So Why Am I Doing This?

Comments 3 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Not like I would forget but if you’re just logging onto the blog for the first time and wonder why I have over 40 posts so far over the last 24 hours… yeah I’m not just an eager blogger. The point to this entire day and night of madness is to get pledges. Like a PBS pledge drive, although I have no tote bags to give away.

If you’d like to keep me going to complete my 24 hours of blogging (from 6am Saturday to 6am Sunday posting every 30 minutes) please click on the “sponsor me” button on the sidebar. Once everything is said and done, pledges will get an email with the exact details about how to finish up their donation. Donation to whom you ask? Well the charity of my choice, which is the WHOLE reason why I’m doing this.

Our annual operating budget is about $420,000 / year. Our biggest expense is the cost of distributing the food hampers which includes staffing, rent & utilities, vehicle fuel & insurance and food purchases. As you can imagine, it takes a large effort to collect, warehouse and distribute hundreds of tons of food, supervise over 50 volunteers, assemble thousands of hampers every month and coordinate the events that the food bank has each year to raise food, resources and awareness.

The Surrey Food Bank receives no core government funding. We assist about 14,000 people per month from the communities of Surrey and North Delta. 42% of our clients are children and babies. Children DO NOT choose poverty. [Surrey Food Bank]

It’s all for the Food Bank. The reason I woke up at 5:30am, the reason I’m still up at 2:30am posting photos, blogs and being silly… and hallucinat… errm…. it’s all to help out. So far my readers have pledged an amazing amount and I can’t wait to announce a grand total at the end of my 24 hours.

*Added incentive for Vancouver locals… I do have a prize to give away by putting all pledger’s names in a hat and drawing out a lucky winner.

Blogathon: Post #42

Fire in the Sky

Comments 2 by Rebecca Bollwitt

After being up for 20 hours, shiny, pretty and explosive things amuse me. I found out there’s a Flickr group for the HSBC Celebration of Light aka the fireworks here in town. I noticed Dave submitting his photos there. He had a great perspective for tonight’s since he wasn’t downtown but over in North Vancouver, watching from across the water.


Photo credit: uncleweed on Flickr

Boom. Bang. YAY! *clap*

Blogathon: Post #41

Vancouver Blog Profile: Corinna Carlson

Comments 3 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Greeper 604 I think I take beautiful photos of Corinna, and I’ll admit that no matter how strange that sounds.

We had some great fun at pre-blogstock yesterday and it’s been a pleasure to get to know her and Adam over the last few years. Wow! We’ve known each other through the blog realm for a long time but it wasn’t until New Years 07 that we actually met.

I need not really continue on to describe Corinna’s blog, which has been going strong since 2005, since she pretty much sums it all up on her About page.

SOME things you will find on Gus Greeper that may be of interest to you:
Run on sentences,
Blatant disregard for punctuation and grammar,
A lot of talk about golf and how awesome golf is and lots of pictures of us golfing and enjoying everything golf,
A lot of photos of me I am a camera whore and have NO PROBLEM with Adam teasing me over my hundreds of posed self portraits,
Capital letters are BIG here I LOVE them I use them A LOT,
You’ll read of my struggles, triumphs and failures past and present suffering from severe chronic depression and my ongoing therapy with my Psychiatrist,
Playstation has been hot on G.G. lately we are TOTALLY addicted to Guitar Hero. If you are sick of hearing about it then BUY IT,
Gus Greeper herself the grey barfing bulimic cat gets a lot of play on the site because it is named after her. She is our only ‘child’,
We have a crazy landlord,
We make Sock Monkeys so cool you’ll beg us for one,
Movies and Books are a constant theme,
Television, we watch a lot of television including a lot of other sports programs such as Hockey and Tennis and we can’t get enough of reality t.v. or ‘bad’ t.v.,
Posts where I complain and whine a lot,
Very serious posts on several topics, some issues, and one or two things.

Despite a crazy late night last night, birthday party this morning and company this afternoon, she was still able to make a blog post in honor of Blogathoners. Thanks a bunch!

Blogathon: Post #40

RadioZoom Episode #137

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt

I figured that blogging 49 posts in 24 hours (for 24 hours straight) wasn’t enough of a challenge so John decided to do a little podcast with me tonight. RadioZoom episode #137 to be precise.

A very quick, turnaround episode that we recorded in the midst of Rebecca’s Blogathon efforts. She is blogging to raise money for the Surrey Food Bank for 24 hours straight, one post per every thirty minutes. A daunting task fore sure, so be sure to check in on her site to find out more! [RadioZoom]

Follow the link to our podcast site to hear just how silly I’m getting, and for some post-fireworks soundseeing… and a fun song at the end. The mp3 is available here as well.

Is that good enough for you now Alanah? Eh? Hehe.

Blogathon: Post #39

Future Shop Wants My Money

Comments 15 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Shortly after I got a Future Shop credit card I received a letter in the mail saying that they were discontinuing their credit cards. Huh, okay. A little while after that I received a letter in the mail saying that Future Shop now has a credit card, through HBC and I can sign up if I want.

I really don’t need two Future Shop cards as it appears I’m having a hard enough time just trying to manage the first, obsolete account. I bought my Macbook on the card, along with a few other goodies and shortly after I sent them a check for $1500. Well it seems as though a month too many has gone by and they called me today to ask for a payment of $30. I guess I didn’t send them a payment last month so they’re a bit cranky. Oh but it’s not Future Shop, because their card doesn’t exist anymore, it was some strange bank of out the States calling me to say ‘give us money’.

So I literally said “oops,” and that I would make a payment ASAP either through online banking or at store-level. This seemed to appease the man on the other side of the phone until he asked me, “So what caused you to get behind a payment?” A little blindsided I just said, “Uh I guess I forgot”. He still wanted more saying, “I see, but you are behind,” to which I replied “well I guess I just remembered sending that big fat check and forgot how long ago that was.” He says “Okay so I’ll mark that down as an ‘oversight’ on your part then.” I said, “Sure yeah, just do that.”


Photo credit: duane storey on Flickr

Um… I’ve never had someone talk to me that way before, like they were my parent and I was coming home an hour after curfew. Is this normal protocol? Seemed very strange. I’m going to go pay my non-existent Future Shop card off as soon as possible cause I just don’t want to be contacted by a guy like that ever again. Creepy.

Blogathon: Post #38