Thank you
The current issue of Reason interviews Craigslist founder Craig Newmark who says, among other things, that 13 years in customer service taught him that people are basically trustworthy. (You can read it here.) I think that’s probably true. I also think that most people have noble intentions and wish the best for their fellow human being.
Which brings me to a special year-end thank you.
This time last year when I looked ahead to 2008, I noted a couple of things I wanted to do. One was to spend more time with friends. Another was to do something big and new that was utterly un-work-or-writing-related, and have it benefit someone else. When a brochure arrived in the mail from the AIDS Marathon, it seemed to fit the bill for everything. So I signed up and I trained for 6 months and by way of doing that made some terrific new friends (to add to the pre-existing terrific friends) and then I went off and ran the marathon, and in the process of doing that my sponsors and I raised $4400 for AIDS Project LA, to pay for medical and dental care for uninsured people living with HIV and AIDS.
So I’d like to thank the following people who sponsored me to do this. (And by the way, some of these folks are people I’ve never met, who clicked to donate via the links on the blog.)
A big thank you to:
Kim Glann (who also gave me great running tips)
Mark Chaet
Michelle Mierz (who, as a marathoner herself, set a great example)
Isabel Storey
David Dobson
Anonymous
Darla Balling
Jeannine Fairchild
Ross T. Kendall
Dorinne Kondo
Ed Levitt
Gerald I. Locklin
Christopher Meeks
Durrell Nelson
Thomas W. Boyle
Janet Reynolds
Alan Ziter
Paula Brancato
Marcie Blumberg
Sidney Stebel
Maria Graf
Jeanne-Andree Nelson
Heather Leikin
Chris Lane
Larry Eisenberg
Jon Rivera
Wenzel Jones
Jalondra Davis
Ernest Burger
Congressman Adam Schiff
Madelyn Inglese
Jean Hobart
Michael Wochner (my dear brother, who also enlisted some friends to donate)
W James Gosline Jr
Dan Beck
Johnna Adams
Douglas Hackney
Pamela Johnson
Mark Niu
Kathryn Whitaker
Michael Folie
Stefan Doomanis
Trey Nichols
Peter Kuo
Barry Rowell
Jon Amirkhan
Lacie Harmon
Michaela Morgan
Richard Hamner
Jan Elliott
Jackie Baghdassarian
Kitty Felde
Janice Littlejohn
Lisa Wochner
Rich And Ruth Roesberg
Brian Kite
Mark Stephenson
Rodney Hobbs
Amy Kramer
Steve Ginsberg
Douglas Hackney
Susan Kamei Leung
Brett Fisher
Rebecca Davis
Joe McClain
Roy Vongtama
Michael Shutt
Paul Crist
Ray Wochner
Jan Williamson
Richard Ruyle
Your donations went to help some people who really need some help. And they proved, again, that while the news is filled with deceit and disasters, there are always untold millions of people around the world doing what they can for others, with nothing personal to gain.
Thank you.