Back in the game...

Hi Everybody,
Sorry it's been a while since the last update. I am just getting settled back in after my fishing trip to the East Cape in the Baja. It was awesome to get away for a stretch and it's also good to be back home. In all, there were 11 of us that went and some of us fished for 6 days in a row. For a seriously untanned dude, that is a lot of workout for the sunscreen. Also, getting up at 5:45 and folding in plenty of cervezas while watching the NBA and NHL finals at the only bar in town made for some long days. But as they say, "it's all good." We had a fishing tournament format built into the week and since none of the guys that went live on the coast we called it the "Inaugural No Shore -Offshore Derby" and actually raised about $500 for ALS in the process due to some generous donations by some of the winners. We are now hoping to do this on an annual basis as an ALS fundraiser "angling for a cure," as one of my buddies suggested. Our plan is to go from 3 boats to 7 boats next year, so need 28 anglers to participate. Let me know if you are interested.

So, just a quick note about the Luau from 5/30. We had a little jam session there and someone captured our rendition of "ice ice baby" on video. You can check it out on Youtube.com at this link if you are interested. I was a little disappointed that the bass conga didn't come through, but hey, I'll get over it. If you are interested, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpM0-MRL-nI

Now, on to much less frivolous news. A few weeks ago, as part of their ongoing fund raising efforts, our girls decided to tag on an ALS fundraiser to our neighborhood garage sale and rallied our friends to bring stuff to our house to sell. The original idea was for folks to bring the stuff that they didn't want to sell for themselves and our girls would sell it for the benefit of ALS research. Well, people didn't just bring the stuff they didn't want to sell, they brought EVERYTHING. Some folks even had their own sales and brought the proceeds to our house to donate. They also had a bake sale and lemonade stand and one of our little buddies even wore a "watch me juggle for 50 Cents." All the proceeds were donated to ALS - TDI and all in all, they raised almost $2900.00. Thanks so much to all who participated, it means so much to us and to all who are suffering with this health crisis. I'm very proud of the girls for all the effort and thankful for all the help.

On the ALS news front, there's a therapeutic molecule that ALS-TDI has found to help ALS symptoms. So far, they can't find any bio tech firms to take it to clinical trials...I guess there's just not enough money in "small diseases" like ALS. I just hope somebody out there finds a way to make it work. You can read more about this at www.als.net on the message boards.

Peace,
B.