Countdown to Glory: 29 to go

THE COUNTDOWN CONTINUES. 29 DAYS TO GLORY!!!

4 days in and we're already in the top 10? Unbelievable! Team 33, you are absolutely killing it. We're more than a quarter of the way to our goal. I'm amazed. I'm inspired. I'm proud. I'm ready to kick in into a higher gear. Take a look at the Team Page. You'll see the name Laurie Edmondson - my sister in law. She joined TEAM 33 and promoted the cause to an entirely new group of friends, family, etc. Over the last few years, she's lived in Michigan, California, Alabama, South Carolina, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. She has friends all over the world - ripe opportunities for TEAM 33 expansion. And she's sent out messages to her contacts, driving more people to pitch in. Best of all, she's found a way to do it by actually appealing to the good in people, and not by relying on cheap jokes, self-effacement and lazy wikipedia searches.

The thing is that Laurie is a perfect example of how TEAM 33 can go from flamethrower hot to thermonuclear liquifying. TEAM 33 can be a hundred-headed hydra. See, we're just 4 days into the countdown and already I'm tired of my own schtick and promoting donation by promising to not annoy people further. If TEAM 33 were a singular entity, it'd be easy to destroy. But if I bore/annoy/disgust/offend people, repelling prospective team members or contributors from any involvement, there could be dozens more of you to step right in and use TEAM 33's awesomeness to involve more and more people. Cut off one head, 2 more grow in its place. But not even Hercules can match our strength.

Anyway, it's Friday. Things are going great for TEAM 33 and they'll only get better as things continue. And we're on 29, one of the weakest numbers ever. There's no reason to write a book here.

On the 29th day of October in the 29th year of the last century, the New York Stock Exchange set a record for trading volume that would stand for nearly 40 years. The reason: for the second day in a row, the market would tumble. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 11%, following the previous day's loss of nearly 13%, at the time the two worst losses in the history of the market (and even considering today's turbulent times, those two days are still 2nd and 3rd worst all time, in terms of the percentage loss). Black Tuesday. $14,000,000,000 of market value was lost that day. The US economy would take decades to recover. The number 29 evokes that day. The rest of the year was pretty much terrible. Mussolini consolidated fascist power in Italy, Stalin exiled Trotsky and became entrenched in the Soviet Union, and the economic crash basically killed the Weimar Republic and drove millions of unemployed and disgruntled Germans to the exploitative arms of Hitler's Nazi Party (which grew by 800% in 1929). What a horrible, horrible year.

29. Definitely not in the same league as 33. Not even close. But don't let that prevent you from getting fired up about TEAM 33 and keeping up the pace.

We make it easy for you to join TEAM 33 by following the link below:

http://www.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=312420&u=312420-211716341

Join TEAM 33. Sign up. Create your own sub-team and spread the word to your friends and family. Join us at the walk. Give a few bucks for a great cause. Undo the Gordian Knot of lameness with the sharpened sword of badassery. And we'll have cake.

28 more of these emails are coming your way. Probably 2 more of them immediately following this one as you read your emails at work Monday morning. I have a good sense that these messages are going to seem like overkill when you read them all at once. Predictions: (1) Monday is TEAM 33's biggest contribution day ever, and (2) I have to spend about an hour sifting through "TAKE ME OFF YOUR LIST NOW" emails and revising my distribution list. But if that kind of time drain on Monday means that TEAM 33 is raising a lot of vital funds to fight arthritis, I'll take it. In fact, that sounds like a future fundraising gimmick: the person who raises the most money on a particular day gets to choose a creative way to annoy/inflict pain upon me, and I will do it. Sounds like poetry to me. I've been annoying you into raising money, and now you can raise money with the incentive of getting to annoy me in an amusing way. Perhaps I need to get back on track with what the real reason for this walk is. Regardless, JOIN TEAM 33!!!

If you have any questions about how incredibly awesome TEAM 33 is, give me a call or send me an email. Thanks again!