* * We have visitors from Colombia. South America.

I’ve written in this space before about some of the visitors we have hosted at casa Abraham, linked to us by various internet based hosting services like Couchsurfing and Warmshowers. Just this morning, two lovely ladies, Liliam Karine Marin and Nataly Londono Ramirez from Colombia, South America, departed after three days with us. It feels so lonely in the house already.

Nataly and Liliam are in the states to promote an international program to American universities that has students traveling and working abroad for several months. Their job is to drive the organization’s vehicle thousands of miles to place posters on the walls in academic buildings. They’ve been doing this for four months already with two more to go. When they arrived at the organization’s headquarters in Dowagiac, Michigan, neither of them could speak any English!

Nataly is 30 years old and Liliam is 25. Nataly has learned her new language more fluently and spoke with me about their experience. She said, “We are volunteers with the organization, One World Center.”

According to its website, it is a “non-profit research organization with a mission to inspire and empower ordinary people to take action against worldwide poverty and climate change.” Their programs offer academic credits to college students.

She continued, “The organization’s propose is empower people and reduce poverty in Africa, Brazil, and Central America, to make change and education for the people. Liliam and I work in the promotion of the program. I had a friend who participated in Africa, in Mozambique. He told me about this opportunity.

“I am an occupational therapist. But I quit my job to be a volunteer for this. The organization pays a small stipend for food and the car. They’ve been staying with Couchsurfing hosts the entire time, and even in some cases sleeping in their cars. Both women were beautiful, enough as Mick Jagger said, “to make a grown man cry.” Both were thin and had dark skin and black hair. Liliam had more of a classic Latina look, with full cheeks, a wide nose, and thick eyebrows. Nataly, although older, looked like a teenager, with a soft, gentle face and demeanor.

“The organization defined our schedule for us. We have been in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, then Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. All the time, we stay with hosts.”

I asked what surprised her about America.

“Back in Colombia before I came, I thought American people were angry, very fast, and very crazy – not crazy good but crazy bad. Many dangerous, I think. But I came anyway. I found many people nice.

“This is the first time I have been in the United States. I had only been to Peru and Equator before. This is the first time in North America. This is the first time I have ever been in winter!”

Colombia is a tropical country, near the Equator. From place to place, the weather is different due to elevation and location. Lower cities are hot and wet and higher cities are drier and more comfortable. Her city of Santiago de Cali, or just “Cali” for short, is at 3300 feet of elevation and has an estimated 2,300,000 people. It is nicknamed “The Salsa capital of the world” (for dancing, not the sauce), and the “Capital of Happiness.” It is a center for sports in Colombia and has hosted several international competitions.

The weather never changes by time of year – there are no “seasons” as we think about them. It never gets cold and she has never seen snow. “All year, every day, is always the same.” Both women wore tight, fashionable, frankly sexy jeans with holes in the knees, which of course were totally inappropriate for our cold, soon to be frigid season. Liliam had a good coat but we gave Nataly a spare winter jacket. We were afraid they’re freeze to death!

“It is different for us when it gets dark very early. It is the first time I have ever been cold.

“When I get back to Cali, I will tell people that America is very good. The experience is good. I love this place. I will do it again.

“People from America visit Colombia for drugs. For sexual business. But other people really know Colombia. We have many nice, beautiful places and beautiful people. Great food. People think Colombia is dangerous but it’s not. I love Colombia. Colombian people are nice, warm, and friendly. Welcome to Colombia.”

Consider opening your door to strangers. They will enrich your life.

* * Michael St. Jean loves running our airport

The Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport is one of our area’s economic drivers, a critical element of our infrastructure that supports tourism, economic development, and recreation. Its executive director, Rhode Island native Michael St. Jean, is a happy man.

The airport is undergoing construction to lengthen the runway and make it available to larger airplanes. He’s delighted by the multi-organizational cooperation he’s seeing.

“I’ve been in Virginia for 35 years now, but when I go home to Rhode Island, people think I have a Virginia accent. Here, people say, ‘You’re not from around here.’ My daughter, who was born here, still makes fun of my accent,” he joked.

Michael began his career as an air traffic controller in the Army. His last service station was Fort Eustis in Newport News, Virginia. When he finished his eight years, he transitioned to civilian life. “I absolutely loved military life. My family history is one based upon serving this country in uniform. We believe it is an obligation and a duty.

“There were options for me to stay in the Army. I decided to leave the military an be in a business environment.” He worked in a multi-franchise car dealership in Newport News. He did this for 14 years. When he got a degree in business administration from Christopher Newport University and sought a change. He got a job managing a small airport in New Kent County. He worked there for three years before interviewing for the job at the Tech airport. “I’ve been here ever since.”

I asked about daily life in his job as executive director. He said, “Like a water authority or a solid waste authority, my board is made up of representatives of all the stake-holders: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Montgomery County, and one ‘at large’ member. I respond to their direction. The Authority is an independent government has entity created by the Virginia Legislature which is then made up of the four entities.

My job is different every day. I have regular plans that have to be submitted on schedules. I oversee all financial aspects of the airport. I communicate with tenants who park their airplanes here. I spend time outside the fence talking with the community about their concerns about our operations. I talk about the value of this airport to the community.”

The airport has no commercial service. At the federal level, it is a general aviation regional airport, recently rising from a community to a regional airport.

“We now service more executive and corporate types of jets. I have a staff skilled in operations such as maintaining runway lighting, approach lighting, penetrations to the airspace, and people who wish to fly drones.

“We are in the midst of a runway expansion. Virginia Tech, a few years ago when it was in control, did a strategic master plan. They determined the airport needed to extend the runway from 4500 feet to 5500 feet. We acquired more land and improved the facilities and apron. It took six years to do the environmental assessment, much like a major road project. There were 26 federal and state agencies involved. Water issues. Species impact. Historical site impacts. Architectural. Sociological. We hired consultants to do that work.”

Michael has an annual budget of $1.1-1.2 million and a staff of 11. I asked about his best and worst days.

“When an aircraft is in trouble or crashes, we need to take care of those aboard. Operationally we need to function at design standards. We were a staging location for the April 16 disaster team and the Morva shooting response. On one football game day, we had 80 aircraft arriving and leaving and the weather was so bad they closed the Roanoke airport. I’m proud of how we responded. We were amazed by the challenges that day presented. We learned what we were capable of. When we have a lot of airplanes out there, it’s hard, but it’s fun.

He gushed about the multi-agency cooperation he was seeing in this expansion. “We have many moving pieces working together. We’re half-way through a three-year project. It’s working better than we ever expected. There are minor and major hiccups. But the planning has been so good that it’s moving along very smoothly. There is openness in communication. People here are open-minded. I think it’s working so well here because everybody seems to be going in the same direction. This is a fun job.”

* * Bill Roth is back at Virginia Tech

“Touchdown Tech!!!”

You may not know the face, but you know the voice of Bill Roth, who for 27 years teamed with Mike Burnop as the radio voices of the Virginia Tech Hokies football and basketball teams. Bill left Tech and Blacksburg for the city lights, taking the same job with UCLA in Los Angeles in April, 2015. He worked there for a year. Then he moved back. He moved home.

He was kind enough to join my daughter Whitney and me at a local restaurant to talk about that experience.

“Tech asked me to come back,” he said. “I wasn’t happy in L.A. The university asked me to come back and join a new Sports Multimedia Journalism Program that Tech wanted to put together. We always thought Tech would be a great place to do that. The university had made the commitment to build an incredible studio.”

“But Bill,” I pleaded, “it’s UCLA! It’s Pauley Pavilion and the Rose Bowl!”

“Sure, it’s one of the truly iconic jobs in sports,” he admitted. “UCLA recruited me. They wanted me. They are the winningest athletic program in sports. It’s a great city. They have a great media presence. To give you an idea, in the Olympics, the USA has the most medals all-time. Russia/Soviet Union is second. Germany is third. China is fourth. And UCLA students and alums are fifth.

“Their greatest player in every sport, you would recognize. In baseball, Jackie Robinson played there. In basketball, Kareem (Abdul Jabbar). Bill Walton. Flo-Jo (Joyner) and Jackie Joyner Kersey in track. Women’s soccer. Lisa Fernandez in softball. You’d know them. Arthur Ashe in tennis.

“The difference for me at Tech was that I knew people. I knew (former presidents) Jim McComas, Marshall Hahn, and Paul Torgerson. (Coach) Frank Beamer. They were friends of mine. The athletic department uses the line, ‘This is home,’ but for me it really is. Don’t get me wrong; it was a great job at UCLA. The grass was definitely green. They have 113 national championship trophies (in all sports). Tech is still trying to achieve its first. But culturally it wasn’t what I wanted.

“We have a feeling of community (at Tech). Ut Prosim. You can’t snap your fingers and get that. What Virginia Tech is institutionally permeates this entire state.”

He explained how important UCLA is to its region, with highly ranked medical and law schools. They get tens of thousands of applications every year. “It is top-five in everything. It seems crazy to say, but I didn’t like LA. It surprised me. I like cities. I like palm trees and beaches. I had family there. But it wasn’t for me.”

I asked when he knew he belonged back here instead.

He said, “It didn’t happen overnight. But looking back, I called a basketball game at Pauley where UCLA beat Kentucky. Kentucky was number one in the country. It was the first time the teams had ever played on campus. UCLA and Kentucky are perhaps the two most storied teams in the history of collegiate basketball. It was a great game. UCLA won. But it didn’t do for me emotionally what Tech beating Duke or Carolina when they were number one did here.

“Not only did it not resonate with me, but it didn’t resonate for the fans either. (The sentiment was,) ‘That’s what we’re supposed to do.’ They can recruit any player they want. Great weather. Unbelievable traditions. Great academics.

“I think my lack of emotion affected my work. No, I wasn’t doing the best work I could. I remember driving through downtown LA at night after some games. The skyline, the massive freeway; it was cool! I was listening to the radio station replay the highlights. I had a sense of professional pride and an ego-jolt for a second. It was great. And that lasted about twenty seconds. I missed the relationships here.”

“That’s a great story, Bill,” I said, getting moist eyes.

“Thank you. There are a lot of great people in LA. But people here are genuine, generous, and sincere. Here, the relationship between the players, the fans, and the university at large is unique. It can’t be duplicated or engineered or bought. I needed to leave to fully understand how much that meant to me.

 “It’s different here, it really is. If you’re a Hokie, you know what that is. That’s not an indictment of UCLA. What brought us together after April 16 is unique. That was the worst day in the lives of so many, of those kids and their families and our campus and state and county. But over 20 of the kids shot that day survived. Not one of them transferred. Not one student who took a bullet in their body transferred. There is a reason for that. I hope and pray that no university anywhere will ever go through that again, but the fact that everybody hung in there and stuck together says a lot about this place. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know this. I knew this. But I didn’t know how much that meant to me. It’s what lures people back here. If you’re a Hokie, you know that.

“People here are saying to me over and over, ‘Bill, we really missed you.’ This is a FACT: I missed you all more than you missed me. I missed Mike Burnop; I love the guy. Working with him was the best 27 years of my life. Period.

“Everything that we want at Virginia Tech, they have at UCLA. But everything they want, we have here.”

* * Voting to fail

It is a few days now after our national presidential election where our country selected Donald Trump as our 45^th President. The metaphorical dust is still settling, and likely will be for some time as people react to a new President like none before, a brash businessman with literally zero political experience or national service. In our deeply divided nation, some people are ecstatic right now while others are fearful, depressed, and unhappy.

While we all desire a better future, a stronger, more just and prosperous nation, I’m struck by the inescapable fact that we come upon our voting decisions in a variety of ways, reflecting our upbringing, lifestyle situation, and values. People can and should select the candidate who best represents them; that’s what living in a free country is all about. But oftentimes, those decisions harm them economically.

Three years ago when I was campaigning for the House of Delegates, I spoke with hundreds of voters. Every one of them who called themselves “single issue voters,” was devoted to the same issue: abortion. One woman said, “If you’ll allow a woman to get a legal abortion, I’m not voting for you.” I said, “If I can describe an economic plan that will make your family and your community more successful, would you re-consider?” “No.” All she cared about was abortion. This was her prerogative. She was willing to sacrifice prosperity to ensure that women who had abortions would be punished.

Another man I spoke to was a rigid gun rights adherent. In a similar conversation, he acknowledged, somewhat reluctantly, that preservation of his right, and the rights of other gun owners, to have unfettered and unrestricted access to any level of firepower they desired, was more important than living in an economically prosperous community.

I’ve just released my eighth book, Chasing the Powhatan Arrow. It is what I describe as “a travelogue in economic geography,” following the corridor of the original main line of the Norfolk & Western railway and the iconic passenger train that plied the route from the end of WWII until the late 1960s. In it, I compared the economy then to now in the towns and cities where it stopped: Norfolk, Suffolk, Petersburg, Blackstone, Crewe, Farmville, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Christiansburg and Pearisburg in Virginia, Bluefield, Welch, Williamson, and Kenova in West Virginia, and Ironton, Portsmouth, and Cincinnati in Ohio. Many of these communities are successful economically. Others are spectacular failures.

Here’s what I learned: communities choose to failure or success.

I’m not making a value judgment about this. On a personal level, for example, people can make health decisions to fail. Everybody knows that smoking kills people prematurely. If someone wants to smoke, it’s their call.

Here are a couple of examples of how communities have chosen failure.

West Virginia’s economy has long been undergirded by coal mining, including many of the communities I studied. Employment in mining has been on an unsteady but terminal decline for six decades. Mr. Trump told West Virginians that he’d bring back mining. Coal’s demise is based upon a number of factors, but principally geologic. Succinctly, natural gas and western coal are cheaper per BTU to extract and deliver. Nobody can change that. But West Virginians overwhelmingly voted for Mr. Trump and his empty promises anyway.

President Reagan is a hero to many conservatives, but his policies – the decimation of unions, the deregulation of many industries, his “trickle-down” economics and its tax cuts for the wealthy, weakening of regulations, and the overall denigration of government at all levels – paved the way to middle class stagnation that we’re seeing today. Graphs showing the point where steadily increasing productivity and wages diverged as productivity continued to rise where wages flattened, coincides exactly with Reaganism. Thought to be a great champion of enterprise, Reagan actually advocated policies that destroyed the middle class and seriously hurt all American businesses. Even with this hindsight, I’m convinced if he were alive and eligible, millions would vote for him anyway.

When we look today at the red/blue maps that show how Americans voted this week, we see that the most economically prosperous states with the highest per capita income voted Democratic and the poorest voted Republican. It is a fact that the most successful economic states in America right now (e.g. Maryland, Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, and Connecticut) are the most liberal and the most economically depressed (e.g. Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee) are the most conservative. This is not coincidental. It is the result of many factors, but decades of voting decisions are a big part of it.

It’s frustrating to me when someone chooses economic failure just as it’s frustrating when someone chooses to smoke. But it’s their decision.

* * Virginia Tech’s Cube may be the world’s most futuristic theater

So the other day, I got invited to the Cube in the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech. My mind is blown.

The Cube is a research laboratory and performance “space” that combines a series of futuristic technologies to build virtual environments. It is run by the Institute of Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT), a multi-disciplinary center that is an inter-departmental, inter-college bridge between music, arts, and engineering.

Succinctly, it’s a five-story tall black-box theater in the round, where viewers stand in the middle of a cylindrical wall and view that wall through 3-D glasses while sound and music from 148 speakers is focused at them. I watched as geometric and nature-inspired figures danced before my eyes almost as if I could touch them. I could walk away from the virtual placement of one figure towards another. It was psychedelic!

One of the technologies at the Cube is optical motion capture. What that means is that a real being, human or animal, can be affixed with electronic “markers” that infrared motion cameras can watch and then digitally monitor their motion. When you walk, it can model your walk. It’s used in biomechanics and in video games to make them more realistic.

Imagine walking through a 3-D virtual space, something as mundane as walking through a building that hasn’t been constructed yet, but as exciting as walking on Mars, through an atomic supercollider, or through a simulated tornado. You can see yourself in pedagogical visualizations of sub-atomic particles flying around!

It also has spatial audio component. With directionality of sound at three stories of speakers, each person in the Cube can literally hear a different concert, reminiscent of the old proverb about every person seeing a different rainbow.

After my brief demonstration, I spoke with Eric Lyon, a music professor who is one of the lead researchers in the Cube.

He said, “I’m a faculty fellow, splitting my time between the music department and ICAT. I spend a lot of time developing audio systems, software, and composition to take this beast for a ride.”

“What do you expect from this beast?” I asked.

“We know that sound is fundamentally a three-dimensional phenomenon. Sound radiates out into space and each listener’s ear receives the sound waves in a different way. Even a single loudspeaker’s sound becomes a three-dimensional artifact in your ears. Here, we have a high-density array of speakers. We can control the sound field with precision. We can put sound wherever we want to create movement in space. The sound is sculptural! You can move around the room and hear something different depending on your location in the Cube. We encourage guests to do that. It’s a highly interactive listening process.”

“Other than this being really fun,” I asked innocently, “why?”

“This is an alternative media delivery space. These days, much of our performance arrives over the Internet: news, YouTube videos, television, sports. Home viewing is personal and non-immersive. Here in the Cube, we can provide a group, immersive experience that is completely engaging to the point that you don’t want to leave. It’s like being enveloped in a warm bath. It’s a social experience, as you share it with others. It’s not a stadium, it’s intimate.

“The idea of spatial sound exists on many levels. There is a concept called binaural sound, which recreates spatial sounds or music for headphone listening. Here at the Cube, we are concerned with music played through many loudspeakers. There is a lot of research into personal reception of sound. Psychoacoustics is the study of the human perception of sound. You can distinguish sound coming from in front of you compared to sound coming from behind. Technologies have evolved from monaural to stereo to commercial surround sound to higher-density surround. In the Cube, we have a high-density loudspeaker array. There are perhaps only 10 to 15 like this in the world. We expect more to come, but Tech is on the leading edge.

“We need to prove the validity of our ability to create theater experiences that don’t exist anywhere else. We have to prove it is intense enough and of sufficient artistic value and sufficiently distinguishable from what you can get in other spaces to justify it.

“Our research into audio is likely to intersect with some other creative trajectories. Here at Tech, we have brilliant engineering and scientific minds to collaborate with and accentuate the skills we have in music and the performing arts. The density of engineering and scientific expertise here makes it a sensible place to have a space like the Cube.

“I’ve been here three years. I love Blacksburg! Seriously, this is such a nice place. The people are the nicest in the world. The Cube is here at Virginia Tech because we Invent the future.”