Skippy San will add dollars to ValOUR-IT – Navy/Coast Guard Team if you guess something..

Check it out!

Come on, there are wounded troops counting on us!

The concept sprang forth last year, when a lady working for Flag Gazer decided to forgo the money owed her for a day of labor.

That’s pretty magnanimous. How about take a moment to click here and read the story yourself.

Lemme see….50 weeks/yr, 5 days/week…250 “working days” for the average American work year (math made easy for bean counters before computers and it persists). Take annual earnings and divide by 250. What’s the number? Can you see your way clear to place that sum so others can have a far better quality of life?

Have you ever been hopeless? Whether for a few minutes, or for maybe years on end, consider how you might feel when you awake missing the ability to function in life easily…it’s time to make a change in the lives that are there now.

The competition continues. BUT: It’s not so much a competition, as an opportunity to affect the lives of people who still can talk, but have been disabled in a such a way as to not be able to poke at a keyboard like so many of us can.

Would I like the Navy/Coast Guard Team to come out on top? Yep. So I ask you to consider chipping in a few bucks. Can you skip a cup of Starbucks over-caffeinated coffee today and put that 4 some dollars (heck, just round it to $5!) in the kitty to help someone keep in touch with family and friends, as well as to be a capable worker when they show up to be employed in the civilian sector?

At the end of the day (or the competition, in this case), it’s not about the Navy?Coast Guard bloggers getting bragging rights, it’s about men and women, who see a person walk into their room in the hospital and give them something to get them re-connected with life. Donate to some team, or no team, just donate.

Your contribution has the real possiblity of completely changing the course of some people’s lives, and not only the wounded ones, but those lives the are connected to: spouses, children, mothers, fathers, grandparents, etc, etc, etc. You get my “drift.” You are dispensing more than your hard earned bucks with the click of the mouse or the mailing of a check: You are donating HOPE!

Besides being able to just know your contribution did that, you might even find something on the auction block that is to your liking, particularly if it’s able to be personalized to you. Check the auction page out for details.

Also, up on eBay, there are some Vince Flynn books up to help the cause. If you win, they are autographed with your message!

And for the other teams:

Navy/CG came out of nowhere (well, to be factual, dead last) last year and overnight smoked across the finish line…don’t forget it…

Don’t even think about it, Navy/Coast Guard team!

This weekend is to do the work the big bloggers (John, Matt, Jimbo and Mrs G) won’t do – taking it to the streets.

They must just sit about, sipping coffee drinks with odd names, dreaming of victory (except for Mrs G, who might have not had her coffee and has fallen asleep at the wheel, like John the Zoomie did last year).

So, find some brew that appears to resemble the mid-watch coffee, get a full mug (borrow one from your CPO’s Mess is you’ve lost yours) and hit the bricks. Talk ValOUR-IT up something fierce, get them to nod and say (using the “repeat back” method of reinforcement): “I will go home, log on the net and contribute to our wounded service members, via the Navy/Coast Guard team.” Make them say it, without errors, three times in a row (it’s a memory thing) before you let them out of your vicinity.

Bring it home for Navy/Coast Guard!

End note: No “complaining” and whining. Get on with it. You know you’ll feel better when Monday’s number show it’s worth your effort…

Tracked back @: Steeljaw Scribe

From FbL – today’s “Comm Plan:”

Valour-IT is going to be the subject on two different radio shows tomorrow (WEDNESDAY):

Patti will be talking about it live on http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mypoint at 0930 Eastern.

Mrs. Greyhawk and FbL will be talking about it on the Andrea Shea-King radio show at 2100 Eastern. Mrs. Greyhawk will also be talking about her recent meeting with the President. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ASKShow

Also…today will be a GREAT day for MEGEN…News at 11!

From sunny place, MEGEN makes an appearance.

FbL didn’t tell me she was going to let the trophy be handled by other than Navy personnel….particularly ones that show the same degree of interest Noonan did last campaign. No wonder they didn’t meet goal! On the other hand, the Green (well, ok, tan) machine looked like they are eager to get into the fight. I like that in a Marine!Tracked back @ Fuzzilicious ThinkingValOUR-IT Update, AM 10/29/2007: The sun is just rising, but the Navy/Coast Guard Team, during the mid-watch, has already begun collecting for the cause. I guess ther other three uniformed services haven’t had their coffee yet. Ladies and gentlemen of the USMC, USA and USAF, it’s “Stand To” time….get on it!

Time to review the checklists and then get some shut eye before the Mid-Watch tonight.

Review your email program contact lists…check all the commenters on your blog (extract their email addy), and shuffle through that pile of business cards in your desk drawer.

H-Hour is 290001 OCT 2007. $60K for the Navy/Coast Guard, but…$240K is the end game

The link to join a team, and/or to donate has been put up by the ever hard working Holly Aho, and assisted by Rusty Bill.

Grab your widgets and edit them into your site. Run out the guns and be prepared for a spirited run against the “other” forces. They have Chuck Z out at Las Vegas, banging the drum and you can bet he won’t tell the audience about any donate button besides the one for the Army. Mostly rude on his part, but…it’s all about the competition from now until midnite on the 11 of November.

The V-IT bulletin board is warming up and more players registering there. FbL has posted lots of general and specific info there, plus it’s a place to take potshots at the other teams/bloggers, as well.

Let’s ROLL!

John, the MilBlogs man of many arms has details of this year’s most anticipated competition to put laptops into the lives of those who have served us by their sacrifices.Read this post.There is prep work to be done and all hands (that’s a naval term meaning everyone) can join in. The USMC and Air Force seems “headless” this year to date, but I’m sure they have dark horses in the wings to come out and work towards the $240K (Yes, Twenty Four Thousand dollars – because we all had too much success last year) we’re looking to raise for my favorite project (as well as for many others): ValOUR-IT.Roll up your sleeves and come along for the ride from 10/28 thru 11/13/2007. It will be two weeks of thrills, spills, chills and possible carpel tunnel syndrome. All sorts of snarks flying while teams race to get their hands on The Most Exhaulted GoldEn Notebook (MEGEN) at the 2008 MilBlogs Conference, while filling the account to purchase laptops for those who need them.

I have cobbled together a phpBB set up as a bulletin board for general and team specific use. Register there and send me an email (see “contact us”) to let me know your team affiliation and I’ll set your permissions to the area you’ll need to chatter in.

The ValOUR-IT Bulletin Board is here.

Team leaders will have an area to cross talk. If leaders want a few moderators set to help manage traffic flow, pass that along so I can set those users in play. I have that set for anyone designated as a monitor to have full access there.

Each team will have Coordination, Marketing, Auctions, and Ideas forums to bat things around in.

A general forum is in place to list items actually put up for auction, which will be viewable by your family and friends and associates (hint: when things show up there, pass it along!).

A top level “H&I Fires” forum will be open game for issuing and responding to challenges or questions of family lineage of other teams.

I made a command decision to join the United States Coast Guard effort with that of the Navy’s. Watch for emails.

Suggestions welcome.

Oh, and for you non-USN/USCG types, this one’s for you (Click for a 8.5″ x 11″ sized printout image!):

It’s too early to cal to employ one for today, so I’ll draft one: SteelJaw Scribe.

I know I can count on him for excellent posts about the aviation world, the naval aspects in particular. Today he goes back to more details of “oddities” of carrier aviation, covering more details about B-25 Mitchells flying on (we know well of them flying off…) carriers, and more feasibility testing conducted with that airframe, which, while seemingly a non-issue, was actually an in road to the world of jets aboard CVs.

(Thanks, SJS!)

In the meantime, I am working on The.Next.Big.Thing. Also, it’s this time again.

Do you have your PayPal buttons close at hand? You’re gonna be needing them. Plans for such overpowering success as Team Navy enjoyed last year are in the works. If anyone knows a Marine/Marine related blogger who wants to get their feet wet (but we know that’s what Marines do best) making an assault this coming campaign, tell them to “STEP UP, MARINE!” and send their muster report. The Marine Blogger of 2006 ValOUR-IT fame, Villaineous Company hung up her keyboard a few weeks ago. In other words, the Marines in our midst are currently “headless.” What they should go looking for is one of those “strategic corporals” they have created with their world renowned training regimen and combat experience. If you know anyone interested, get them in touch with me (in comments or via email) and I’ll hook them up with the volunteer selector.

As the toll of US troops lost in the GWoT nears 3800, the AP is counting down the next few deaths.

For a moment, extract yourself from the steely eyed glare at that one metric and consider this:

Traffic deaths should top news
By Peter J. Woolley – Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, December 28, 2006
The nonstory of 2006 was also the nonstory of 2005. It is a nonstory every year going back decades. Yet the number of people who die in car crashes in the United States is staggering, even if it is absent from the agenda of most public officials and largely ignored by the public.

When all is said and done and the ball begins to drop on New Year’s Eve, 44,000 people, give or take several hundred, will have died in auto accidents this year. To put that number in perspective, consider that:

• At the 2006 casualty rate of 800 soldiers per year, the United States would have to be in Iraq for more than 50 years to equal just one year of automobile deaths back home.

• In any five-year period, the total number of traffic deaths in the United States equals or exceeds the number of people who died in the horrific South Asian tsunami in December 2004. U.S. traffic deaths amount to the equivalent of two tsunamis every 10 years.

• According to the National Safety Council, your chance of dying in an automobile crash is one in 84 over your lifetime. But your chances of winning the Mega Millions lottery are just one in 175 million.

• If you laid out side by side 8-by-10 photos of all those killed in crashes this year, the pictures would stretch more than five miles.

• If you made a yearbook containing the photos of those killed this year, putting 12 photos on each page, it would have 3,500 pages. If you wanted to limit your traffic-death yearbook to a manageable 400 pages, you’d either have to squeeze more than 100 photos onto each page or issue an eight-volume set.

Can you hear me now? Automobile deaths are the leading cause of death for children, for teen-agers and in fact for all people from age 3 to 33. Yet this annual tragedy is not a cause celebre.

Opinion leaders largely ignore the ubiquitous massacre. No marches, walkathons, commemorative stamps or fund-raising drives are organized. It is not brought up in the State of the Union address. It is rarely the subject of public affairs shows. Statistics aren’t updated daily in major newspapers or broadcasts.

Gruesome crashes are reported just one at a time, each as if it might never happen again. Little attention is paid to the aftermath: safety measures taken or not taken, the workings or non-workings of the justice system. These avoidable deaths, as well as more than 2 million nonfatal dismemberments, disfigurements and other injuries that go along with them, have become part of the fabric of everyday life in the United States.

Elected officeholders naturally take the path of least resistance. They are well aware that significantly reducing deaths on the roads requires radical solutions in the form of regulation, investment and enforcement. Roads need to be made safer, for example, by extending guardrails and medians to every mile of busy highways. Speeding and aggressive driving need to be much more rigorously controlled. Trucks need to be separated from automobiles wherever possible. And cars need to be built slower and stronger.

But every solution is readily opposed by someone: manufacturers, industrial unions, truckers, consumers, taxpayers — though all are potential victims themselves. The public is not to blame. It is hemmed in on every side by mind-numbing advertising and shouted stories of the moment. Apparently no medium is willing to bludgeon people — as they need to be — with statistics and trends on the dangers facing them every time they set out in their automobiles.

Only if there is a public outcry will this situation get the attention due it. Only when people fully realize the absurd and avoidable costs of the dangers that stalk them on the road — and then demand governmental action in the form of forceful intervention and strict regulation — will this become the story of the year, as it should be.

— Peter J. Woolley is a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University and executive director of PublicMind, a public opinion research group there.

Kinda puts some things into perspective, don’t you think?

Tracked back @:  <a href=”http://steeljawscribe.com/2007/09/22/open-trackback-saturday-3/trackback/”>SteelJaw Scribe</a>