they find it all, a different story

(from the Charity efforts album)

So...Desert Bus is this week!

(Ooh, sneaky blog, trying to unfix my fixes! Link works now.)

I've talked about this before, which still stands as a pretty good summation of why the Loading Ready Run crew does what they do, and why they play this silly thing, and why they stay up all hours to urge the internet to give them money--which they then turn over to every last dime to Child's Play. It's a great cause and a great charity and Desert Bus, every single year, stands as a monument to the care and craft and sincerity that geeks can bring to things that really matter to us.

How'ver--and tossing in a slight amount of the RL into this--for the past six weeks one of my loves has been in another state, in intensive physical therapy, learning to walk again. It's been hard, grueling work, but she's gone from being able to hold herself upright, using the parallel bars, assisted by a physical therapist, for one minute, to slowly walking with a walker, unassisted, for 750 steps (when last contacted).

It's not that this doesn't hurt her, or that her legs still aren't massively dysfunctional--because it does, and they are. Sooner or later, the degeneration in her spine will likely remove her ability to walk, ever. But the point of this is not to get her "normal"; the point is to give her the tools, and strengthen her body, so that she can push past the pain she needs to to help her live her life.

In addition, I've been trying to write to the daily word count for NaNoWriMo (I am dismally failing, btw), and--this week--trying to sort through massive amounts of collated recipes in magazines I've been saving and links online, for the things we want to bring for Thanksgiving with the family.

So...busy few weeks. Mostly spent traveling interstate and spending far too long on various buses and shuttles, and did I mention how that ties back in to Desert Bus?

It's a crazy, crazy week-plus on the internet. If you're interested in really fun charities, check them out. If you're not sure, check out Desert Bus' Flickr stream for photos (mostly this year), or if you're feeling really daring, check out Desert Bus' YouTube feed. (I would highly recommend the Snuggie Cultists or the Power Thirst commercial, among others.)

Or if you're really feeling daring, you can stop by my Tumblr, or hey, maybe a better option (because occasionally there is still NSFW content on my Tumblr, because reasons) is to go to Tumblr and search either "Desert Bus" or "Desert Bus for Hope". TONS of stuph will show up, much of it mine, but also other people, and if NONE of it convinces you to watch and cheer them on and toss them money, then obviously, this is Not Your Thing.

Which is okay, too, but seriously, every dime Desert Bus makes goes to support sick children. Which is a really good thing to do. And it proves the internet is actually a very caring and supportive place. (Which we need to hear more about, because usually we hear "the internet" and we think of rage-filled misogynists.)

So, that explains why I never got back to the whole Tony Harris teardown--I want to, I have the entry partially done, I have another two entries partially done, but travel+writing+Desert Bus has eaten my ability to blog.