Day 15: Day of Rest - Family Picnic

I had the family (mom, dad, sister, nephew and 2 nieces) over to the house for a little picnic, so I decided to take a 'day off'. I intend to begin riding my bike to work daily next week, and that should actually make my quest a little easier, as it will be about 20 minutes of daily riding for the round trip. It's so nice to be able to ride a bike to work in less time than it take most folks to drive to work. It's a definite benefit to living in Newport.

Total Pledged/minute: $0.34 + ($1 per pound lost + $0.01 per mile)

Today's Minutes: 0 Minutes
Total Minutes: 422 Minutes
Today's Distance: 0 Miles
Total Distance: 114.5 Miles

Day 14: Ecuadorian Music

Those that know me well, know that original live music is one of my passions. So as I was getting ready to head out tonight to see a bluegrass band (Comet Bluegrass All-stars), I decided to look into Ecuadorian music, specifically more traditional Ecuadorian music.

From what I can tell from most of the bands online that bill themselves as 'traditional' in the Ecuador market, it's very vocally driven, with a lot of finger picking guitar background.

I'll be on the lookout for some local festivals that include music while I am there.

Total Pledged/minute: $0.34 + ($1 per pound lost + $0.01 per mile)

Today's Minutes: 33 Minutes
Total Minutes: 422 Minutes
Today's Distance: 8.7 Miles
Total Distance: 114.5 Miles

Day 13: Flights to Ecuador

So looking for flights to Ecuador, and I am going to go out on a limb and say that I'm going to eliminate the flights that fly through Bogata Columbia. I mean, I don't think I'd get shot in the airport, but if a plane into South America was going to be hijacked, I'm saying the columbia flight is the best chance of that... So I'll take my chances through Miami or Houston insead!

Total Pledged/minute: $0.31 + ($1 per pound lost + $0.01 per mile)

Today's Minutes: 38 Minutes
Total Minutes: 389 Minutes
Today's Distance: 9.5 Miles
Total Distance: 105.8 Miles

Day 12: Service Travel Kick-Off

First meeting of the 'team' this evening. Went through all the logistics around flights, applications, fees, shots, etc. We're ready to roll as a team. More to come on events we'll plan...

Total Pledged/minute: $0.29 + ($1 per pound lost + $0.01 per mile)

Today's Minutes: 30 Minutes
Total Minutes: 351 Minutes
Today's Distance: 8.0 Miles
Total Distance: 96.3 Miles

Day 11: Weddings and Bachelor Parties

I just realized that a significant portion of my 2,984 minute challenge is going to be maintaining the pace through the summer months as the bachelor parties and weddings start kicking in. I can forsee a lot of late nights, followed by some rough biking. But I'll just have to factor that in to my plans.

Total Pledged/minute: $0.29 + ($1 per pound lost + $0.01 per mile)

Today's Minutes: 35 Minutes
Total Minutes: 321 Minutes
Today's Distance: 9.5 Miles
Total Distance: 88.3 Miles

Day 10b: First Day of Pledges

I'll get back to posting about Ecuador later this week. We have our first meeting of the Service Travel team tomorrow night (Wednesday). I'm looking forward to getting to know the group, it's a great bunch of folks, and I'm excited about taking the trip with them.

The first official day of pledge gathering has been fantastic. In just 24 hours since I sent out the email launching the pledge website on givebackcincinnati.org, I have received an additional pledge of $0.25. I still have some work to do to get to my goal of $1.00 per minute and $2,984 raised for Habitat (and a lot more running/biking). But this is a great start!

Total Pledged/minute: $0.29 + ($1 per pound lost + $0.01 per mile)

Today's Minutes: 41 Minutes
Total Minutes: 286 Minutes
Today's Distance: 11.4 Miles
Total Distance: 78.8 Miles

Day 10a: Update on Pledging

I have created a website to allow you to make pledges and also explains a little better the pledge per minute concept for the fundraiser. I hope to get as close to a $1.00 per minute in total combined pledges by the end of May. So head over to this website where I explain the fundraiser in detail, and provide an easy way to make your pledge!

Day 9: Back in the Saddle

Literally... back on the bike after two 'off' days. I had about 90 minutes to spare before heading out to see Star Wars - Episode III, so I hoped on the bike and went for 51 minutes. A good long ride and helped to make up for some of the missed minutes the last couple days. I'll try to do another long ride on Monday.

Total Pledged/minute: $0.04 + ($1 per pound lost + $0.01 per mile)

Today's Minutes: 51 Minutes
Total Minutes: 245 Minutes
Today's Distance: 14.8 Miles
Total Distance: 67.4 Miles

Day 8: Paint the Town Prep

Another 'off' day. Though I thought about counting some minutes. Not exactly a relaxing day. The organization with which I am going on the trip in October with (Give Back Cincinnati) is in the final days of planning for our largest volunteer event of the year, Paint the Town. We will be painting 25 low income, owner-occupied homes on June 11th in Madisonville. Yes, 25 houses in one day. We'll have 600+ volunteers (we still need about 60 more volunteers, so click on the paint the town link above and sign up to help us out!) out there to get the job done. Well, this past Saturday was the first of two prep days, where we select 5 of the most 'in-need' homes and do some priming/scraping to make them ready for the June 11th paint jobs.

So while I didn't 'exercise' on Saturday, I spent 6 hours scraping paint off a home, and moving 30-40' ladders around. So Saturday night I was in no mood for bike riding.

Total Pledged/minute: $0.04 + ($1 per pound lost + $0.01 per mile)

Today's Minutes: 0 Minutes
Total Minutes: 194 Minutes
Today's Distance: 0 Miles
Total Distance: 52.6 Miles