August 11, 2008

I'm starting to count down the days to vacation. I know we took a week off last month, but we get alot of vacation after 12 years, so I may as well use it. My wife is going to Europe with Autumn, I'm not sure what I am doing. I will let you know when I know. I want to share with you a couple of charitites that I support and encourage you to check them out. Give if you want, no pressure here. The first one is the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation http://www.dmf.org/ Dikembe is a basketball player for the Houston Rockets, he is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in Africa. I heard Dikembe doing a radio interview and heard about his goal to build a hospital in his hometown that will have 300 beds. He was so genuine about it and honest. He has give $15 Million of his own money toward the $29 Million project. That blew me away. He was on the radio asking if he could get 5,000 people to give $50. I gave my $50 and still do. I don't want to go all Bono on you guys, but this is s a pretty amazing place he has built. Just a couple of facts about DRC; Average Life Expectancy 42-47 Years, 20% of kids die before their fifth birthday, Infant mortality rate is 9.6% (In the US it is 0.6%) You can read more and help out if you want at the website I mentioned earlier.

The other one is the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation http://www.cff.org/ This one is personal to me. My very first friend when I was 5 years old was my next door neighbor when I lived in California. His name was Gerald Fairchild and he had Cystic Fibrosis. Of course, as a kid I didn't know or care what he had. All I knew is that he was a good kickball player. But it was the first charity and disease I was ever exposed to. I remember going to the back bedroom of his house and seeing boxes and boxes of little cans with a slot for change in them. I guess they set them up at stores or went door to door asking for donations. Gerald died about 15 years ago, but I still think about him and wonder what he would be doing if a cure had been found.
I'm not really sure why I shared this stuff with you guys, it just kind of came out.

JB and I have some great news to share with everyone. We can't do it yet, but we have been working very hard on something that we think you will like. As soon as we CAN tell you we will.

Sandy