The past two weekends have been pretty busy for us.

Last Sunday (9/16) was the third year in a row our Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.) Chapter has sponsored the Akron area “Bikers For Boobs”  Poker run.

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, a poker run is a motorcycle ride with a series of stops.  At each stop, you receive a card.  Depending on the poker run – you may or may not get to keep the card.  (Hundreds of bikers means the organizers have to supply dozens of decks of cards!)

If you don’t keep the card – then the organizers tally the card for you on a piece of paper – which you then carry from stop to stop.

You receive 5 cards in all – and whomever has the best hand at the end of the day – wins.

Some poker runs (like BFB) will allow you to buy an additional card in case your hand is salvageable.

Unfortunately – my poker hands are invariably pretty poor – I’d need to buy 3-4 cards to have a chance at a decent hand…

In 2010 during the first BRB, Julie and I were signed up to help with registrations – but they had plenty of overlapping coverage – so they didn’t need us.  That year we just bought t-shirts – went on the ride, and had a great time.

In 2011, Julie was still recovering from her surgery – so we skipped it entirely – but Julie did buy a t-shirt to help support the cause.  We really missed it – and vowed that health issues permitting – we’d be back for it the following year.

In 2012, we volunteered again – for any job – and the job we were assigned was to pass out the first card at the starting point of the ride.

The sponsor of our H.O.G. chapter has a new dealership in Chapel Hill (large Akron area shopping center) with a very large parking lot (used to be a Circuit City) so everyone gathered there to sign up, and to draw their first card.  Luckily the parking lot is very big – since by the time the ride officially started, it was FULL of motorcycles!

Julie and I joined another couple for the first card drawings – since pairs worked best.  One person holds the bag with loose cards for the participant to pick – and the other person records the selected card on their tally sheet.

We had a continuous stream of people in line – a line that seemed like it would never end for over an hour straight, before things started to slow down.

The turnout was MUCH greater than anticipated, this ride just keeps getting bigger and bigger each year – which is AWESOME!  These are the kind of ‘problems’ that comes with success.

The ride was setup so the first bike out would be at 10:00, and the last bike out was at noon.  By 11:30 most people had gotten their first card and were on the ride – so Julie and I were able to set out ourselves.

We rode to three different stops to collect cards 2,3,4 – and then the ride ended after 107 miles at an Akron area restaurant that routinely puts on bike nights during the summer – so they had a decent sized parking lot also.

In 2010, the ride made $5,000 for breast cancer, and in 2011 it made $11,000.  This years ride was the most successful yet – and we were told it made $17,000…

All of the money goes to local cancer care centers in the Akron area – not to some big national thing like the Komen foundation – where half of the money may be tied up in admin costs etc…

When we actually arrived at the restaurant and received our last card – Julie won a nice door prize, but the line for food was so long and moving so slowly (they were overwhelmed) we went home to eat.

Other people has similar gripes about the food service so next year they are planning on trying a different strategy to make it more efficient.  While they put on weekly bike nights – they have never gotten this many people all at once, so were didn’t know what to expect.

Since this was a motorcycle ride – it was of course very dependent on weather, and the weather on the 16th was perfect.  Considering that the ride was planned many months in advance (8!) this was phenomenal luck – especially since the weekend after had such poor weather in comparison.

***

This past Sunday (9/23) we attended a Pot Luck fundraiser in Bedford for the wife of one of our friends.  The husband is someone whom I worked with in the 90’s and is now someone whom we occasionally attend GeoCaching events with.  He and his wife have been married now for 8 years, but have known each other for over 15 years.

This past Spring, his wife went to the doctor after finding a painful lump in her breast.  After having some tests (X-Rays) ran – they headed for home.  While they were still driving, the doctors office called to let them know they believe the mass shown on the X-Rays was cancer – and they wanted her to schedule a surgery to remove it ASAP.

 His wife had the surgery to remove the lump about a week or so later and the followup biopsy showed it was indeed cancerous.

This started an ordeal of surgeries including a followup surgery to ensure that all cancerous cells from the surrounding area were removed, and they also removed some lymph nodes for checking. (My research showed that the removal of lymph nodes is a standard procedure in cases like this)

Unfortunately, the story keeps getting worse, 8 of the 9 lymph nodes tested as positive.

Further testing revealed some traces in her lungs – which bumped her right to stage 4.  Stage 4 is when the cancer has spread to the surrounding organs – no matter how many – or how extensively.

She is only 42 (I think) and has no prior history in her family for breast cancer – so she always considered herself to be low risk.

She was originally fitted with a port for chemo – but later analysis of the lab cancerous specimens showed that (at least for now) her cancer should be treatable via hormones.

They are giving her medication to shut down her ovaries, and will be removing them entirely at a later date.

She has missed a LOT of work with all of these surgeries and the related recovery time – and even with him having a good job – house expenses were starting to add up – such as their basement sewer line breaking.

To help them out – some of their friends came up with the idea of a Pot Luck fundraiser and advertised it on Facebook.  We immediately accepted the event invite (yay for Facebook!) and we reserved that date (yesterday) on our calendar.

To raise money – during the potluck there were multiple 50/50 raffles and “The Big Board Reverse Raffle”.  The latter was something I had never participated in before. It consisted if a  big board with 80 squares hanging from it – numbered from 1 to 80.

For $20 you could buy a square.  Once all of the squares were sold  – there were 35 (I think) donated prizes – so they would pick 45 numbers and throw them out.

So – unlike a normal raffle – if your number was initially called – you lost…

I bought ’64’ since we both were born in 1964 – and later when the board was down to just a half dozen or so numbers, I also bought ’76’ for 1776…  At this point – we didn’t give a damn if they were winning numbers or not – since the money was going to cause near and dear to us.

Once the big board was completely sold (raising $1600!)  they started pitching numbers out – and both of our picks were NOT called.  So they were winners of something.  (Compared to the two 50/50 drawings we entered which we had no luck with) 

One of the numbers were three pottery vases made by a local artist – which I guess are very nice, if you are into that sort of thing.  Unfortunately, we are not – but I’m sure we will find a good home for them with someone who can appreciate them.

They other prize was a nice book put out by the Bedford Historical society – basically the history of Bedford.  I always enjoy reading these sorts of books – since it gives you a picture of how a town used to look 100 years ago.

***

Last Saturday(15th) , He and his wifeparticipated in the Cleveland Walk/Run for the Cure – which was a Komen foundation ??K Marathon or 5K Walk for breast cancer.

They each had their own team with a goal of raising $250 dollars.  We decided to sponsor them for $100 – and since he was at $175 and she was at $275 – we gave him $75 to get him to his goal, and then donated the remaining $25 to her team.

When we do our taxes – our tax program always tells me that I should have more deductions to lower our tax burden – so I figured that since the $100 is tax deductible – how could I resist?  It is money for a good cause and it reduces my taxes.  Win/Win!  In my opinion, tax deductions like this is one of the few methods you have available to specify how your ‘tax’ money will be spent.  If I hadn’t donated the money – I would have owed $100 more in taxes – taxes that I have no say over their disposition.

We normally give money to local animal shelters and deduct those contributions also.