mr. Librescu, thank you for the lesson you taught us Monday morning. We are sorry you had to teach it." Shalom.

Work,Work,Work,Work,Work

Seems that is all I am doing here of lately. But it has been pretty fun work. As I stated in my last post, we had been installing a new routing switcher. Well that is all done now and here a picture to prove it!!

We have moved on to installing a new Master Control to replace the aging analog Master Control that we have been using almost 10 years. It is woefully out of date now and we are truly seeing it as we install all of these new gizmo's.

Here is what the area looked like when we first started late last year. Pretty bare, huh? Well it had been where we had our commercial playback servers and we rotated them 90 degrees so we can start construction. After we get on line, we will move the servers to a new server room and that will open the floor space back up and we can put up the walls.

Here it is now about 2/3 of the way completed. We have many monitors to be able to view most anything in the station that deals with on air since this will be the "helm" of the good ship "El Ocho." This point here has taken several months and work just about every day. It doesn't look like much, but there is lots of wire under those floor tiles. Lots of wire, almost 6 miles we figure of digital video and digital audio cable. And here is a picture of the back of one of the racks with the audio frame of the router and the master control frame.

We hope to be on the air with this in the next few weeks so we keep slugging away. Who knows, it may actually look like something and work to boot!