How to Raise $6500 In Spite of Yourselves

Wow, has it really been two months since I last posted on here?  It's not like I haven't been working my butt off toward the $40G goal.  I have been, I swear! Have you seen my fundraising total lately?  Up from a respectable $4400 or so during my last post in August to over $12000 as of this morning.   Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!

So, a wrap up of the 10/1 Rominger West fundraising dinner/music concert/wine tasting/silent auction throw down.  Here's the short story: 100 people showed up and we raised $6500 while everyone had a grand old time! 

The longer story, complete with pictures:  Maybe ten years down the road when I'm 49 and contemplating turning 50 I'll have an appropriate set of words to describe the feeling of seeing so many friends and loved ones and their friends and loved ones show up to support the AIDS Cycle.  But for now I'm limited to the unimaginative blogger's two BFFs, the adverb and the endash (or is it the emdash?): the event was really, really, jaw-droppingly, make-me-giggle-ingly fun and successful.  Please correct me if I'm wrong, you superfriends who actually helped throw the party while I glad-handed and worked my way through all the drinks people were buying for me, but I think the most significant glitch of the evening was running out of forks and the crapass, but compostable, plates purchased by yours truly that started composting in your hand even before you were done eating.  Other than that, the evening was perfect.


Going into the event I had no idea how many folks would show up or how much they'd be into bidding for the donated silent auction items.  It wasn't until about an hour after we opened the doors, when I realized that over 50 people had shown up with a line of people out the door still trying to get in and every item had already been bid on, including $2000 for a custom AIDS cycle-inspired scuplture by Steve Nowicki, that I knew it was going to be a pretty big night.  Here's that $2000 sculpture in Steve's shop:

And then Steve with the sculpture at the event itself:

But these photos really don't do it justice.  In case you didn't make it to the event, here's an SAT/GRE-style analogy to help you understand how awesome the sculpture is:

Fake Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas : Real Eiffel Tower in Paris
Photo of Steve's sculpture : Steve's sculpture in person

One of the things I really like about the event was that there were a ton of ways people were able to contribute.  In addition to the sculpture above, there were dozens of items folks were able to walk away with, many going for as little as $10.  Here's an action shot of some of the other auction items working it for the AIDS Cycle:

And then here's a picture of Ann and me and the Mike Justis band working it for the AIDS Cycle.  We're singing John Prine's 'In Spite of Ourselves.' If you're not familair with the song, here's a link.  We were introduced to it over 10 years ago and since then it's become one of our favorite sing-in-the-car songs.  We think it pretty much sums up the past 20 years of our relationship. There is a video of our performance but it sounds a lot better after several glasses of wine, so you'll have to come over (and bring some wine) if you want to see our version.

Here's a link if you'd like to see more pictures from the event.

To close, I just wanted to take a moment to correct a quote from the very first R-rated movie I ever saw, Conan the Barbarian. (Yeah, I was 11 when that movie came out.  My dad took me to see it.  That explains a lot, doesn't it?)  Crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women is not, in fact, what's best in life.  But our future Governator should be forgiven since when he uttered those immortal words he was only 35.  As a soon-to-be 40 year old, I know that what's best in life is to crush grapes, see them fermented and then poured before you, and to drink them down while raising a ton of money for folks who really, really need it.

Fundraising Tracker:
Funds Raised to date: $12271
Funds Remaining: $27729 or $924.30 per week!?!?