"Who is Brian Bluhm," you might ask.
Brian Bluhm is one of the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech massacre this past week. He also posted under the handle of "estrepe1" on the FootballHuddles.com NFC North Discussion forum, a place that I've frequented for some time now.
I'm not going to pretend that we were close or that I know all the ins and outs of Brian's life or anything. . .we weren't, and I don't. I do know that he was set to graduate from VT in about a week with his Master's degree in Civil Engineering, that he was a huge Detroit Tigers fan, and that he avidly followed the Detroit Lions as well.
I also know from the brief interaction that I had with him that Brian was a decent, upstanding person. . .one that certainly deserved a much better fate than dying at the hands of some gun-toting maniac in a place where he should have been safe from such things.
Brian will be missed by not only his friends and family, but by the hundreds of folks that he interacted with across this vast information superhighway of ours. I feel myself to be both fortunate and saddened to be able to count myself among those people. . .fortunate to have known him in the first place, and saddened by the fact that anybody has to be missing him at all.
There has been a memorial fund set up in his honor. . .if you wish to contribute to it, here is the address:
Brian Bluhm Virginia Tech Civil Engineering Scholarship Fund
c/o Marathon Bank
4095 Valley Pike
Winchester, VA 22601
Godspeed, Brian.