I have a very good friend who serves in the US Air Force. I met TSgt Adam Page while I lived in Colorado Springs. He’s now on his second tour to Iraq. Adam is a dietitian for the 332nd CASF. (That’s the Air Force equivalent of a MASH unit.) Adam also works on the team that transports casualties to and from the unit. He spends a lot of one-on-one time with our wounded servicemen and women.

He sent me a request a couple weeks ago. Due to the climate over there, chocolate is a rare commodity. But during the winter months, it’s possible to ship it safely. Every day, Adam goes through the wards talking with the patients and offers them some chocolate candy bars. He said it’s been amazing to see how much these guys light up when they see chocolate. It’s a bit of home that some of them have not seen in over a year.

Seeing as it’s Halloween shopping season, and our kids at church are looking for ways to serve people, I put a big box up at the church and explained to the kids I was taking donations of chocolate. We got a pretty good response. Then Tammy and I both sent out emails to our coworkers. The response has been huge.

One of Tammy’s coworkers even tried to get Hershey’s on board, but they, understandably, have some policies about donations that we can’t meet… yet. I’ve also gotten some pretty nice cash donations that I’m going to use to buy more candy when the post-Halloween sale prices hit.

This is all really exciting and Adam and I are both hoping in continues to grow. Adam has promised me that when he ships out, he’ll pass the word to his replacements and we’ll keep chocolate moving. Of course, we can only ship it safely two or three months out of the year, but the good news is that those two or three months are when chocolate is most available in stores.

If you’d be interested in donating to the cause, you can donate money via PayPal (in the side bar). We aren’t organized enough to offer tax deductions or anything, so this is just a gift from the heart.

Ever wonder…

Why do banks leave their doors wide open and then chain the pens to the counters?

Yes, I had to remove a post. There’s some cool stuff still to say though.

At lunch, I posted about an event my employer is hosting. It’s really cool and has a very high geek score, but the event is hush-hush, not to be publicized at the behest of some of the attendees. Sorry. Let’s just say I work at an amazing company that is changing how email is done.

Now, what’s really neat is that less than an hour after I clicked “Publish”, our companies marketing manager got an automated email from Google letting him know there was a new blog post that linked to our company site. How cool is that?

Of course, he quickly came to my office, and in a very friendly, non-KGB, non-Jack-Bauer way asked me not to publicize the event. My bad. I didn’t know it was hush-hush. Intriguing, eh?

The afore mentioned cracked DVD from NetFlix was Star Wars III, which I ended up buying so we could watch it.

It got me in a Star Wars kind of mood, which led me to this hilarious mash-up of every James Earl Jones movie ever made. There is some PG-13 language in it. You have been warned. I only wish I had the hours and hours of free time it would take to do something so creative and fun.

Vader Goes Nuts Video

My favorite part is right at the end when Vader can’t find anything good on the radio.

This weekend, we got our first damaged, unplayable DVD from NetFlix. That’s pretty good. Out of a couple dozen DVDs sent to us in unprotected paper envelopes, only one has showed up cracked. I’ve also watched several movies online and watched all of the available episodes of “The Office”, both Brit and Yank. I’d have to say, I really like NetFlix.

It got me thinking. How do you get your movie fix? C’mon all you lurkers out there. I want to see some votes from people other than Ghosty and David. I’ve seen the logs. I know you’re there. Speak up!

(Intercepting your comments ahead of time:) Yes, Ghosty and David. You can still vote too.