Bigger News Than My Birthday

Hello Again,

I'm back with a bit of an update and some cool news.  First, many thanks to all the fine folks who have donated to the fight against blood cancers.  Your generosity always continues to astound me.  If you want to see how much has been raised, I encourage you to go to my fundraising page to check it out  While you're there, feel free to click the radio buttons and try entering some numbers.  It's very worthwhile.

Speaking of numbers, so the here's an update on the suffering.  By the suffering, I mean the training. First, you have to understand, training for this event is hard.  Not hard like working with differential equations, hard like dragging a dead pig across a desert.  The reason I don't post any pictures of myself is because there are no happy shots - only grimacing shots.  If you've known me a long time, you've noticed that I haven't aged well.  That's okay. I'm fine with that; the grizzled appearance accompanies my occasionally cranky demeanor... like when I'm doing my training rides.  But despite my challenges with youth, or lack thereof, and weight, as in too much, I've still managed to ride close to 1400 miles and climb nearly 107,000 feet.  And that's just the beginning.   Now it sounds like I'm congratulating myself, I'm not.  I just want you to know, that there are about 25 people just like me, well except for the weight and age thing, who are suffering and fundraising right along with me.  And each one has committed to raise money and awareness to fight these terrible diseases.  

Of course there's something I'm doing that they're not doing, and that is Pork-a-Palooza - The Hamtastic 4.  That's right, the invitations are ready to hit the interwebs.  Now generally speaking, invitations go to donors, past, present and sometimes future.  The easiest way to lock in your invitation is simply, make a donation.  Yep, go to the link that is included in the first or last paragraphs and you too will be on the a-list for the smoked meat extravaganza of the the year.  As an added incentive, anyone that donates $100 or more, will receive a jar of Pork-a-Palooza special caramel sauce.  The early reviews are in, here are a few:

"You call that caramel? I call it heaven"
"I could eat that right out of the jar"
"I've heard tales of caramel sauce like this in the West Indies from my days before the mast...yahhrrrr!!"

Sounds pretty good, huh? 

Anyway, Pork-a-Palooza is scheduled for June 23rd.  

Finally, it was my birthday last week and I'm reminded that "you can't have your cake and eat it too."  "Nuts to that", I just say buy more cake.  And the moral is, you can do something good for someone else and do something good for yourself.  Simply, make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and join Rob and me at Pork-a-Palooza - The Hamtastic 4.

Thanks for listening
Steve

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