Not Long Now...

Phew! I think I'm finally ready for the big night tomorrow. I've gotten all the silent auction items wrapped up and just finished writing up the bid sheets for each one. There aren't nearly as many items as I was aiming for, in fact, at nine so far it's about half of what I was expecting. Still, they're all great items that should be pretty easy to get rid of. I calculated that if everything goes just for its minimum bid price (rouhgly 30-35% of its retail value) then we'll bring in a little less than $200 for the LAF. Of course, I hope that most of the items will go for more than that and I could end up with closer to $300.

I wish I had thought of this months ago so I could have planned it better and maybe pulled in a lot more, but I'll probably still give myself a pat on the back when all is said and done for getting this thing together in a just about a week and a half. If I ever find myself in a position to do something similar I'll have this experience to help me do it better. (Honestly, though, I don't wanna do this again, it's wicked hard! I'm exhausted.)

Here's a list of the auction items and their full retail value:

Two bottles of wine from Telluride Bottle Works, $45
ExOfficio shirt from Telluride Outside, $50
Gift Certificate from Brown Dog Pizza, $30
Gift Certificate from Steaming Bean Coffee Co, $50
Gift Certificate from Tommy's, $50
Gift Certificate from La Marmotte, $75
One Bottle of wine from Telluride Liquors, $15
Full tune-up for a mountain bike from Paragon Sports, $50
Two hour massage and/or healing session from Telluride Natural Medical Center, $160

That last one is interesting. I got a phone call two days ago from a woman named Sunny McCory. She said she read the article about me in the Telluride Watch. She's an "intuitive healer," which is a phrase I hadn't heard before, but she specializes in helping people with cancer and she was really interested in finding a way to help out with my project. How cool is that? I think she was hoping that there would be people at Tommy's tomorrow night who might be able to take advantage of what she has to offer, but I had to tell her that I'm not sure if that'll be the case. It would be fantastic if the local press I've gotten attracts people in town that have or have survived cancer, but I don't know very many in town, so that may not happen. Still, I'm certain a two-hour massage won't go cheaply.

So some of the nerves are subsiding now that I've gotten all the preparations and all the press out of the way (I did a brief radio announcement on KOTO that'll be broadcast during the news today and tomorrow morning; and I had an interview and an on-the-bike photo shoot with the Daily Planet for an article to run tomorrow; it was a busy day). With all of this running around and all the rain we've gotten I've had very little time on the bike this past week. So now I'm a bit more anxious about the first few legs of the ride than I was before I got bogged down in all the fund raising, but oh well, it'll be fine. I can't wait to get riding. In fact, I may actually leave a day or two early just to satisfy the little demon in my gut that won't let me sit still. We'll see.