Friday, July 24, 2009

A Bit More On This Year's Relay For Life....

I point you over to the Best Of Second Life blog for the wrap up of this year's relay.

Since this year's theme was "One World, One Hope", there's a couple of comments from some of the European residents who relayed, as well as first time relayer from Australia, RebelMum Slade, who is also a cancer survivor.







I wonder if the Best of Second Life magazine is the place I need to send my "Love Letters To The Lindens"?

Monday, July 20, 2009

Relay For Life 2009

I took pics.....I just haven't had the chance to go through them and resize them. But, I did want to get a few things out.....

As I did last year, I relayed in the memory of my supervisor and friend, David Wunder. I've known him and his family for 26 years, considered an uncle by his granddaughter, and I remember when he told me about the prostate cancer, and watched as it slowly spread through his body. I watched him go from 240 pounds to 130. And I watched him continue to come in to work every day, never letting it take him without a fight. He died on July 9, 2008, a week before the relay weekend in Second Life of that year. The theme that year was "Heroes", and watching him fight that cancer made him a hero to all of us who knew him. A fitting theme for our first year in SL's RFL

To our friends in Caledon and New Babbage. An amazing job. The Mars and the Metropolis builds were totally awesome. I will admit that I'm very partial to the Metropolis build, sort of what Caledon would look like in the future of the Steam lands. The Mars build was very impressive, if Babbage ever colonizes Mars.....I may purchase a summer home. I'm proud to know a lot of you, and happy that we all share the same goal.

To my Steelhead family:

Tanarian Davies was the one who got us into Relay For Life. Last year, we were all pretty much flying blind, not really sure what we were to be doing. But we got through it. I remember after last year's relay, I told her "Next year, I'm there from the start".........and I was, as I attended that first meeting in February, as she had RL business to attend to, and Annechen Lowey was tied up in other affairs. Last year, we raised a little over L$100,000, not bad for our first year. This year, due to the economy, it was decided to play it all low key, and not do a big push for fundraising. We nearly doubled our total this year, despite that. I know that Tanarian and Annechen were both proud of that, and I want to thank them for getting Steelhead involved with this.

TotalLunar Eclipse built our campsite. He wanted to build something peaceful and tranquil. something that would be good for relayers who were tired of running and could just sit back and rest. Everyone of us feel that Lunar outdid himself.

For Veles, Herr Baron, CeAire, Hawc, Linus, Lumi, Tensai and everyone else who tried their damnedest to run that track, you were all awesome. Regardless on how bad that lag was, and believe me after that weekend, I'm never complaining about lag in Steelhead....ok, I am, but still......anyway, you gave it your all, some of you got aggravated, but admitted later that it was worth it.

Especially for Eugenia Burton, who made it in the top ten of most laps ran, just a smidgen behind Fogwoman Gray. She ran for resident Caladon Rae, a cancer survivor. Every one of us cheered Genie on, tried to help her the best that we can, even had a DJ play a song for her from all of Steelhead. She may've gotten aggravated the most, but we are all proud of her.

And to everyone in Steelhead who helped with the fundraising, who donated items, who stood by the side of the track and cheered all relayers on. Too many to mention. We all did an awesome job. Doubled last years inworld total, fifth place in the out world donations. It's times like this that I can proudly say, "I'm a Steelhead citizen, and damned proud of it."

On a side note, I should mention, over in Babbage's campsite, the World's Fair exhibit, they had Tensai's Oregon Sunstone Dial on display. Over in the high school build (anal retentive detail to an actual high school......weird.....), there was a globe. The globe was designed and built by Tensai.....the designers of the school bought one of her globes for their display. Add the fact that former RFL of SL chairperson, Fayandria Foley, sent me a request to be my friend (Something that I felt very honored to have recieved, more so than when Desmond Shang said that it was ok for me to send a friend request to him). Slowly, but surely, they're starting to learn the name "Steelhead"

Next year, I'll be taking over as captain of the Steelhead team. I have plans, but they'll be revealed next year when we start to relay, again. But I know that everyone will be there to give it their all. We'll beat our totals from this year, we'll get more laps in, we'll outdo ourselves in our campsite build....who knows.....I may see about getting us a designer sim for Lunar to go hogwild with. But, we'll all be there to relay. And I know that at the end of 2010's Relay For Life, I'll be standing behind my podium at town hall during a town meeting and I'll say, "I'm a Steelhead Citizen, and I'm damned proud of it"

You guys are, without a doubt, effin' awesome!