I took it about here, in front of Sandy Hall:

Good to eat: having an appealing or enjoyable taste or smell (see: tasty, yummy, delicious)

Example:

(Taken inside of Owens Food Court)

That night my mom used the website to pay the remaining balance of the bill, and within an hour the hold was removed from my record, granting me access to my schedule.  All things considered, today went fine.  Also, it turns out that I did get a notification email the day the hold was put on my record, but it on Thursday, the day the bill was created, so that brings me to two points: First, a hold shouldn’t have been put on my record, period.   Such aggressive action was unnecessary, considering that the bill was created the same day, as well as because the reason the class wasn’t added before the regular billing cycle was the fault of the college of Engineering.  Second, even if the hold was justified, under no circumstances should they block my ability to view my schedule.  I keep a copy of my schedule in OneNote, but the timing was just horrible for hold put on my record, because I hadn’t done that yet.

I’m just glad that everything worked out and hoping that these kinds of close calls won’t be common!

The task at hand was to check my schedule.  For example, I know I have a class at 9:30 tomorrow, but was that English or multivar?  What building and room is it in?  The answer to these questions haven’t been important until now.  Wanting answers, I made my way to my.vt.edu and signed in.  I clicked on the “Courses” tab to be greeted with this message: “There appear to be holds on your account.”  The use of the passive voice didn’t help make the statement less accusatory.

This was the first time I had seen the message, but I put off it’s investigation for a later time.  My task was to check tomorrow’s schedule.  I clicked the “Student Schedule” link to see this page:

“OK,” I thought, “Whatever the reason for the hold, they should never deny me from viewing my schedule!”

Onto the investigation.  Looking at my billing history (which I won’t show here) it seems that just last Thursday the Engineering Exploration department finally got around to signing me up for a class that they require Computer Science and Computer Engineering students to take, ENGE1104 Exploration of a Digital Future.  This meant an additional charge was added to my account five days ago without notification.  (This apparently also means that Tech considers an unpaid bill that was given out five days ago outstanding.)  The way I see it, I can’t find out where to go to class tomorrow because Tech’s system blocked my access to my schedule, but worse they blocked it because I was added to a class late that I don’t want to take anyway.

At a speech during the engineering freshman orientation last summer, Bev Watford Ph.D. told the audience or rising freshmen engineering students and their parents (paraphrased), “At tech we like to be on the uncomfortable edge of technology.”  Needless to say, I’m feeling a little bit too uncomfortable.  Frankly I think the Engineering Exploration department should be ashamed of its disorganization.  Many students who were required to take the class didn’t get a spot until last week, so this means there must be many others in my situation as well.  I’m going to see what I can do to get that bill paid, though frankly I think it’s ridiculous that a hold was put on my account for so recent a bill as well that the hold blocked me from viewing my schedule.  I just hope those other students had the foresight to save an offline copy of their schedules even though it should be unnecessary to do so.

One of the many wonderful presents (thanks Mom, Dad, brothers, sister) I got this Christmas was a pair of Virginia Tech branded “Mammoth” Crocs from my Dad.  I have to say… I’ve been skeptical about Crocs, but not only are these things warm and comfy, but they show my Hokie pride as well.

Policeare investigating reported sounds of gunshots in Pritchard Hall. Building is secured. No access in or out. Police searching room by room.

Virginia Tech PD and BlacsburgPD are investigating reported sounds of gunshots in Pritchard Hall. Building is secured. No access in or out. Police searching room by room. Two people reported hearing sounds like gunfire at about 1 pm.

The message is clearly segmented into two parts.  The first, scary part being the short version which I have discovered was displayed on the Tech website as well as on the leaderboard clocks that are in all of the classrooms.  I assume that text block is what was sent via text message to students’ cell phones.  (I have yet to receive it.)

The second part, seemingly only sent through the email, is a bit more detailed and a lot less scary.  “Two people reported hearing sounds like gunfire at about 1 pm.”  My guess is that someone was blasting Paper Planes.  I don’t understand why the full message isn’t displayed on the website, as there is not a character limit there as there is on text messages and leaderboard messages.

Although I’m staying in my dorm to be safe, I am not concerned.  People need to calm down.

edit at 2:13pm:

Current gossip puts the blame on fireworks.

edit at 2:27 pm:

The website now says:

Apparently the source of the sounds was nearby construction.  I’ve only gotten the single email from the VT alert system though… I should have gotten something.

edit on November 15, 2007 at 4:37pm:

Here’s the official word about what happened, sent via email to Tech students:

As you know, Virginia Tech Police received reports today of “sounds like gunfire” in the vicinity of Pritchard Hall. Police were on the scene within three minutes and secured the building entrances within several more minutes. While searching the building floor by floor and room by room, they also interviewed witnesses who saw two persons near a dumpster between Pritchard and Lee Halls at about the same time the sounds were heard.

With the assistance of the university explosives detective dog, police searched the area and found a casing from a power actuated nailer, commonly called a nail-gun, adjacent to the dumpster. Based on this evidence and the eyewitness reports, police theorize that the two persons seen near the dumpster exploded the cartridge, possibly by slamming the lid. Due to the location between two high-rise dormitories, the sound would likely have echoed.

The two individuals seen by eyewitnesses near the dumpster are described as a white male wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and a black male with a bushy or braided hairstyle. Police are still investigating and ask that anyone with information contact VTPD at 231-6411.

As events unfolded, Virginia Tech used its emergency notification system to inform the community of what was happening. This was the first time the system was used other than a test.

At approximately 1:40 p.m. the first emergency message was sent to the entire university community using the university homepage, campus-wide e-mail, electronic message boards in classrooms, and VT Alerts. While the university communications systems worked well (university homepage, campus-wide e-mail, electronic message boards in classrooms), the VT Alerts system did not perform as expected, and some messages were not delivered.

As the incident progressed, a second and third message to the university community was sent, using the same four methods. Again, the university systems worked well, however, the VT Alerts system failed to work and transmit the second and third message.

Virginia Tech has been in touch with 3n, the outside vendor that manages the delivery of VT Alerts for the university, to understand why the system failed to deliver all the text and voice mail messages and messages to non university e-mail accounts. VT Alert is intended to reach mobile devices—primarily voice messages or text messages to cell phones—with emergency information.

Once the university finds out from 3n why VT Alerts did not work as expected, it will share that information with the university community.

Virginia Tech continues to do everything it can to respond quickly to emergency events. We attempt to use as many channels as possible to notify the community of emergency situations. We regret that the one system not under our control failed to work as expected.

MARVEL!

Suck it, UVA.

The following notice is addressed to

[my name, my roommate's name, our dorm, and room number]

A computer in your room using IP address 198.82.96.147 and connected to the Ethernet outlet identified as [our room number]TP02B has sent more than 650MB of information into the network during the past 24 hours. As a result, the network capacity available to this computer has been restricted. To determine if this is your IP address, connect to http://www.software.ais.vt.edu/yourip/yourip.php while connected to the outlet in your room.

Outbound traffic from your (or your roommate’s) computer must remain below 650MB for a 24-hour period for these limits to be reduced or removed.

This action has been taken since network services are a shared resource, critical to the university’s mission. In instances where individuals consume an excessive amount of network resources, they are in conflict with Virginia Tech’s Acceptable Use Guidelines. More information is available at: http://www.cns.vt.edu/html/data/bandwidth.html.

The most common reason for this occurrence is computers serving peer-to-peer (p2p) or file-sharing applications, such as Morpheus, KaZaA, Gnutella or Limewire. In addition to generating a large volume of network traffic, these programs potentially put you in the position of illegally distributing copyrighted music, movies or software. For instructions on deleting a program of this type, please read Virginia Tech 4Help Knowledge Base article http://www.answers.vt.edu/ask4help/thirdparty/vtkb1386.htm

The second most common reason is your computer has been infected with a virus or trojan. Follow all 4 steps under the "CLEAN IT UP" section at http://antivirus.vt.edu to clean up your computer.

The next most common reasons are on-line game playing and video/audio chatting.

You may engage in any legal activity but your connection speed will be limited if more than 650MB of information a day is uploaded.

REMEMBER, unauthorized sharing of copyrighted files MUST BE immediately eliminated.

If you require technical assistance with removing the file-sharing client or removing a virus, it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that you contact the Virginia Tech Computing Consultants at 4Help (540/231-4357 or http://4help.vt.edu/).

It is still unclear to me if the upload limit is per port (and thus per person), or per room.  The evidence suggests that the limit is per room.

speaks for itself.

Edit August 21 at 8:26am:

I tried again, and got even better results.