Publically Speaking..

Hi Folks. This coming Tuesday I am going to be giving a presentation at Tent & Trails about Big City Mountaineers, Summit for Someone and my climb. Tent & Trails is a gear store down on Park Place in Lower Manhattan. I will be presenting upstairs. Wine and cheese included! All are welcome to attend! Click here for their website!

Big City Mountaineering /Summit for Someone Presentation

Hear about the Summit for Someone benefit climb series as they climb North America’s most renowned peaks. Summit for Someone’s fundraising contribution allow inner-city, urban teens a chance to experience the wonder of the wilderness for themselves. Big City Mountaineers’ programs focus on reaching kids who would not have the opportunities otherwise.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 @ 6:30 pm

Tents & Trails-21 Park Place New York, NY 10007

For more info and to sign up in advance call: 212.227.1760 - seats are limited!

Subway:

2,3 to Park Pl, or N, R to City Hall.

Olympic Fundraising

There is nothing like the Olympics. Every two years I am glued to the TV for two weeks. I am not a big fan of watching sports on television. I think it has something more to do with the fact that it reminds me that if you work hard and focus you can basically hit your mark. People like Lindsey Vonn or Bode Miller astound me in that fact that they have tuned their entire lives in the pursuit of a single goal. I am never happier when I see them accomplish that goal. If I had but an ounce of the determination they do than my task at hand would seem simple.

I am up to my eyeballs in fundraising. Not only is it a difficult time to raise money, I am unaccustomed to this sort of project. To date I have raised $1725 dollars. This is a mostly due to the grace and love of my friends and family. To them I shout out a big thank you. In a week I will hit my first fundraising deadline. My goal was to raise 2K by then. With one week left it may still be in sight. But with everything that I do there is method to madness.

In order to climb I must raise $3800. No small feet in this economic climate. My plan is the following:

$2000k-Pestering friends, family, business contacts
$600- Fundraising event on March 7th. (Oscar party)
$200-From my talk at Tent and Trails (Gear Store in NYC) on March 2nd
$500-Corporate Donation
$500-By grace of God (in other words I have no idea where this amount is coming from)

This break down is a complete guess. I am not going to lie to you when I say this is extremely hard. There are days when I wake up and ask myself what I committed myself too. Sometimes people have astounded me with their generosity and sometimes I dumbfound at the fact that they will spend $50 dollars on a single lunch but won't give the same to an incredible cause. At the least it has been a lesson in human nature.

Fundraising is a funny thing. Its a fine line between gently nudging people in a certain direction and being a persistent bastard. I find I live somewhere in between. It's a constant state of purgatory ready to fall over the edge in either direction. It's a spot that is hard to live in until the goal is met. The purpose is of course worth it otherwise the deed would not be endured. For all my reminding, pushing, and persuading one ideal must be kept in the for-front of the picture. What ever raised, whatever endured is for the direct benefit of our next generation. If you give to this cause remember it is their benefit. Be the next Lindsey Vonn and donate today. I will leave you with the faces that you will help change. (video below).

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

As with any quest the line that takes you there is not always forward. Sometimes you have to take a few steps backward to start moving forward again. I received word today that my good friend Matt Wilson will not be making the climb with me. Matt is a good friend of mine from college. He living in Denver, Colorado and I NYC, we had been talking about doing Summit For Someone for several years. We had always wanted to strengthen our mutual love of the outdoors by bridging the miles between with a mutual cause. This Christmas when he had phoned me up and said that he had gotten a green light from his doctor and had signed up for the same climb as myself I couldn't have been more elated. My decision to pursue this goal seemed somewhat vindicated. Here was a chance to spend some quality time together doing what we both love best. Here was a chance to have someone else to bounce ideas off of and to motivate each other to the top. People rarely accomplish great things solely on their own. They often have the support of their family and friends to get them there. I was lucky enough to have a good friend walk with me to the top.

Matt has a medical condition in which puts his chances of climbing with me very unlikely now. At this point I don't know if he will climb this year or perhaps the next but we can still support each other. We just won't be standing on that mountain together. He still is raising money for the cause and if you wish to support him click here. It's not life threatening but I wish him a speedy recovery.

We can spend our lives accomplishing one goal after another but if those accomplishments are not shared in the company of good friends or family then at times those pursuits can almost feel hollow. It's of course not. However I can't help but feel that way sometimes. I shall continue to move forward as I always do. Alone and persistent. There is nowhere to go but up. I will climb for both us Matt.

Little Green Blinking Cursers

I am not sure what people did without the wonderful world that is the Internet. I was in high school when it caught on. It was a strange world filled with blinking green cursors and giant floppy disks that could store a whole megabyte of information. The very fact that you are reading this is due to that little green blinking cursor that I remember from my friend Mark's basement computer. He was the first of my friends to have Internet at home. At that point a web page didn't even exist yet. Who knew 15 years later our entire grown up lives would revolve around the informational and social highway that little green cursor would eventually create?

Well I am glad that little green cursor grew up because the Internet is definitely helping the Summit for Someone cause. Word is getting about the climb. Recently Big City Mountaineers posted a short entry about why I am climbing on their own blog. Check it out at by clicking below:

Why I am Climbing:The Big City Mountaineer Blog

Also a big thank you to Eastern Mountain Sport for linking my blog to their Facebook, Twitter, Meet-up, and Craigslist pages. A very big hello to my new readers!

And last but not least a big thank you to the that little green blinking cursor for making the leap into adulthood. You will certainly be used to your full potential on this summit bid.