This is the end of Blogathon 2009. It went surprisingly well; I achieved all the things I’ve been wanting to – making every other post about my charity, making good posts, making informative posts, and most importantly raising money for charity. It’s not hard, really…you can do other stuff during the blogathon. For example, I helped install some laminate flooring, made fabulous progress in my video game, bought a cell phone on eBay, went grocery shopping, etc. You can’t do that during the Race for the Cure or something else. But you can in the blogathon! But I wouldn’t say it’s easy, either…you have to stay awake for 24 hours and stay interested – and, hopefully, interesting! – throughout that time.

Here’s my donor list as it stands in the last few minutes of the Blogathon:

• W Marty Welch (@tsugupe)
• Marsha (@MarshaAZ)
• Never the Bride
• Cricket (@faegirl)
• Rachel (@tikva)
• Ryan
• My mom (@flyaway47)
• My dad (@pathseekerken, he has a blog but I’m too tired to remember the URL)
• And a proxy sponsorship from Primalex.

That’s $345 raised for the animals! I’ll be drawing the winner of the $25 Amazon gift certificate later; I plan to write everybody on a piece of paper, numbered 1-9, and then have somebody (my wife, a friends, whatever) pick a number between 1-9. Best easy randomization I can think of.

I’m watching The Planet’s Funniest Animals, one of my favorite “go to sleep” shows because it’s not challenging in any way – just watch cute animals. I think it’s fitting, don’t you?

For my final BFAS post, I’d just like to introduce you to a special kitty named Raed. He’s in the Guardian Angels program, and you can read his progress journal here. He’s originally from Beirut, Lebanon, and arrived with a large group of animals. Cats are pretty much universal, though, and Raed has the same features as any other cat – except for his sparkly hairballs. Read about that in his journal!

I’m still making it. Really. It is super tempting to just pass out but there is only one more hour left. I let kitty go but she just came back. Nice, kitty. Yeah, she’s kind of dim. Now she’s letting herself into what we call the “kitty room” – it’s more a storage room, but there’s a cat tree in there and a cat door in the door. All our doorknobs are sort of lever things, so she can open them very easily. She’s a Maine Coon, so she is on the big side, and she just stretches right up and opens them. The fun part is to close her in the kitty room and then watch her fit through the cat door to get out.

I was messing around in Bioshock just picking up stuff I’d missed, but I was falling asleep doing that so I think I am going to try to beat the game or something. Hallucinations have started, yippee! I’m surprised they took this long. I’ve already cleared off the bed in preparation for lying down and falling asleep. I’m not sure if I’ll bother setting an alarm; I’m supposed to meet a friend this afternoon but we haven’t agreed on a time yet.

The No More Homeless Pets conference is the only conference worldwide devoted to grassroots animal welfare. At $325, it’s not an easy conference to afford, so your everyday joe can’t do it. But people who work for local shelters, who want to establish new no-kill shelters, etc. can go to the conference and learn about the strategies others are using around the globe. This is the 25th anniversary of the organization, so it’s bound to be a big conference! It takes place in Las Vegas, October 23-25. The speakers list indicates a great many speakers are from BFAS but there are many others as well.

Staying awake by playing Bioshock some more. It’s quite effective. I’m still totally exhausted though. Haven’t finished the veggies but I ate everything else. Kitty wants to go though, so I think I’ll let her out. Wish I had more to say but I’m really tired and just trying to make it through this!

Check it out, there’s BFAS kittens for adoption today at a PetSmart in Las Vegas! The little fellow to the left is Anthony. Doesn’t he look so big and tough? One of the great things about BFAS adoption events is that not only are the kittens healthy, but they’re also spayed or neutered and microchipped. Microchips are an important way to keep tabs on pets of all kinds. You can learn more about what to do in an emergency by looking for that section on this page about pet care – most of the links are PDFs.

You guys, I am so tired. Seriously. TV is crap. I’m exhausted. I have to sit back up because it is so easy to fall asleep. I am so committed to getting through this though. It’s a matter of pride. Mmm chocolate tofu is really good though. Kitty is still with me, she’s watching me try to be more active. She’s all, “what are you doing, nutcase? Go to sleep, like me!” I have to move the car still but not until it’s light. Dude, I’m tired. I have to attempt to be normal for the next BFAS post, LOL. Ooooooh I am watching TV and they have ramen. I want ramen. I don’t have any ramen. I keep having to get up to pee. It’s because of the Mountain Dew you know. I seriously want to go to sleep right now.

The Purrty Dozen campaign is trying to find homes for 12 cats, and cat #7 just found a home! His name is Niles, and he was “just overlooked” for seven years. Many of the animals at Best Friends are there because they have special needs, but he was really perfectly fine…just needed a forever home! He finally found one with a woman from Flagstaff, Arizona – it must be nice to live so close to Best Friends! So even though he’s a little grizzled looking, he’s finally got a home. Now there’s only five more of the Purrty Dozen who need homes!

Yay, I’ve got company now! I’ve been alone almost all this time, certainly for the last 8 hours when my wife left for the other house. I’m so excited that YumYum came to the bedroom that I took a video of her. I don’t know if there’s sound on it or not, maybe there is. She is not entirely thrilled about being locked in the bedroom, but she has food and water, and her litterbox is here anyway, so she is really quite fine here. I don’t usually keep her in for too long at a time, but I think she’s staying with me for the rest of the Blogathon. Another four hours to go. The hard part will be pushing on after six or seven because that’s when I always want to go to sleep after an “all-nighter” – I have to remember to move my car in a little while too.


Urgh, I’m all stiff. Still going through the surfing frame. An episode of Taboo about genderbending is coming on, and it starts with female bodybuilders, which I wrote a report on a semester or two ago. Where was this show then?!

As I’ve been browsing the other blogs through the surfing frame, I’ve been noticing most charities are for human beneficiaries. Several people are blogging for animals, but most are for people. So I feel like I should justify why I picked an animal charity. It’s because animals are part of our lives. Not just our pets – obviously they are our most cherished family members, and in the case of service animals, they are even our most trusted companions. But all animals are part of our lives. The kittens born feral before a TNR program is implemented are just as deserving of care as my precious little fluffums, Princess YumYum, who has just joined me in the bedroom and is stuffing her face into the catnip jar. I don’t know those kittens, and as feral kittens it’s unlikely I ever will – although our cat Truffle was born feral and domesticated very young – but they deserve care and love just like my animals. Just like every human being deserves love and care, so does every animal.

Given the choice between saving a human’s life and saving an animal’s, of course I would choose the human – they are more likely to make contributions to society, more likely to express appreciation, etc. But that doesn’t mean we can only focus on humans. Animals are here. Once you accept that, you see that they are well-deserving of your charitable contributions.