Fundraising, Live'r Up!, and pictures....

Today was a busy fund raising day. I started out by helping my friend Lisa with a BBQ at the TransCanada Mall to raise funds for the Breast Cancer walk she is aiming for in the spring. The day ended with the Live'r Up gala talent show organized by another friend of mine - Carrie - for the Canadian Liver Foundation. Both events were a smashing success. Lisa made a large chunk of the her target for the walk, and Carrie knows how to throw a party!

I decided that Lisa deserved a break from her normal routine, and a bit of a reward for her fund raising efforts. So she was invited to attend Live'r Up with me. It is not often I see Lisa all dressed up, but I think she looked natural in the fancy clothes. Not to mention I very very rarely do the formal thing. But, if it helps support a friend, sure, why not.

Lisa and Carrie, you both did a fantastic job in organizing and implementing your events!! Thank you both for a very active and enjoyable day!

The Live'r Up event was amazing. Great location centrally located downtown. And the talent covered many artistic areas - piano playing/singing, magic, spoken word, a little comedy, and even A Cappella. The artists were all very good. But there was more even. We were there to raise funds for a cause, and time was given to various people to talk about the issues with Liver disease, how the Liver Foundation helped, and the benefits from a transplantee's point of view. It takes guts to get up on stage and share intimate details like that.

Live'r Up was a "Gala" event. For those un-sophisticated techies out there, that means it was formal wear. I got to wear my nice expensive suit for the second time in as many years. Hope someone got a picture, because it'll probably be another 2 or 3 years before I put a suit on again... :) The crowd looked fantastic all decked out in their fancy duds. Most of the men wore suits of some sort, while the ladies had MANY different styles of dresses, and dress outfits. From a bachelor's point of view, I do have to say ALL the ladies looked stunning. It was hard to keep from getting whiplash taking in all the um... eye candy.

There was a raffle and a 50/50 draw. I didn't win the 50/50, but I did win 2 of the items out of the raffle - a nice Calgary Flames "hoodie" sweatshirt, and a beautiful collection of butterfly jewelry (which includes ear rings, a neklace, and a brooch). The sweatshirt is mine (unless it doesn't fit), but the jewelry will be held onto for when my daughter is a little older. She is currently six, and this jewelry is not really kids stuff... A friend of mine absolutely loves anything butterfly - I *know* I will have some 'splaining to do here.. :)

Speaking of pictures though, I did manage to snap a few with my phone camera. My phone cam has let me down in the past, so I wasn't expecting any high quality shots. I wasn't disappointed. Even more though, my phone has revealed another glaring disappointment - I recorded some videos of the "A Cappella Fellas" song "Dick in a box" (too funny). Unfortunately the phone only saves 30 seconds of video at a time, records that video in an obscure format (.3g2), and even after getting the video up on YouTube (because there is no convenient Linux based tools to convert it), it turns out the video is just that - only video - no sound. Good thing I have a new phone on order, this one will be experiencing gravity related injuries in the near future.

I took some pictures of the raffle prizes, and the loot in the swag bag we were given when we left, with my video camera. The vid cam also is not that great of a camera, but it is leagues better than the phone cam. All that paper you see in the pics of the loot, er I mean swag bag items, those are gift certificates and/or business cards for the the businesses that helped sponsor the event.

Here are the pics I did manage to get: