The Nine Days of Vacation Challenge

I like to take the second week in December off. I did it last year and possibly the year before. It's a great chance for me to get some stuff done around the house, get my Christmas shopping done*, relas a little bit, read some books and magazines, get into the Christmas spirit, etc.

(*full disclosure: this year, it's also when I'm starting my Christmas shopping. Which is sad since I only have to shop for one person. Or ten if I buy my staff gifts. Either way, gifts for my lovely wife who buys for everyone else in our family and then nine identical gift certificates, right? Anyhow, I do this by going to Tukwilla with a long list in hand and then deciding which items off the list make good presents and if anything else strikes me as I travel the mall. It's a day of a lot of walking, snacking, and me-time and the crowds aren't bad mid-week. Very nice.)

This year, I'm going to try to do something more. I am going to try to convince my friends to help me raise $1,000 (or more) to help bring provide clean drinking water for children and families who don't have access to clean water. This is, literally a drop in the bucket when it comes to need, but every little bit helps.

To do this, I've set-up a fundraising page on a site called Razoo. They let you raise funds for any charity registered with the IRS. I've chosen World Vision, of course. The cool thing is that you can set a goal, make a specific plea, they collect the money and pass it on to the charity on a monthly basis. It even allows you to remain anonymous to the end charity if you're worried about ending up on their mailing list.

So you can learn more here or contribute here:

But head's up... day 1, with little effort, I'm at $40. I need to up the average if I want to reach $1,000 by the end of the week. So if you've got a better use for all of your ten dollars and can't spare even one of them, you might want to hide me for a week. But I hope you won't. I hope you'll consider donating $10 and even telling your friends about this opportunity.