As I posted here, here and here, I (with James’ help) have been raising money for the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.  After some shipping issues kept me from following through at Codestock, I finally received the shirt the Monday before I left for DevLink. 

Instead of wearing it on the bus, I decided to wear it for the first day of DevLink.  As I was getting dressed that morning, I actually realized it was gonna be a bit tougher than I thought.    The cool thing is that it turned out to be a conversation starter throughout the day and into the evening.  As you can see, it appears to be a picture of the band Ratt.  If you look close, you’ll see it’s this picture (courtesy of James).

Let me give everyone the background on this particular picture.  A few months ago I mentioned on twitter that I had never been to a concert.  I actually caught a lot of flack from people for that simple comment.  Keep in mind that during this twitter exchange, I NEVER mentioned anything about Ratt or wanting to see them.

James, for whatever reason, decided to fire up Photoshop and add me to a picture of the band.  Even as the above twitter conversation was still going on, James twittered the picture.  It has since become a running joke with my friends and was even used as an icebreaker when I first met Sarah.

It still pops up on twitter and IRC every now and then, but now that I’ve turned the tables and actually raised some money for charity, I’m ok with it.

Like I said, it was a conversation starter during DevLink and I enjoyed talking about it AND how it was being used to raise money for the museum.

So, finally, in the end, how much did I raise?  More than I expected, but not as much as I hoped.  Including James’ donation of $125, I received a grand total of $365.  Not bad for the simple act of wearing a t-shirt.   I’ll be heading to Ann Arbor soon to hand them a check.  I hope to get a picture while I’m there.  If I do, I’ll update this post.

Personally, I would love to see more of us do things like this to raise money for charities we care about.  It definitely feels good.