Hello, Discoverylover!

I’m always amazed at your bounciness. If I am Winnie the Pooh, you are Tigger. If I had designed this webpage, it would be elegant copperplate font on a parchment background.* If there were background music, it might be Mozart or Barbra. You’d select Sister Hazel!

The thought of dyeing the sparse remnants of my middle-aged hair some cheery colour such as pink or blue fills me with horror. I’d look at myself in the mirror and shriek in fright.

So I’m hoping for someone to come save me. A big donation for “no colour” would be a godsend. There’s not even a “silver” option so I can look distinguished as opposed to ridiculous.

I’m glad you got blue for a hair colour. We only need to look at the background to this page to know how much you love it. Matching your eyes.

You’ll like just fine. But not for me blue or purple or, horror of all horrors, pink. Noooo!

If it wasn’t for a worthy cause, I’d bail out. I guess I’ll just have to take what’s coming to me with as much grace as I can muster up under a fringe of green and blue and orange hair.

Yours aye,
Skyring

PS. Vote for “no colour” here. Please!

* As I recall, after I registered the domain and before I gave you admin rights, it was! But I like what you’ve done with it.

Hey Skyring,

So my first colour has been chosen, and in a bit of a freak jump forward, I managed to get my favourite colour, blue

But then Kev showed me this colour chart of what colours will fade to, and I’m not so sure about it!

So, I’m kind of hoping that we’ll manage to get to the 90% mark and I’ll be able to dye my hair one of the other colours. Like say purple. Not that I’m going to attempt to get out of it. Some people aren’t like that!!

I’m actually really looking forward to the whole process. I’ve asked Kirsty (my professional hair consultant NOT!) to get the brightest shade of blue she can find, and even if it looks terrible when it fades, I’ll at least be able to rock the look until it starts doing so!

Luckily for me, Kirsty’s actually going to help me dye it, so hopefully we won’t make too much of a mess of it….and hopefully she won’t try and get me back for the dye job I did for her a few years ago!

Although at least I’ll be able to tell people that I’ve got blue blood :p

If you want to help me realise my goal of having at least 2 or 3 colours, you can still donate here. Just saying!

Smiles, DL

Hello, Discoverylover!

Skyring here. I remember the Kansas City Unconvention we attended in 2009. It was a lot of fun, but there weren’t as many attending as there might have been, possibly due to the Global Financial Meltdown. The organisers were left seriously out of pocket.

I can’t stand by and let that happen again. I shall join you in your dyeing challenge!

Yours aye,
Skyring

Hey Skyring,

You may know that BC in DC are in a bit of financial strife. Well quite a bit if their website is anything to go by. So a few of us have come up with a harebrained (you’ll groan in a second!) scheme to help make them some money.

How it’s going to work is this. Once again I’m putting my hair on the line. But this time it’s going to be slightly different. Instead of threatening to shave my head, I, and a couple of the convention organisers, will be dying our hair a variety of colours. How many (colours that is!) depends on what percentage of progress we make to not have the convention be in debt.

So, when we hit 50% (just 7.1% to go at time of writing), I’ll be dying my hair one colour. At 60% Crrcookie will dye her hair one colour. At 70%KateKintail will dye her hair one colour. At 80% Melydia will dye her hair one colour. Then at 90% we’ll all dye our hair a second colour,and when we finally get to 100% we’ll all dye our hair 3 colours.

Now the colours, you may wonder, who gets to choose the colours! It’s been set up so that you can choose a colour when you vote. So if you want to specifically just donate money for this, then go here, click on the colour button you would like someone to dye their hair, and donate however much you would like. Every little bit helps. The colours are: no colour choice (if you don’t want us to dye our hair a colour), red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink. If the colours are tied when we hit 50% etc then I’ll get to choose which colour I want of the 2

Now, bearing in mind that any other money they make from more registrations, raffling off a Bally Blanket, purchasing merchandise/tickets, becoming a bookworm, and other donations will be included in our grand total, so you could ice two cakes with one spoon and get a couple of things out of it!

RTS!

Discoverylover

PS it’s only ONE MONTH TILL I LEAVE FOR THE USA!!

Hello, Discoverylover!

It’s me, Skyring!

Being a taxidriver, I get to do a lot of driving, and it is with a sense of relief and happiness that I hear on the grapevine that you have passed your driving test and gained your full licence!

Happiness for you, because it is always good when you get that tick of confidence from the official world. It might be a degree, a licence, enrolment as a voter – it’s all one step forward and upwards. Well done!

And relief, because next month you and I are going to drive Route 66 together, and it was shaping up that I was going to be the only driver in the party. Driving half the day and night in my regular employment is one thing, but doing the same thing on holiday is too much!

I well remember when we drove around the Midwest in 2009, and sometimes I’d be so tired I’d have to pull off whatever Interstate we were driving on for a nap. It didn’t really help that all too often while cruising the endless miles of fourlane I’d glance over at you on the far side of the enormous American car, and you’d be fast asleep!

This time I’m going to bring a pillow with me, and I’ll gain my revenge – a sleepy sort of revenge while you drive.

I’ve been inspired by the way that people in Christchurch have been helping out in the rescue and recovery efforts. With shovels and wheelbarrows, the dirt and rubble has been cleared away, without any thought of reward as strangers help strangers and neighbours help neighbours. People have offered their spare bedrooms to those who have lost their houses. All over that stricken city, those in need have found a helping hand.

Streets may be relaid, and houses rebuilt, but for hundreds of families there are gaps that can never be filled, with loved ones lost in the earthquake. It just tears the heart out of me to hear the stories of the survivors, often just a step or two away from losing their own lives as buildings collapsed around them.

I try to do one good deed a day. All too often, late at night, I’ll get an anxious inquiry from someone peering in at my cab window. They have missed the last bus, or lost their wallet, or it’s raining and they have no raincoat. “How much to Red Hill?” they’ll ask. Or “I’ve only got ten dollars – can you take me part of the way home?”

It might not be good for my own wallet, and maybe I’m just a soft touch, but when I get such a passenger home, I’ll clear the meter and announce, “That’s fine!”

They’ll look at me, puzzled, and I’ll tell them it’s one the house – but if they really want to pay me, they just need to do one thing. Do something nice for a stranger.

And nine times out of ten, they will smile and I know that somewhere, sometime soon, someone I’ve never met will have something nice happen to them. Something unexpected.

There are more things in life than money, and if it’s giving someone a lift, or carrying someone’s bags, or sharing an umbrella on a rainy day, or even just smiling at a stranger, somehow it makes the world a richer place.

But I think you already know this!

Yours aye,
Skyring