Off Topic
Hey everyone. Sorry about the delay in picking the winner for the Dwight Howard raffle. Even though PayPal locked up the account after we raised $280. Unfortunately, the money is tied up in the account, but to make sure that this donation is in fact made to Leukemia research, I will make the donation with my own money, then work on the whole PayPal mess afterward. Thank you everyone for participating. And now, time to announce the winner!
I used random.org to help me pick a winner. Out of 57 tickets sold, the winning number is #15!
Congratulations to Gavin Burke from Chicago! Actually after talking a bit to Gavin, it’s only fitting that he won these shoes. He’s fought his own battle and provides inspiration to us all. Congrats. Hope you enjoy the shoes!
Thank you again to Adidas for providing the shoes.
I’d also definitely like to thank the following people, whether they participated by donating money or as some people did, by donating their time and effort to make this a success. Thank you everyone.
- Kenny Hyder
- Tom Kranzle from Venture Media Group
- Vu Nguyen
- Gavin Burke
- Ken Johnson
- Craig and Jim Stob
- Lisa Schramm
- Sara Garrison
- Phong Bui
- Earl Bolson
- Adeel Cochinwala
- Mark Bautista
- All the people of Twitter that shared this with their followers!
Alright, folks. I’ve gotten great responses from the previous post last week about the raffle for shoes autographed by Dwight Howard. First of all, I want to thank you all in advance for supporting such a great cause. Hopefully, the money we raise from this can help not only my cousin in his fight against Leukemia, but for anyone else that is affected by this disease.
So here’s how the raffle will happen:
- “Raffle Tickets” are $5 each, and there is no limit to how many tickets each person can purchase. The more you donate, the better your chances are of winning the shoes.
- Raffle Tickets can be purchased through PayPal by sending your donation to REMOVED BY PAYPAL (That’s an account I set up specifically for this raffle) or by clicking here:
*edit* Paypal is being dumb and asked me to remove the PayPal link/image since apparently I’m offering gambling by raffling off the shoes. Hey PayPal, you might want to actually read not only this post, but the email I sent you. This raffle is for a pair of shoes, and the money is getting donated to Leukemia research. Apparently you aren’t that interested in being involved in a good cause either.
Either way, you guys can still send the donations to REMOVED BY PAYPAL.
- If your account does not match your actual name and email address, please let me know by either sending me an email to cbui81@yahoo.com, or posting a comment here. I want to make sure that everyone that participates gets their due recognition. During the raffle period, I will occasionally post the names of those who have donated, and I need your email address so I can contact you if you win the shoes!
- Upon receiving your donation, I will email you with a set of numbers representing your “Tickets” (Don’t worry, I’ll keep track of the numbers also if you happen to lose them)
- On May 31st, I will be running the numbers through random.org and let that program pick the winner.
- On June 1st, the winner will be announced on Nothin But Bball, and I’ll contact you to get your address.
Simple, simple raffle. Nothing fancy. Just people getting together and raising money for a great cause.
As for where the money raised goes, here is a breakdown:
- 50% goes to Team in Training. Click the link to learn more about them. And if you have the time, I’d definitely recommend joining their cause.
- 50% will go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Now I’m pretty sure you all have been dying to take a look at the shoes.
If you took a look at the video in my Raffle announcement post from last week, you probably figured out which shoes we’re auctioning off. And no, they aren’t shoes the D Howard wore in a game, although it’d be pretty funny if he tried to fit into these. They’re a 9.5 US… he might not even be able to fit his big toe in there. I’d also like to give a HUGE thank you to Tom from Venture Media Group out in Carpinteria, CA for hooking up the photos, and Kenny Hyder for setting me up with Tom. Check out the pictures Tom took below.
Of course, we can’t do this without giving a big virtual hug and high five to the person that started it all. Big thanks to Kristen over at Adidas for being a huge supporter of this cause and for sending me the autographed “kix” as she calls them. You’re awesome and this couldn’t have happened without you. Thank you, Kristen.
Alright everyone, you’ve read through this huge post, now let’s get this raffle started right! I want to see us raise a crazy amount of money so the doctors fighting Leukemia can have the funding they need to create the medicines to kill off this disease. Again, thank you everyone in advance. Spread the word, and let’s give Leukemia a swift kick in the butt… with shoes autographed by Dwight Howard.
What’s up everyone? For all of you that have been following this blog for a while, you may remember about 6 months ago, my 13 year old cousin was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia. He’s still in the hospital fighting AML FLT 3, which is a type of Leukemia which only hits about 2000 people per year, and mostly adults, not children.
When I heard that Adidas was going to be sending me a pair of shoes autographed by Dwight Howard, at first I thought of keeping them as a collector’s item and letting them grow in value. Last week, my cousin went through some very tough times and made me wonder what I could do to help other people who have been diagnosed with Leukemia as well. My first thought was to auction the shoes when they came in, and donate the money to Leukemia research.
After thinking about it a bit more though, if I did that, only one person would be making a donation. So starting next Monday, May 11th, I will be holding a RAFFLE at $5 per ticket… and you can buy as many tickets as you’d like. Details will come out on Monday, but get your PayPal accounts ready to buy your tickets. We’ll hold off on showing you the shoes until then also.
In the spirit of this raffle, everyone that participates will be recognized for their generous donations in helping the fight against Leukemia. At the end of the raffle, all participants will be recognized in a separate Thank You post. This is a very important event for me, and I look forward to seeing the response that this gets. Please continue to pass on the word about this raffle, as it will run until the end of the month. Where else can you possibly get a pair of shoes autographed by Dwight Howard for $5?
Here’s a hint to what the shoes will look like:
This has absolutely nothing to do with basketball, but it’s for a great cause so I wanted to help spread the word about it as much as possible. If you’ve ever looked into a group called Team in Training, then you already know what it’s about.
If not, here’s a quick synopsis. Team in Training will train you to run marathons, triathlons, pretty much any event you are interested in. In the process, the athletes are asked to raise $2,500 per person for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
I have a friend that I just getting started with this and needs help raising funds. If you guys remember a while back I took a break from blogging to be with family. I have a cousin that was diagnosed recently with Leukemia type AML M1 Flt3, a very rare form in children. Not only would donations be helpful, but I’m sure Team in Training is also looking more participants.
If you are interested in donating to this great cause, please follow the link below and there should be options on the right hand side to donate.
Make a donation to Team in Training via Marvin Velastegui of Santa Barbara, CA.
According to Yahoo Sports, Vladimir Radmanovic was sent packing. He has been traded to Charlotte for Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown. Not a huge move in the immediate future, but it gets Vlade’s terrible contract off the books. Hopefully this can be a career revival for Adam Morrison, who was drafted 3rd overall in 2006. He’s had a pretty slow start to his career, but didn’t really get a whole lot of minutes to prove himself. Hopefully, this is the chance that he needs. Morrison was a straight up scorer in college. Let’s see if he can get back to that level. If not, then it’s no loss to the Lakers, since Morrison’s contract has a team option at the end of this year. This then opens up some money to resign Trevor Ariza and Lamar Odom if the Lakers choose to.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)—The Charlotte Bobcats sent struggling forward Adam Morrison and reserve Shannon Brown to the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday for forward Vladimir Radmanovic.
The move is the third trade the Bobcats have made this season in a roster shakeup under first-year coach Larry Brown.
Morrison was the third overall pick of the 2006 draft and managing partner Michael Jordan’s first major move since buying into the Bobcats. But Morrison had failed to crack the starting lineup and his minutes had declined under Brown.
Morrison will give the Lakers an outside shooting threat, while the 6-foot-10 Radmanovic gives the Bobcats more depth up front.
This is only partially basketball related, but it’s such an amazing story that I couldn’t pass up writing about it. Different people have different ways of inspiring people. A friend of mine posted this story up on Twitter today. She always has a knack for finding great stories, but nothing this heartwarming though.
She’s not a basketball player, but she deserves much more recognition for her hard work and her will. It amazes me that someone so young has such a positive outlook on life, and has the drive that she does.
Check out this story from Weird Asia News:
Qian Hongyan, who was forced to use half a basketball as her prosthetic body, has inspired millions recently with her ambition to compete as a swimmer in the 2012 Paralympics in London.
Qian swims about 2000 meters a day and trains really hard.
“Qian Hongyan studies hard. She never grouches in training although she was confronted with many difficulties at the beginning, ” her coach said.
The 10 year-old was injured trajically in an auto accident when she was only 3 years old. To insure her survival, the doctors were forced to amputate her legs.
Qian’s family, living in Zhuangxia, China, was unable to afford modern prosthetics and instead used a half a basketball to get around on. Once on the ball she uses two wooden props to help her move around.
Qian now has a pair of proper prosthetic legs, but still says she likes to use the basketball from time to time as it is easier for her to get in and out of the pool with.
Just to let everyone know, I have a cousin in the hospital right now. I’ll be taking a few days off from writing and might be out of the loop a bit once I come back. It’s rough on the family right now and I need to be there for them, but please keep them in your thoughts. Hopefully my cousin gets better soon, but he’ll be in there for at least a month. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
I’m pretty sure this should be listened to via headphones if you’re at work. WAY off topic, but definitely worth posting.
So a friend of mine sent me this link that I think would be a great idea, especially if the word keeps spreading. It’s really simple, and doesn’t require a whole lot of effort on anyone’s part. Check it out at Chuck Westbrook’s blog. Here’s the post about this idea:
There is a simple way to discover under-appreciated blogs and help them reach the audience they deserve. In fact, with no special effort and in one fell swoop, you can now find these sites and reward the creator in a powerful way.
Here are the problems:
- Great Content but No Audience
There are a ton of brilliant blogs that are being read by almost no one. Some authors give up for lack of readers. Others continue to produce clever, insightful pieces that remain hopelessly buried and forever unappreciated.- An Audience Hunting for Great Content to Read
If the blogs with the best content always rose to the top, readers wouldn’t have any trouble finding them. But that doesn’t happen, so instead, it takes either luck or a lot of work to discover good new blogs.Seems like it’d be easy to fix; they want to be connected to one another. Right now, though, there’s not a great way to make that happen. Unless…
**THE BIG IDEA**: Ending the Tragedy of Under-Appreciated Blogs
This is a problem we can do something about without too much trouble. Here’s what I’m thinking.
- Gather some nice bloggers who believe in helping good content rise. The more the merrier. This becomes our group for the project.
- A good, lesser-known blog is chosen. Everyone in the group will read that blog for two weeks.
- At the end of the two weeks, the group moves to another blog to read.
With scores of bloggers focused on a particular blog, the author should see many nice things happen over those two weeks, especially if the blog really is a hidden gem. This includes discussions, traffic, constructive criticism, encouragement, and connecting to some of the bloggers in the group. That author then joins the group and we move along and do it again.
Crazy Big Potential
Picture what success might look like. What if we get hundreds of bloggers playing along? What if bloggers like Seth or Dooce or other iconic bloggers join in?
Imagine how it would feel to have those numbers and those people looking at your blog after it’s been frustratingly quiet for months. It would be tremendous. That blogger would be permanently bolstered, and it would all be because of the strength of their content, and anything that allows bloggers that focus fully on content to succeed is great for the medium.
It Begins Here
How well this takes off will hinge on how well I’ve explained the idea and whether you decide to play along. Participating is so easy and the benefit to bloggers and readers could be tremendous–you really can’t lose.
All you’d have to do is:
- Comment below to express your interest in participating.
- Be willing to add only one new blog’s worth of reading to your life. This will be a different blog every two weeks.
With so little required and such great possibilities, why not try? Instead of analyzing and getting everything right up front, let’s just take the first few steps and see where that takes us.
Again, there’s no risk here. There’s no angle. It’s just a promising idea.
Let’s Get Started
Just comment below, and I’ll email you with further instructions. Maybe we’ll make a banner to give out, set up a special blog, and set up an RSS feed that will change the channel every two weeks. We can get sophisticated later. Let’s just get started now.
Oh, and send others in this direction too. I’m not going to load this with links. If the idea is good, help me spread it. That’s the spirit of this whole project anyway.
We’ll try to get a bit of momentum gathered while the final details are set up, and then I’ll reach out again.
****Bonus****
Instead of commenting below to express interest, post a link to this post on your blog. This will help things spread, and then we’ll choose one of the people who do this to be the first blog the group reads for two weeks.
Just make sure it shows up under the trackbacks (which appear right above the comments section) OR link to your post in the comments section.
****Sooner is Better****
I mentioned that we’ll probably get a little banner for those who participate in the group. Well, your banner will have the number corresponding to the order in which you replied proving that you signed on before it was cool. Move fast, so you can show your friends that you MADE it cool.
So I was outside talking to a friend… and I happened to come across this story that I thought I’d share with you all. We all know at least one person that has done this, if you haven’t done it yourself.
He confided in me and asked me not to tell anyone, but technically I’m not “telling,” I’m BLOGGING.
We’re gonna go ahead and call him Justin, for anonymity. So apparently, Justin had a major case of Diarrhea about a week ago. At about 3AM, Justin had to wake up and… relieve himself. As he was standing at his toilet, an urge passed over Justin to release some flatus from the anus. As he released the bubble of air, he realized something was terribly wrong. Something had followed the air bubble. This, my friends, is known as sharting (Please refer to definition 2).
Justin also realized at that point, that he was also wearing a $20 pair of Under Armour underwear. As Justin stood there in amazement, he realized there was only one thing to do… wash his underwear in the SINK!!! The same sink that he and his roommates brush their teeth in. Once the remnants of Shart left his underroos, Justin proceeded to start a new batch of laundry… remember, this is 3 in the morning!
According to Justin, his pair of Under Armor shorts are now back in the mix with the rest of pairs that he has. This leads to my commendation of this so called “Justin” in the fact that he can once again face his soiled pants. Myself, I would have just thrown them out, most likely after waking up my roommates and laughing so hard that I sharted again. Another option is to throw them at a roommate, preferably one smaller than you are.
The moral of this story, my readers, is that we all have a friend that has done this. In the future, if you run across another person that has done the deed, please, by all means, make fun of them until they shart again from laughter.
His son was found dead in their house this morning at 20 years old. Causes still unknown.
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Just some thoughts on happenings around the league, responses to the media and other bloggers, and just a good place for you to spend time instead of actually working.
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