Delurking for totally selfish purposes

[Papa Moose]

Please forgive.

Hi, guys. Not even sure who all will remember me, but some of those who do might tell you I'm a nice enough guy. If they tell you otherwise, well... ask someone else until you get a nice answer?

My family and I were chosen to be finalists in Parenting magazine's Family Road Trip contest, and voting is open for the next month or so. I couldn't say whether we're more or less deserving of winning -- we don't think in terms of "deserving" since it's hard to be deserving of being given something for free -- but I figure if we get the most people to vote then we're bringing their website the most hits for their advertising, which is undoubtedly part of their goal -- probably a big part, since the contest doesn't even seem to be accessible from the main site page, so it'll only be found by people sent to it.

So the voting page is here. Some people only seem to be able to vote once a day, and some seem to be able to vote as much as they want. Might have to do with opening a separate tab/window rather than refreshing, but I couldn't tell you for sure. Anyway, if any of you is willing to vote for us, we'd appreciate it greatly. We could use a lift. No registration is required to vote -- just a captcha thingy.

"Vote early, vote often!"

Thanks for your time,
Pop

[Luet]

I'll do what I can Papa. How many Mooselets do you have now? I remember you won the trivia contest at Endercon, right? Hope you win!

[Papa Moose]

Yes, that was me. We had one mooseling at Endercon (Mooselet is the eldest's name, but they're all mooselings), and we've had three more since (Superstation, Squoose, and Witthany). They're an awfully cute group/tribe/herd/dray/scurry.

[Dr. Mobius]

Aren't you married to a squirrel or am I confusing you with someone else? I do remember you though from way back when and I voted.

[Papa Moose]

I am (thus the Squoose name, and dray/scurry as group identifier).

Thank you both!

[Dr. Mobius]

You should stick around. (says the guy who's practically a lurker anymore himself >.>)

[Stroke]

I'm a huge fan of these recent de-lurkings.

Great to hear from you Papa Moose!

[steph]

It made me smile to see you post, Pop! Going to vote right now!

[Mich]

My words upon seeing the latest poster: "Holy crap, it's Papa Moose. Lot of oldies popping in lately."

Voting is underway.

[Rei]

Very neat! As others have already said, it's great to see you post! I hope you win this thing!

[Syphon the Sun]

Voted!

And the last one I remember you guys having was Superstation. Maybe you should stop by more often.

[Papa Moose]

Actually I was here briefly post-Squoose. Witthany (or Sweet Potato, depending on my mood) is still less than a year old.

Before the questions. Superstation's initials are TBS. Squoose is a Squirrel/Moose hybrid name, and Witthany was because our choice of name for her was down to Elizabeth Anne (with an e) or Nicole Frances (with an e). With an e = Witthany. Sweet Potato is what her poop smelled like for a couple weeks, and it's a cute name.

[Luet]

It looks like you are only being being beaten by the family with triplets, right now (dang triplets!). I was able to vote multiple times in a row, so I'll keep at it.

[steph]

Some of these people want me to vote for them when their family picture is taken at Disney World or on horses? They obviously have more money than me, if that's the case, or they've already won things. In either case, I would rather vote for someone who couldn't afford a vacation!

Voted for you several more times!

[Rei]

I seem to only be able to vote once a day, but I'm keeping at it, too.

[VelvetElvis]

Well, I keep voting, but I don't see the vote count rising. Maybe it's slow to catch up.

[Rei]

That's kind of my guess, that it's slow to rise up. After all, how do they rise up, rise up, rise up?

[Papa Moose]

We got the following e-mail this morning (nor prompted by us, but probably by someone):

Hi!

I just wanted to send out an update to let you know that as of today, please encourage people to vote as many times as they can. We originally set the voting up as one time per day, per IP address, but starting this week we are allowing people to vote as often as possible. The number shown on the page is sometimes not updated immediately after refresh, as a result of browser-side caching, however, the votes will be counted as long as the users successfully complete the captcha. Again, the voting will be live until 11/16.

Hope this helps clear up any confusion and good luck to your family!

Thanks!

My guess is that their once per IP address wasn't working for everyone, and somebody complained, so now it's a free-for-all. We have a lot of catching up to do, so anyone who has some free time please go vote for us a time or two hundred!

Thanks,
Pop

[Jayelle]

I voted a bunch! Hope you guys win.

I was really shocked to see you have FOUR kids already, but then I realized that it's been almost 10 years since I joined pweb, so it isn't actually that fast.
I mean, heck, I have 1 and *checks sig* 80% of another.

[locke]

MOOOSE!

voting, often. you're in the lead, atm.

[Rei]

I was kind of amazed to see the counts jump up 5000 votes while I was at work, yesterday.

[neo-dragon]

Voting for you repeatedly is just the kind of thing that will allow me to procrastinate without feeling guilty for it.

Anyone else need something easy that can be done while sitting in front of my computer?

[locke]

I voted several times last night and tonight I just held down ctrl and clicked the link like twenty times so I could just rush in another couple dozen votes. How did we ever live without tabbed browsing again?
---
Anyways, I've been thinking of whether or not to post this on pweb, but it's been going up on Facebook, so what the hey.

if you want to help promote science education, it would be amazing if you could donate to my mom's project on Donor's Choose.

She's trying to raise money to buy equipment to hatch and raise chicks from eggs in her first grade classroom. Since the implementation of No Child Left Behind science instruction has been slashed repeatedly (and funding even moreso) much to her dismay as its her favorite subject to teach with the younger ones because you can do so much hands on learning. She loves teaching this chicks program because it really gets the kids to understand the life cycle and so many basic biology principles from the ground up. She's teaching in a rural district that is very high poverty (if you've seen the movie Winter's Bone, set in rural southern Missouri, that's about par for the course). and they simply don't have funding to purchase $700 in equipment for science instruction. The district is so small there are only two schools, an elementary school and a combo middle/high school.

But this is a great investment because not only is it something she can use every year, but equipment she can share with other first grade teachers in her school so they can also teach the unit.

Even donating a dollar or five dollars would be immensely helpful and amazing. Every dollar closer to the goal is great, because it raises the projects priority on the main page, and the same is true the more donors we get, people like to donate to popular projects that have momentum.

Ever since I saw waiting for Superman a few weeks ago, I've been giving to Donors Choose. I give a weekly donation of $25 and I signed up to also do a monthly automatic donation of $10 (they give you a $50 giftcard if you do that). If you see the movie, you get a free fifteen dollar giftcard with your ticket purchase to donate to the classroom project of your choice on Donors Choose website. Likewise, if you buy the book, there is also a $15 giftcode to donors choose included in the back of the book.

In just a few weeks, by giving only a few dollars a week, I've already helped 101 students and seen 3 projects I donated to completed.

[Wil]

Damn, you're ahead by 3280 votes. Last time I checked you weren't in the lead. Nice!

[Papa Moose]

Thank you, all.

If only the voting ended today. But this is a marathon, not a sprint -- it goes until November 15th. We're in the lead, but a few thousand, surprisingly, isn't that big a cushion. I had no idea how stressful this was going to make my life for a month.

[Rei]

I'm a bit amazed that it lasts for so long, but I keep voting in spurts. We can't let our favourite Moose family miss winning!

[Eaquae Legit]

Hey folks, I'm just going to sticky this, okay? Otherwise it'll fall to the bottom and we'll all forget.

[Rei]

Good idea. I am pleased to see they are doing so well, but we mustn't slack!

[Luet]

Looks like the Moose family is still in the lead at this point with 27.7k votes but now the Himes family is in second place with 14.5k. Go Papa!

[Rei]

Wow, they're now up to 38,100 votes with the runner up at nearly 19,000!

It only goes until the 15 November, yes?

[Papa Moose]

Yes, November 15th is the last day, we were told. Don't know if that's beginning of the 15th, end of the 15th, which time zone, etc. Our lead seems secure enough that other families have stopped trying, which is good I guess, but also sad in that last leaf falling sort of way.

[locke]

---
Anyways, I've been thinking of whether or not to post this on pweb, but it's been going up on Facebook, so what the hey.

if you want to help promote science education, it would be amazing if you could donate to my mom's project on Donor's Choose.

Woo! thanks Ollie!

(and I've a suspicion some other pwebbers may have given, so an open thanks as well to you guys!)

[locke]

And Thanks to Josh as well!

My Mom was very excited that she's so close now (under $200!), I was talking to her tonight and she admitted that she finally let it slip today. She was reading a book about eggs hatching into chicks to her first graders and told them, "now it's a secret and I probably shouldn't tell you... but I'm going to tell you anyway. We might, might get an incubator" which was received with blank looks, so she added, "and an incubator is a machine that lets eggs hatch into chicks right here in our classroom!" which was followed by REALLY excited pandemonium and a barrage of questions. One little girl came up to afterwards with four sets of crossed fingers and said, "I'm crossing ALL my fingers so we'll get the chicks!"

[Dr. Mobius]

I'll probably start donating regularly to that site like you do eventually, but I need to get a few paychecks and work out my budget first.

[locke]

Ollie, you totally rock. My mom was about to take a bath tonight and suddenly my dad yelled up at her that she had to see, her project had been completed! She came running downstairs and just couldn't believe it. She is really excited and says the hardest part now is waiting until spring to start the project, since you can't hatch chicks in winter. I told her she should name a rooster after you.