What's up with "Snipers" in Virginia?

I just wrote a blog about the kids' musical performance and it made me think of some of the things that surrounded that event. It's amazing how one thing (totally beyond your control) can throw off so many other things going on in your life. The kids' performance was scheduled for March 27. But because we had a sniper on the loose in Charlottesville, (see: http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-03-27-0210.html ) school was cancelled as well as any school related activities. So the program was rescheduled for April 2nd, which was the kid's 2nd baseball practice, so that had to be cancelled.
I'm not much of a t.v. watcher, well not until after the kids go to bed and then I hit my vegetative state and stare at the big screen of whatever seems interesting. The kids' school has an automated phone service that calls in the wee early hours when there are any school closing or school alerts. So the phone rang at around 6:00 am and told us that "due to the area shootings" school would be on a two hour delay for safety reasons and to help keeps the road clear in the search for the shooter. Can you imagine my horror to have a phone call like that wake me up? I immediately ran to the tv to see what was going on. Then another school phone call came to say that school would be cancelled for the day. I know the news made national headlines because my mom called and said she thought she should call and inform me of what was happening because I don't watch the news to see. Of course I knew because of the phone calls.
So what is it with snipers in Virginia? This is not the first sniper incident in our lives. Remember the sniper attacks back in 2003? We were part of the whole thing. We moved from the northern DC area (Maryland) to the southern side (Alexandria) just months before the shootings starting in the area we had just moved from. Some of those gas stations and stores involved - we were patrons of. It was a little freaky. And we have never seen anything so eerie as to watch people quickly put a gas pump into their car and jump back into the driver's seat! It was a time of living in sheer terror and yes, it was very scary.

I'm glad the people involved in this most recent attack were found quickly. I'm thankful that the victims sufferred only minor wounds. This could have been a lot worse.