Biff's Toys for Pinellas Kids

My foray into fundraising is over for this year. I spent nearly every Friday and Saturday evenings (along with one Wednesday evening and a Sunday) for the last seven weeks sitting at Biff Burger's selling stuffed white tigers. This was a solo effort. Me, a table and 75 stuffed white tigers. It is now finished.

Last night was the finale and I was at Biff's from 1 pm until nearly 11 pm, my friend, Cindy came to join me around 3ish and helped me with the sales.

So....after all was said and done, I sold 75 white tigers, gave $552 to Biff's Toys for Pinellas Kids and around half of those tigers were donated. They had a match it bucket and my check(s)....the first for $200 and the one last night for $352 both went into the bucket and the gold sponsors for the event matched everything in the bucket up to $3,000. My $552 became $1,104 instantly and that's a whole lot of kids that are going to have a better Christmas from my efforts and all of those that helped with the effort.

Now it's time to concentrate on getting everything done for Christmas for my friends and family......so for now,

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!! May all of your Christmas dreams and wishes come true.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope one and all have a wonderful holiday and enjoy your friends and family. I know that I'm thankful for all of those friends that I've gotten to know over the years and my family that's put up with me all of my life.

Meanwhile, I've been quietly doing a little fundraiser in conjunction with the local Biff Burger (practically an institution in St. Petersburg). Every year they do a toy drive to help the needy kids. For the last three years in a row they've been the number 1 independent contributor to Toys for Tots in the COUNTRY! Last year they raised $33,000 and donated 10,000 toys. JUST last year.

This year, they've started something new and formed an alliance with the local firefighters in three districts (Pinellas Park, St. Petersburg and Lealman), to keep every dime of it local and every toy in Pinellas County.

For the last 15 years I've donated a few toys to help out. I've never had much, but I help the best way that I can.

This year is different.

This year I decided to do something to give back to my community in a bigger way than handing over a couple of toys. I made the committment to Biff's through the Avon Fundraising Division to sell Willie the White Tiger. For every tiger I sell (they're $20 each), I give $6 to Biff's Toys for Pinellas Kids. If the person purchasing the toy wants to donate it, then both the toy and the $6 goes to the kids.

I started the fundraising effort the first weekend of November when they kicked off their drive. I've now worked five events over the course of the last three and a half weeks and tonight at their big Thanksgiving event where they gave 101 meals to needy families, I handed them the first of the two checks they'll receive from me. The amount?

TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!

It felt really good to be able to help in that way and on top of that, 15 tigers were donated to the kids!!!! I'm looking forward to doing even more before the big finale on December 18th. I'm so proud that I could help by donating my time and my profits to help the less fortunate and especially the kids!!!!

Like I've said before, I suck at this. Probably more because my life is so busy these days than a lack of desire to actually update.

I'd promised a review of my two shows back in April. You're all better off that I didn't do so, being that I had some issues with the setlists (vanilla, vanilla, vanilla) and wasn't very complimentary of the band because of it. And Jon's to blame for that, Jon's ALWAYS to blame. LOL When someone says that they're going to drag out the deeper cuts, you actually expect them to do that. You don't expect to see virtually the very same setlist two nights running when the band HAS to know that a good number of those that attended the Tampa show would be at the Miami show. Regardless, I DID have a good time. I DID enjoy hanging with my friends and I DID have decent seats (not excellent as I had in previous tours when Mrs. B ran the fan club, which I've now quit).

My life has been forced to move its focus from my serious lust of the band, and especially Jon/Richie, to the more mundane, but important efforts of keeping my head above water. The economy sucks. My job, that I still enjoy, is stressful and I spend far too much time (and gas money) commuting. It's the way of things these days for far too many of us.

On the lighter side, I did manage to get to the Goo Goo Dolls concert and had a really good time a few weeks back. If you haven't heard it, their new CD is awesome. They played three or maybe it was four songs from it and I really do need to go buy it.

As always, baseball is my saving grace. Thanks to the fact I can buy a $10-20 ticket and walk into the ball field and enjoy a game whenever my TB Rays are in town. Because of them I've seen a number of good bands playing after the games. Although I did miss the game with the Train concert afterwards.

The Rays. Gotta love em. They've either been 1st or 2nd in ALL of baseball this season. The post season is looming and we're currently a game back from the NYY (or as I call them 'the evil empire') and seven up on the Red Sox. Toughest division in all of baseball and my boys are in the thick of the hunt for October and the World Series.

Maybe I'll start blogging more. Maybe I'll learn that procrastination isn't something to embrace and maybe I'll win the lottery.

Long Time No Blog

I guess it’s true. I suck at blogging. Royally suck. Last blog was in December. I wonder if you get kicked out of blogger if you don’t update after so long? Anyway, I figured it was time.

Snapshot of the last four months. Illness, car repairs, more illness, car accident, allergies, cold, conjunctivitis and more illness.

And baseball. Always baseball. I love my Rays. FanFest back in February was awesome. It would have been MORE awesome if the idiot that I am could have taken some better pictures of Matt Garza. LOVE me some Matt Garza. He’s our #2 starting pitcher in our rotation. Easy on the eyes and is TALL. WAY TALL, 6’4” tall. I’ve already been to two games this season and must say, I can’t wait to get back to the ballpark again for even more games.

Oh and then there’s the little rat snake that got into our office. Never saw grown women act like that (well, I have but it’s still funny). They came to get ME. ME!?! I asked what they were waving their hands wildly and mincing around on their toes about. A snake. A little baby rat snake slithered into the office through the crack at the bottom of the back security door. I was the one delegated to remove said snake from the office. Not one of the men. Me. Half of the women wanted the poor little thing dead. I’m the type that catches bugs and returns them outside, so I figured if the snake was going to live it was up to me. It wasn’t nearly as entertaining as Hath’s chipmunk tale, but me and the snake were doing fine until one of the women decided to ‘help’. When she crossed in front of the little guy he made a left. That Left was most definitely NOT Right. It led to the room where we keep our computer servers. And I knew what would happen if the computer geeks got a hold of him. We’d have one dead snake.

Sooooo, I went in search of a way to catch him without getting bit again. Oh, did I leave that out? Yeah, baby snake was faster than me. I identified what kind of snake he was before I even attempted to pick him up. Still, tried to grab him behind the head so little snaky teeth wouldn’t find fleshy skin and missed. Badly. He hauled off and sank his little teeth into my thumb. They were such little teeth though they barely broke the skin and I did wash it thoroughly, used hydrogen peroxide and triple antibiotic ointment AFTER I was done with my rescue mission.

One plastic drink cup, a flyer, a tile floor that he was having trouble slithering on and some determination got one little snake into the cup and then outside where he belonged. On grass. On the other side of the wall. Where he’d have a devil of a time finding his way back into our office and another rescue mission. And wouldn’t you know it? My boss (female) was worried I’d been poisoned by the snake. Another told me that their mouths were septic and I’d get this horrible infection. Instead my allergies and the pollen have been worse on me than any little snake. Did I mention I used to have a pet rat snake years ago? Yeah. Well, they were about the same size, but mine was a red rat snake.

Anyway, that’s about it. Oh yeah and there’s this little thing coming up this weekend. Bon Jovi. Uh huh. Two shows. Two nights in a row. I. Cannot. Wait!!!! No following the band around this tour. I just don’t have the spare cash. But two shows. Two nights in a row. THAT I can manage, even if one of them I’m sitting in the nosebleeds. I can deal. And I'll review both shows once I've come down from the Jovi high.