Eric Tapley

This autumn I’m fortunate to be involved with three great events working for the greater good. I’d like your support if any of these are aligned with causes you believe in either by donating time, money, becoming a corporate sponsor, or just spreading the word.

• · Colitis Walk for a Cure (Oct 14)
• · Art beCAUSE Art + Wine Gala (Oct 24)
• · American Red Cross: Salute to Our Community Heroes (Mar 20)

Please don’t feel obligated by this request - I realize we each work to make a difference in our own ways - but if you want to help I’d appreciate your support of these causes and know it would make a tremendous difference.

GUTS + GLORY | Walk For a Cure for Colitis

I’ve suffered from Colitis since 2002. Thanks to the support of my wife Kate, family, friends, amazing doctors, and three surgeries I’m mostly well and my future remains bright. This isn’t the case for millions of others.

On October 14th Kate will be walking with hundreds of others (and our baby!) to help find a cure for Colitis. As a thank you she’s going to mail out signed photos of Baby Sam to all who make a donation, so this is both an opportunity to support a great cause and obtain some baby cuteness.

Kate has raised $300 toward her goal of $750. You can help by pledging online at: https://www.kintera.org/

ART BECAUSE | Art + Wine Gala

Art beCAUSE is committed to funding research dedicated to eradicating the environmental causes of breast cancer (another c-word I’m really not fond of). I’m a new Board member and am proud that 3000k was able to donate our design talent to the save the date cards, invitations, and other event materials.

On October 24th we’re hosting our 5th annual gala to honor pioneering scientists and announce this year’s Seed the Scientist grants. We’ll provide the art show, dinner, and wine - but we need you to bring the good time!

More info and gala registration: http://www.artbecause.org/artbecause/abweb/wineabout.asp

AMERICAN RED CROSS | Saluting Our Community Heroes

Our local Red Cross chapter has recognized and honored local heroes who’ve risen to uncommon challenges for years (among the many other incredible things our chapter does). Once again this March we’re celebrating people who make Central Massachusetts such a great place to live.

We’re looking for hero nominations, corporate sponsors, donations, and starting in January will be selling tickets to the event.

Nominate a hero: http://www.redcrossworcester.org/hero-application.php

Become a corporate or event sponsor: http://www.redcrossworcester.org/corp_partners/

Donate online: https://www.redcrossworcester.org/donate/online.html

Become a volunteer (lend your flair to make this a great event!): http://www.redcrossworcester.org/volunteer/apply.html

Thanks for your consideration of the Colitis Walk, Art + Wine Gala, and Heroes Salute. Please lend your support, join us at one of the events, learn more about these organizations, and pass the word along (this is a good chance to blog about a local event, hint, hint).

Or continue doing good in your own fashion, and have a better day knowing more about the great things ordinary people are doing for one another and our community!

I haven’t posted anything this year about my annual bout with poison ivy, but I have it yet again (and yes, once again it’s a bad case). This is such old news I just don’t have the heart to go into gruesome detail once again about all of it.

But it’s still affecting me, most immediately by affecting my sleeping patterns. Right now it is after 2:00a and I’m up, alert, when I should be asleep. I’m exhausted, mind you, but I just can’t sleep. And it’s thanks to the steroids and other meds I’m on to help manage the poison ivy. Every time I make a change to my dose - increase or decrease - my system goes all wonky for a few days.

I’m getting over the poison ivy so right now I’m on a downward taper of the steroids. It’s making me moody and sleep deprived. Ah, well, in a few days it’ll be over, and at least the itching has stopped. And in the meantime you know why I’m cranky and have droopy eyes!

An example of one of the new .Mac sets… here’s a quick group of photos clearly showing that our boy loves peaches.

I recently upgraded to the new version of Apple’s iLife (which I love) and am especially happy with the updates to iPhoto. One addition is a .Mac “web gallery” feature for photo publishing. This has made editing and publishing photos much easier for me, especially when I just want to share some great Sam shots with friends and family, and means I’ll be able to post more photos more often.

That said, you can now regularly see updated photos of the baby and our little family events at http://gallery.mac.com/erictapley. Enjoy!