A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

relay for life fundraiser

Thanks to all who donated (oh yeah, and the winner is …)

Relayers walk during the Luminary Ceremony.

Our annual Relay for Life is in the books.

And, for a change, we actually had decent weather. Despite it getting chilly at night, there was no rain (or snow) and if you kept moving, you kept warm. All in all, not to shabby.

That being said, if it was a day later, it was in the high 40s/low 50s the following night!

I initially got involved with the Relay in the memory of my father.

Anyway, the Relay was a success.

For those who don’t know the full story with the Relay, basically, teams raise money for the American Cancer Society and on the night of the event, set up around a track or something shaped like one. Then members of the team walk throughout the night. At one point, for an hour or two, the lights go out and the glow of luminaries light up the track.

I’ve taken part in this event since 2008 and am always amazed at how people give each year.

Our team, this year, was small. We had seven people and we combined to raise more than $2,500!

I was pretty stoked about that.

Personally, my account showed nearly $1,200, which I am super pumped about. For all of you who donated, please accept my thanks. I can’t express those thanks enough in words.

This disease touches millions of people. Hopefully they will eventually find a cure.

I actually started the fundraising this year a little late. That meant I also started the team late and we all got a late jump.

That didn’t seem to matter.

Our team stepped up and raised a whole heap of money. We raised more than many teams with more members. Way too cool. And to everyone who donated to me — or to others on the team — thanks so much. I am super stoked with what we were able to accomplish.

To be fair, too, we’re not all as young as we once were. Staying at these events all night is impossible. So most of us ducked out by 1 a.m. or so. The local Relay runs quite long, so many do this. When the final three of us left that night, there definitely wasn’t a member from each team walking on the track, as one is supposed to do. Alas, in my eyes, walking the track isn’t the most important thing here — raising money is. I look at what we did and I am really proud of it.

And next year, we’ll do the same.

The winner is…?

Now, let’s get on what people probably want to hear. Well, those of you who donated to the cause.

For those who donated to me or my mother’s Relay account, you were entered to win a fantastic quilt or the pillow.

Honestly, with all the donations we received, I truly wish I could give away something to everybody who donated. I really do. Alas, it’s just not possible.

Those who donated received one entry per $5 they donated. We ran all the names this morning through the Random.org generator and the winners are…

Quilt: Mike Davis

Pillow: Alma Reynolds

Congratulations to both winners, you will be contacted! And a true thanks to everyone who donated! It’s appreciated more than I can express!

Hopefully, next year, we’ll figure some great things to raffle off as well!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

The weekend has arrived…

This is going to be one busy weekend.

Today is supposed to be one of my book review posts for the challenge I am in. Alas, it’s not written. I’m going to have to do something I hate to do and be late with it. I haven’t finished the artwork and just am not in the mood to write a review. I should have done it weeks ago when I finished the book. Alas, I slacked.

I’ve, unfortunately, slacked a little too much in that challenge. I haven’t commented enough on other reviews and I’m mad at myself about that. I plan on rectifying that for this month’s selections.

Anyway, back to the weekend.

It starts today with the Relay for Life. I’ve blogged a bit about that, so I’m sure most readers know about it. I won’t go into the full plea, but you still have time to give and have a chance to win a super sweet quilt. The Relay is a really good event and many people in the community come out for it. But it’s also a little smaller than in the past. Things go in cycles, though.

I relay in the memory and honor of those close to me who have passed or have battled cancer. And to raise money, which is what it’s all about.

Our local one runs quite long (more than 14 hours), so many people don’t stay the full night anymore. I know I won’t be able to do it as I have plans for the rest of the weekend. The few years I tried to pull the all-night thing, I ended up being so exhausted, my whole weekend was ruined. I realize we’re doing a good thing, but my feeling is this — we raise money. That’s the good deed. Walking around a track all night or playing games isn’t what it’s about.

And our team — of seven people — has raised more than $2,200 for the cause. Hopefully we’ll be beyond the $2,500 mark by tomorrow night. In the end, that’s what I’m most proud of. Raising money.

****

Saturday is going to be a geocaching day.

Two of us are heading down toward the Kingston area to do a newer “power” trail. In all, I have made a list of more than 65 caches. On that list are mainly traditional caches, but a few mystery ones are thrown in. One of those is a night cache.

OK, let me explain a couple of things. A power trail is one where it’s set up for people to get a higher count of finds on a certain stretch of a trail or road. This trail is about 30 caches in about a 12-mile stretch of road. There are a lot of different things and, apparently, some really nice scenery. So I look forward to taking the camera and maybe getting some good shots.

At a night cache a few years ago.

The other thing is the night cache. For those who are casual cachers or don’t cache, a night geocache is set up where you have coordinates to the beginning. Then you follow fire tacks to the cache. It’s really quite cool. This one is supposed to be pretty nice, so I’m looking forward to getting out and finding it. It should be a nice cap to the day/night.

I haven’t had a “big” caching day in a while, so I’m excited about this one. We’ll be all over as the list, as of now, is just shy of 70 caches. We might not get them all, but we’ll give it a go. The fun part will be dropping one geocoin in a place to help its journey. I look forward to the overall day and fun that it should bring.

****

On Sunday, I’ll be heading to Pennsylvania for some disc golf. That is, as long as nothing else comes up. It’s not as far as it might sound as the back roads will get me there quicker. It’s actually only 68 miles.

Ready to play some disc golf.

This course is 12 holes and is supposed to be really good.

So my plan is to hopefully play it two — maybe three — times and then head home. On the way, I plan on picking up 5-10 geocaches, too. I’m not usually a fan of caching solo, but some of these caches are in the middle of no where or some older cemeteries, so I don’t mind as much.

With the weather looking good, I’m just excited to get out and throw some plastic and find a few treasures along the way.

****

A couple of weeks ago, I had a phone interview. It was for a job I would consider a “dream job.” I was pretty amped to get the interview (though, to be fair, phone interviews are so hard. You can’t read people and they can’t read you. I’d rather be face-to-face as it gives you a better chance to deal with things as they come along.)

In the end, it didn’t turn out so well.

In my own mind, there were parts I knew I didn’t do well on. But, at the same time, I thought I answered several questions well and thought my experiences were a perfect match. Alas, it didn’t work out. I didn’t make the final three and didn’t get a face-to-face interview.

The same day, however, I received a call for another job. While it would just be for the summer, it would be an enjoyable job where I can hopefully learn a few things. I have the interview (face-to-face) next weekend, so I’ll look forward to seeing if I fare better when I get to talk in person.

The first situation, though, is why I am excited to have a busy weekend. This job hunt — and as long as it’s been — takes a toll on you. It really taxes you mentally and physically, so sometimes you need a busy and fun weekend to let your mind wander in other places. Hopefully this weekend will help me clear my mind and get back at it next week.

Here’s to hoping you all have a great weekend as well!

Fundraiser: I am, again, trying to raise money for the Relay For Life. If you donate to me — a minimum of $5– you will be entered to win a super-sweet quilted lap quilt or pillow. Click here for all the information!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

 

Final plea for Relay donations (and your last chance to win!)

Well, this is it.

My final plea. So far, it’s been quite a good fundraising season, but we can always use a few extra bucks.

My area’s Relay for Life is tomorrow (Friday) and into Saturday. Our team of seven people has already raised more than $2,000 and I’d love to see us hit, at least, $2,500. That would be something special.

So, I come to you, my blogging friends to see if you are interesting in donating. And, remember, you could possibly win something sweet. But you have no chance if you don’t donate.

You know you want to win this — so donate and have a chance!

I’ll post all the details, which I’ve had in other posts, below. But the basics are this — donate and have the chance to win a handmade quilt.

As many of you know, I have been participating in our local Relay for Life since 2008, the year after my father died after a battle with cancer. Though our team isn’t big, we usually do pretty well in raising money for this event. So I hope that will continue this year.

For every $5 you donate, you get an entry to win the quilt in the photo — it’s handmade and really sweet.

My mother is quite an amazing quilter. Last year, we ran the contest here on the blog for somebody to win a scarf. It gets bigger this year — there’s more than one prize.

The first prize is hand-quilted lap quilt. This is quite sweet. I have a lap quilt my mother made and I can say it’s warm and it’s bigger than one might expect. So this is pretty wild.

It’s 61 inches by 46 inches, so basically 5 feet by 4 feet, give or take an inch or two. It might not cover a bed, but it will definitely be worth having on the couch!

The second prize is a  lap pillow. The top is quilted and sewn onto the pillow. It’s nice as well.

Every year, I come to you, the blog readers, in hopes of soliciting donations for this team. And this is a way for me to not only get donations, but give you a chance to win something really wild, too.

Hopefully, you’ll strongly consider donating!

Details

Here’s how this will work this year.

As with last year, I will use Random.org and the generator on there to pick a winner. There will likely be a lot of entries as a couple of members are in on this as well. That way, we draw as many as possible as the goal, obviously, is to raise as much money as possible.

The second-place pillow.

For those in the United States, for every $5 you donate, you get an entry. For those in Canada, you get an entry for every $5, but we require a minimum donation of $20 because we’ll have to put more out of pocket to ship the item. For those not in the U.S. or Canada, you can still win. However, we’ll require the minimum $20 donation (which is four entries) and you’ll also be required to pay for the shipping (which can be sent directly to me via PayPal or regular mail). In the end, it’s because we’re looking to raise money!

So doing the math, it’s simple. Donate $5, get an entry. Donate $100, get 20 entries. You get it, right?

Our local relay this year runs from 6 p.m. April 26 to 9 a.m. April 27. I’ll let the contest run through noon (EST) April 28.

Don’t wait until the last second, though! If that happens, I’ve found people forget. And with this, every dollar counts when fundraising!

Any donations

The way you donate to me doesn’t matter.

You can do normal or you can by luminaries, in honor of somebody you know who is fighting or lost the battle with cancer. IF you do this, please let me know and who the name is and I will attempt to get a photo of the lit luminary for you. I can’t make promises because of how many there will be, but I usually do several laps looking at every single one and I will try and track each one down.

I thank you in advance for helping with this fundraiser.

You can donate by going to my personal Relay for Life page.

Fine print

Not that there really is any, but a couple of things.

Anybody can win, outside of those ON the team. Family members, friends, non-friends, aliens — whatever. Donate and have a chance. But members of the team can’t win.

Somebody can’t win both prizes. I will draw for the quilt first. Whoever wins that is not eligible for the pillow. Fair is fair.

I think that’s it.

Now go donate and have a chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Notes from my noodle: Apr. 17

A missed day yesterday, but I haven’t had much to say recently.

Well, I always have something to say. I just didn’t have much when it comes to the blog. So, today, I’m hitting up a good fallback posting idea — Notes from my noodle!

The beauty of this is I only have a few ideas as I start and we’ll see where it leads.

So, let’s get it underway.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

If you are a blogger, odds are you’ve entered giveaways before. It’s a big thing in the blogging world. I wish I could do more of them here, but I have to keep them a little spread out at this point in time. Plus, when dealing with personal blogs, you have to make sure you give things away that are aimed a bit at a larger audience, not just a certain niche etc.

When I read and follow blogs, I’ll often enter. I never expect to win, especially as many are for some big things and attract thousands upon thousands of entries.

Finding blogs recently through the North East Bloggers Network led me to a giveaway. And it only had a few days left. So, of course, I opted to enter. Basically, you earn entries by following, tweeting, liking, commenting etc. So I went through and did things, found a few new blogs to read and so forth. and that was it.

Until yesterday afternoon, when the site’s owner sent me an e-mail entitled “You’re a winner!”

This, of course, I already knew.

But Rachel apparently meant for the giveaway! Out of 3,692 entries, my name was drawn.

Score!

What did I win? A $50 Target card and a $10 Starbucks card, as well as one month’s worth of ad space on four blogs. I’ve never done blog ads and was curious about them, so hopefully this will help me understand it a bit more. Thanks to Krystal, Courtney, Jamie and Rachel for giving ad space as part of the giveaway!

Either way, I’m obviously quite excited about winning the contest. It’s pretty cool to get notifications like that out of the blue saying you’ve won something.

Brewing, brewing, brewing

If you remember a post I did a week or so ago talking about my next plans in homebrewing, I’ve completed two.

The White House Honey Porter and the Chocolate Maple Porter are now fermenting!

Two beers, fermenting away.

The Honey Porter is the one I brewed first. It was a Northern Brewer kit, so pretty straight forward. In the end, it took about an hour and a half and I had it in the jug and going to town.

The Chocolate Maple Porter, well, that was my first foray into doing things a little more in depth. See, this was a full all-grain setup. The mash, the sparge, the whole nine yards. All told, it was a bit more than three hours to pull this one off. But I liked the process. I liked doing it as the kit, one from Brooklyn Brew Shop, said to do.

This one also has a little local flavor.

At the end of the brew, I needed to add maple syrup to the wort. The syrup is some that was just made this year by Gid, a local and friend. I’m super stoked to see how this one tastes. I have to use more maple syrup when bottling, too, so I’m excited to see what the taste is like.

Speaking of brewing and such, I’ve decided to abandon the labels. I’m going to put smaller labels on the bottles to show what the brews are, but I’ll save the bigger, more elaborate ones for online use on Facebook or Untappd. It’s really just a pain to try and get it all set and everything and then have to worry about getting them all cleaned up and such. I think I also might have to start posting here when new ones are done and ready so I can keep track of them.

But these two fermenting now… I’m really excited for.

Bark, bark, bark

I have no true issues with dogs. But man, why do owners have to allow dogs to stay out when they constantly bark. As I write this, some neighborhood pooch (not sure where as there are many) is out — or at least close to a window/door and has been non-stop barking for a good hour. At least. It’s an ankle-biting dog, too, so it’s that yap, yap, yap bark.

Ugh.

I know I am not the only one who thinks this is annoying. I have a few neighbors with these dogs and most of the time, they are all good about it and make sure the dog is in or something if it barks too much. But this dog has not stopped.

Have some control. Train your dog. My lord. When it starts to annoy people all the time, it’s time to realize your dog needs some training. Enough.

OK, I’ve barked about that long enough…

iMessage

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad or something, iMessage is probably something you wouldn’t care about.

Alas, for those who do…

For some reason, lately, I’ve been having  hard time with it. Sometimes, iMessage works. Other times it doesn’t. At the same time, it will work for one person and not for another.

Annoying.

52-week project

Fifteen weeks are done of this year’s 52-week photo project — the HooHaa 52.

One of my favorite shots so far from the HooHaa 52 — Week 3, Night.

It’s been a fun group so far this year. There have been some fun themes and some really good images. And, for the most part, those who started with us are still going strong. And that’s a good thing.

I’ve been pretty solid so far, but a few weeks gave me fits and I had a hard time figuring what I wanted to do.

We still have a long way to go, but it’s nice to know that people have seemingly made their way through some of the colder months and we are now moving to the warmer months, which hopefully means some more great themes and images.

I know when I see weather like this, I feel like there is more to take photos of and it’s more fun to go out with the camera.

I’m involved with a couple of other photo challenges and I look forward to seeing where they all lead this spring and summer.

Relay fundraiser reminder

I am a little more than a week from the Relay For Life and there’s still time for you to enter the fundraiser for the lap quilt. Don’t miss your chance — this thing is truly amazing!

For the information on how to enter, click here.

Fundraiser: I am, again, trying to raise money for the Relay For Life. If you donate to me — a minimum of $5– you will be entered to win a super-sweet quilted lap quilt or pillow. Click here for all the information!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

The plea for relay donations continues (you can win, too!)

All right, folks, you can expect this at least one more time before the Relay for Life. But I come to you in hopes you can donate to this great cause.

And, in the meantime, have a chance to win something really cool, too!

As many of you know, I have been participating in our local Relay for Life since 2008, the year after my father died after a battle with cancer. Though our team isn’t big, we usually do pretty well in raising money for this event. So I hope that will continue this year.

Even better? You an win by donating!

You can win this quilt!

For every $5 you donate, you get an entry to win the quilt in the photo — it’s handmade and really sweet.

My mother is quite an amazing quilter. Last year, we ran the contest here on the blog for somebody to win a scarf. It gets bigger this year — there’s more than one prize.

The first prize is hand-quilted lap quilt. This is quite sweet. I have a lap quilt my mother made and I can say it’s warm and it’s bigger than one might expect. So this is pretty wild.

It’s 61 inches by 46 inches, so basically 5 feet by 4 feet, give or take an inch or two. It might not cover a bed, but it will definitely be worth having on the couch!

The second prize is a  lap pillow. The top is quilted and sewn onto the pillow. It’s nice as well.

Every year, I come to you, the blog readers, in hopes of soliciting donations for this team. And this is a way for me to not only get donations, but give you a chance to win something really wild, too.

Hopefully, you’ll strongly consider donating!

Details

Here’s how this will work this year.

As with last year, I will use Random.org and the generator on there to pick a winner. There will likely be a lot of entries as a couple of members are in on this as well. That way, we draw as many as possible as the goal, obviously, is to raise as much money as possible.

For those in the United States, for every $5 you donate, you get an entry. For those in Canada, you get an entry for every $5, but we require a minimum donation of $20 because we’ll have to put more out of pocket to ship the item. For those not in the U.S. or Canada, you can still win. However, we’ll require the minimum $20 donation (which is four entries) and you’ll also be required to pay for the shipping (which can be sent directly to me via PayPal or regular mail). In the end, it’s because we’re looking to raise money!

So doing the math, it’s simple. Donate $5, get an entry. Donate $100, get 20 entries. You get it, right?

Our local relay this year runs from 6 p.m. April 26 to 9 a.m. April 27. I’ll let the contest run through noon (EST) April 28.

Don’t wait until the last second, though! If that happens, I’ve found people forget. And with this, every dollar counts when fundraising!

Any donations

The way you donate to me doesn’t matter.

The second-place pillow.

You can do normal or you can by luminaries, in honor of somebody you know who is fighting or lost the battle with cancer. IF you do this, please let me know and who the name is and I will attempt to get a photo of the lit luminary for you. I can’t make promises because of how many there will be, but I usually do several laps looking at every single one and I will try and track each one down.

I thank you in advance for helping with this fundraiser.

You can donate by going to my personal Relay for Life page.

Fine print

Not that there really is any, but a couple of things.

Anybody can win, outside of those ON the team. Family members, friends, non-friends, aliens — whatever. Donate and have a chance. But members of the team can’t win.

Somebody can’t win both prizes. I will draw for the quilt first. Whoever wins that is not eligible for the pillow. Fair is fair.

I think that’s it.

Now go donate and have a chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!