Thank you

Guys, I just wanted to take time to kind of flush out my thoughts from what has been a long week.

As a lot of you know, I'm a native Okie. On Monday, I was driving with my wife when the tornado that struck Moore touched down.

I had just gotten out of the car in Arkansas when my mom called. As soon as I heard her voice I knew something was terribly wrong. She was crying (or close to it) and asked where I was and if we were OK (she wasn't sure about when we had planned to leave town). Central Oklahoma had experienced tornadoes the day before and we knew this afternoon would bring an even greater threat for severe weather. The next two things she said were enough to make my heart sink: "It took the same path as May 3. It's worse than May 3."

She was referring to the tornado outbreak from May 3, 1999, that I rode out in our storm cellar with my family while I was in high school. The same outbreak that sent an F5 tornado with over 300-mph winds through Moore, Okla., and through maybe some of the same homes and businesses that were damaged Monday.

There are two dates that carried weight in Oklahoma: April 19, the day of the 1995 bombing in downtown OKC and May 3, the date of that tornado outbreak.

My wife and I turned on the TV in our Arkansas hotel room and saw the horrific scene that was unfolding. My mom told me about the elementary schools that had been hit and the kids that were trapped. At that point it just became sensory overload. I was in a hotel room that seemed light years away with a blue sky overhead watching what was happening to my home and listening my mom describe what had happened. I couldn't comprehend everything that was happening.

I don't really remember what happened for the next several minutes. Hell, it may have only been a couple of minutes. I don't remember what I talked about with my wife, I don't remember what was said on CNN, I don't remember what I said to my mom as we got off the phone. I don't even remember if I told her I loved her. There was too much to comprehend too quickly after hours of staring at highway.

At this point, I was on auto-pilot and as someone in my 20s, one of my idiosyncrasies when I'm on auto-pilot is to check Twitter.

What I saw floored me. It was message after message after message after message asking if I was OK. Hoping if I was OK. Worrying I wasn't OK.

There are some things that are completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Twitter and whether or not Virginia Tech wins a football game are two of them. However, if it weren't for those two things, I wouldn't have gotten to know many of you. Those of you who I've met through my former blog or through TKP or just through Twitter - I consider all of you my friends, or as my wife refers to you, my "Internet friends."

I love all of you and I'm writing this to thank you for all of the kind words I've received from my Internet friends since Monday. I can't adequately describe how it had made me feel that so many people, many of which barely know me or have never met me, were concerned about my well-being and about the place I call home.

As much as I love the Hokies, I love Oklahoma more. This is my home and if I could move it closer to Virginia Tech or vice versa, I would. But I'm not leaving. Not on account of seeing more VT football games, or on account of any storm mother nature throws at us or anything else. This is my home and the fact that many of you cared about it just because of me is overwhelming. It's so humbling. This is such a great place with so many wonderful people who too often have to prove how resilient they are.

So again, thank you Internet friends for caring about me and caring about my home. I look forward to seeing you in November.