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Click to make your donation - http://austin09.livestrong.org/jerry

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Viva LiveStrong - Renew Commitment

   Ten years ago we were married & not long afterwards, I was diagnosed with cancer. Either scenario will cause great change in your life, but toss the two together and you're mixing stress, emotion, pain, struggle & challenge in one bucket. There's no telling where you'll end up. Throw in an extra cancer diagnosis (5 years later) and our life took a direction we didn't plan but have been blessed to travel. Last month we were in Dublin, Ireland for the LiveStrong Global Cancer Summit. Hearing the challenges that people face in other countries and seeing the commitments that countries, groups and individuals made to fight what will be the number one cause of death in the world by 2010 reaffirmed that our involvement to the Lance Armstrong Foundation was the right move. One thing that we've done through years of fundraising, education and cancer awareness events is to try and have fun. So as we celebrate our anniversarys (wedding & diagnosis),  we decided on a LiveStrong Viva Las Vegas Re-Commitment!

So in the spirit of putting our money where our mouth is, we're making a $1000 donation to the LAF for our Re-Commitment. Please consider this opportunity to do the same by clicking here and making any donation in honor, memory or support of someone affected by cancer. And as Elvis would say, Thank You! Thank You Very Much!

Special thanks to the Graceland Chapel in Las Vegas, Elvis and our photographer, Lance (really was his name)

More pics soon, but for a smile, you can watch the video now

 LiveStrong Global Cancer Summit

Aug 24 day one / Aug 25 day two / Aug 26 day three

LiveStrong Global Summit

We're headed to Ireland for the LiveStrong Global Summit. We decided to leave a couple of days early so we could make it to the final stage of the Tour of Ireland to support Lance as well. As will sometimes happen with travel plans, things didn't start off well. Unfortunately we were scheduled to fly on USAir out of Birmingham. This wouldn't have been my choice based on past experience with USAir. We got exactly what I expected from them when they cancelled our flight. It seemed everyone else on the flight was expecting the same result because as soon as the announcement began, people started running back to the counter to try to catch other flights. No help from USAir as they did their best to ignore any request to get people out of Birmingham on other airlines. Our agent was a bit frustrated that we weren't giving in to her refusal and she soon turned us over to another agent. Finally they put us on another flight with Delta to Dublin. The only problem was it departed from Atlanta and there were no flights available out of Birmingham. Without any time to spare, I rented a car, one way to Atlanta, while Angie got our tickets re-issued. We drove straight to the Atlanta airport, hardly dropping below 80mph,(I know I was speeding, a lot), dropped the car, got checked in and ran directly to the gate as the flight was already boarding. Couldn't believe we made it, but we just did. We saw Dr. Sanjay Gupta (and his wife), LAF board member & CNN health correspondent were on our flight, but we didn't have time to speak as we were just happy to make the flight.

Our seats were not close on the plane, but we eventually were able to convince a couple of people to swap seats so we could sit together. The flight was pleasantly uneventful. We took the coach to the hotel and almost immediately dropped for a nap. The frantic schedule change made for a less than restful flight. After a nap we got up and walked to the Temple Bar area, a few kilometers from our hotel. We stopped and had a beer and some food at Oil Can Harry's, then continued to explore.

We ended up in a nice Irish pub called Farrington's. There was some live music playing on one side of the bar, while a big screen tv had the soccer game on the other side. The Guinness brew was the obvious favorite of the locals. No surprise since the brewery is close by. The bartender motioned for some help as he said three lads were in a fight on the opposite side of the bar from us. We stayed put and finished our beer before moving on. Started getting a light rain on our walk back to the hotel, but not bad. We made it back and stopped in the pub at the hotel to get some food before crashing. It had been a long day and we were glad to be in Dublin. Our plan for tomorrow was to take a train to Cork, a three hour ride, see the final stage of the Tour of Ireland, which Lance is racing, then train back to Dublin for the starting event of the Global Cancer Summit.

Canal along our walk

Strange Eye, Mouth, Nose Door

Sun Aug 23, 2009

Up at 6am as we were planning on catching a train this morning. As we looked close at the return schedule, we noticed it would be hard, if not impossible to make it back in time for an event at the Dublin Castle tonight. It had nothing to do with the weather forecast for the race finish in Cork today of 100% chance of rain (and cold). Hmm. Scratch head, realize Angie is not going to be happy if she misses the Dublin Castle, change plans, go back to bed. Sorry Lance, good luck in the rain today. We'll cheer for you in a dry pub somewhere. Hate that we'll miss seeing Chechu, also. He had come back from retiring to race with Lance this year and we haven't heard what his racing future holds yet. May have been our last chance to see him.

We've got a few familiar faces arriving in Dublin today so we look forward to seeing them.

   We crashed back in the bed to help get some sleep and reduce our jetlag hang-over since we know this will be a busy few days. I got up before Angie and quietly left and walked down to the Royal Dublin Society to pick up our registration packets and immediately found familiar LAF staffers, Helen, Tina & Missy. The Dublin volunteers were great and made everything smooth as delegates from around the world checked in.

   I walked back to our hotel and stirred Angie up and we walked back out and got some food at a nice pub. We saw Robert & Rebecca, some Austin friends who were also at the Summit in Ohio last year. After lunch & a beer we walked back to the Summit registration so Angie could see our LAF friends, before returning to our hotel to catch the bus to the Dublin Castle. We saw more staffers, Missy & Jennifer, and ran into more old friends from Cycling Combatting Cancer, an online support group (www.ridetolive.org), Andy Anderson- Belfast, Crawford Inglis - Glasgow & Will Swetnam - Irving,TX. We also saw Johnny Immerman (Immerman Angels) & my RAGBRAI teammate Joe Schneider of Chicago.

   It was a short bus ride to the castle. I'm so glad that we didn't have to rent a car while we were in Ireland. Driving on the opposite side of the road in the opposite side car would have taken more concentration than I wanted to put into that with all the information we were going to be immersed in during the Summit. There were some cool sand sculptures in the courtyard of the castle as we entered.

We had a great time meeting delegates from around the world and hearing their stories. Many of the stories made us realize how fortunate we are to have access to the health care that we do. US Ambassador Rooney, otherwise known to us as the architect of the Pittsburg Steelers, spoke as well as LAF CEO Doug Ulman. We chatted with several people from other countries. Very Interesting & inspiring stories. The busses took us back to the hotel and we split a dinner in the pub in our restaurant, then called it a night. Ready for an amazing experience to start.

Ceiling in the castle  

Our favorite Scottsman, Crawford Inglis with Angie

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Make a donation in Honor, in Memory or in Support of someone affected by cancer here!

Keep those names coming! We currently have names from 41 US states, including 14 countries (Ireland, Great Britain, Netherlands, France, Australia, Sweden, Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Durban (South Africa)