I finally have some time and computer access to write this thing.

Avon Walk for Breast Cancer vs. Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3 Day.

OK, I've been meaning for a while to sit down and compare the two breast cancer walks.

Anyone who knows me knows which walk I favor based on my experiences. These are taken from my experiences and mine alone. Disclaimer, done.

Lets start at the very beginning...

My breast cancer walk journey began over a year ago. I started looking into doing a multi-day breast cancer walk for a while. I had participated in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, which in and overnight event, for years.

Little back ground on the Relay: The Relay for Life is an "overnight" event. I put "overnight" in quotation marks because while the event last a full twenty-four hours, it's not really "camping out" over night.

The event is twenty four hours long to symbolize that "cancer never sleeps"

"Camp" is set up on a football field and the runners run around the track. Each team is given one plot for tent space. There's really no sleeping at the event, other than maybe a short nap. I've tried to sleep, but the noise for the event is too much to sleep through, at least for me. Tents are mostly used to store drinks, snack, etc. At least one member of each team must be on the track for the full twenty four hours.

So the big change for me between the events is the idea of an actual camp out. As in, overnight, lights out time.

Lets get started...

I started requesting information for both walks in 2007. My boyfriend at the time had brought up interest in the Susan G. Komen Walk, after doing research I was leaning against Komen upon learning they give money to Planned Parenthood, which, if you know me, you know I'm strictly pro-life and do not support Planned Parenthood at all. Plus, I am and avid user of Avon products.

*Side note: I am not the only one who had the attitude of "I won't support Susan G. Komen because donations go to pay for abortions" based on the information that the beneficiary gives money to Planned Parenthood, or a similar agency, and therefore their donation would be supporting abortion.

Let me clarify the reality of the situation. Breast Cancer charities grant hundreds of millions of dollars to fund research, education, screening and treatment programs all over the world. These dollars are specifically allocated to breast cancer related programs, and saving lives. When a request for a grant does not in some way relate directly to their specific mission of supporting breast cancer research, education or treatment, that grant is denied. Grant money from Breast Cancer charities are not used to fund abortions, hand out condoms, provide education about sexually transmitted diseases or for any other purpose. The money that is granted is audited to make sure it is used specifically, and exclusively, to fund breast cancer related programming. Similarly, these same charities provide grant dollars to hospitals for breast cancer education, screening or treatment. While those facilities may also perform heart transplants, do appendectomies, or deliver babies, the money from Breast Cancer charities is specifically used only for programs related directly to breast cancer.*

 

Phase 1: Recruiting & Orientation

When you go to either walk's web site, there will be a "request information" form where you fill out your name, address, and email information and information will be sent to you.

Immediately after fill out the form, you will receive a conformation email, saying "your information is on it's way".

One leg up for Avon is the follow up. Within a few days, you will receive a call for email from someone in the Avon office asking if you have any questions.

For both walks, you will receive a packet in the mail with a registration form, brochure, and a DVD with some inspiring interviews and information.

There are also call out meetings.

These meeting, while aimed mostly at recruiting new participants, are tragically a starting point/ reunion for returnees.

These meeting last about an hour and consist of a speaker who gives a power point slide show of event information, fundraising and training tips, shows an international video and has a Q & A session.

Again, these meetings are aimed at new people who've never done this before. There's is only a brief mention of "if you don't want to walk, you can crew or volunteer."

Avon has a special crew call out meeting, but there was only one in an inconvenient location.

I feel both walks need to put some more emphasis on what you can do other than walk. I understand that walker are where most of their funds come from. But some people just can't do it, for many reason.

Phase 2: the Kick Off:

Both walks have an official kick off event.

With Avon, the event is late January. The date is the same in every city hosting an Avon Walk.

With the 3 Day, the kick off is about two months before the events.

Avon having the date the same in every city goes great with the "we're all one for the cause" philosophy, but hurts people who participate in more than one event.

The Avon walk's kick off party is really just a call out meeting on a larger scale.

It took place at the Sears Tower, nice big venue with breath taking view. But if you've been to a get started meeting already, you're not going to learn anything new.

There's a few sponsors there handing out free goodies, but that's about it.

The Komen kick off is aimed less at recruiting, as most people are already signed up. It's more of a "where do you go from here" With training, fundraising, how and what to pack tips.

Phase 3: training & fundraising

Upon registering, both walk give you your own personal website, something like "www.thewalkwebsite.org/yourname", to send emails and collect donations.

The personal pages our set up so even the most computer illiterate person can figure it out, though my mom would probably stills screw it up. They come with a generic "welcome to my personal page, please donate" message. You can change that with a more personal biography story, who you're walking in honor of, etc. You can also up load pictures and keep a blog.

The downside, is those of us that have somewhat decent computer knowledge, and what to give out personal pages more oomph, it's not possible. The best I could do was put a link to my You Tube account in the blog area.

The walk websites have tons of ideas and sample fundraising letters as well as message boards.

As always, where there is a message board, there's people that have to start stuff.

Training walks are volunteer lead. I only did one but found it quite fun.

Crew:

Crew has a training day. Typically it starts with everyone going over general information, then break into individual crew teams. i.e.: Security, set up, food servers, medical crew, etc

I give favor to the Komen crew day because they provided lunch. Free food always get extra points with me :)

Phase 4: The Countdown

Check in has to be a logistics nightmare. Try to account for 7,000+ people!

Avon:

Avon's check in required the day before the event. For crew, it no biggie, they have to be there the day before for set up anyway. But for walkers, especially one traveling for out of the area, that's an extra night they have to pay to stay in a hotel room, or drive all the way back.

Avon's hotel planning was poor. There was only one hotel. I don't know how many rooms they had in their block of rooms, but they were booked solid very early on. People were complaining months before the event that they couldn't get a room.

If I remember correctly, there were about 20,000 participants, one block of rooms is just plain unacceptable.

Also, the "discount" we got was insane. I know it was a pretty high end hotel, but if $200 a night is a discount, I don't want to know what the usual rate is. Plus the hotel charges $15 a per day to park, which Avon says is out of their control. So you had to pay to leave your car for the weekend even after you check out of the hotel to head to camp.

Also, if you read my rant in my blog, it seems Avon expected more people to share rooms than planned.

Brief recap: I had made a hotel reservation early on. I met someone at he kick off and became friends. She asked if she could stay with me, since by that time the hotel was booked. I later received an email from a crew captain telling me (not asking) that another crew member need a place to stay and was basically assigning her to my room.

When I replied that I already have two people sharing a room with one bed, so that won't work, the response I got was "Every year, my husband and I get a double room and we have at least six people. Last year we had two people per bed and 3 more who slept on the floor". In other words, she wasn't taking no for an answer.

The day of "Event Eve" as they call it. Not being down there to see this first hand so I don't know for sure. But it seems during the check in process, it when something like "OK, you need a place to stay tonight? This room only has three people... Go to room 417"

After checking in, I had four additional people show up to my hotel room saying they were assigned to that room. Keep in mind, this room is reserved in my name and charged to MY CREDIT CARD! No one, other than the girl I met at the kick off, offered me any money for their share of the room.

Aside from the obvious disrespect on Avon's part, giving away people rooms without their consideration.

Considering that room was in my name and reserved with my credit card, I'm actually really curious as to the legality of this on the hotel's part, giving away keys to MY ROOM without my permission and before I even checked in. Yes there was one person already in the room when I got there.

I'll bet if the hotel got sued, they'd never host an Avon event again.

This is the point where I left Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Yes, I went home at this point and didn't participate in the walk.

3 Day:

The Komen walk has online check in. You log into your personal page, do a final check on your information, watch a short rules video, and you can also pay for any extras you want.

Komen has an option, if you want to be about to pack lighter, to pay a fee for towel service.

They also had about five different hotels blocked off, more rooms! Including a designated crew hotel, which had a earlier shuttle.

Crew still had to be there the day before to set up. Since I was on the camp set up crew, hotel wasn't an issue for me, we slept at the camp site.

We also got our tent assignments in advance. The day after the list of tent mates was sent out via email, I received an email from my tent mate introducing herself. I thought that was a great gesture on her part. That did a lot to ease my nervousness about bunking with a total stranger.

The check in process seemed pretty well run. Sign in, load your luggage on a truck. quick introductions, and off to the campsite to set up.

I won't bore you with the logistics of set up, it was covered in my last blog about the walk.

Take off!:

I wasn't able to attend opening ceremonies because I was on set up duty at the campsite.

The morning at the campsite was busy but at the same time quiet. The set up crew was kind of taking it easy since we worked all day the day before. Until the gear and ten crew showed up with the walker's luggage to be unloaded. The crew had our boxed lunches, the same as the walkers had on the route.

Once the walkers started arriving, the camp site transformed into an amazing village.

The entrance of the village was set up with the check in crew waiting to greet the walkers. Just inside, was the information tent and then the dinning tent (huge), the "living room" sponsored by LaCriox water, with lounge chairs, snacks and web cam set up for anyone who wanted to go the website and see what was going on, the 3 Day Post Office, where we could pick up out mail, (thanks again Justin and Bjorn)

Throughout the side, they had "3 Day Radio" fed in via satellite. This was really cool. As was "The 3 Day Times" our daily newspaper.

Closing ceremonies was amazing as well.

Other stuff:

One thing that Susan G. Komen supporters disagree with Avon, is the amount of freebies Avon gives away on there. Critics claim all the money for prizes could be going to cancer research, which is the whole point of the event.

In the 3 Day, they give out a lot of stickers and pins, but not t-shirts, hats, lipstick and other stuff like Avon.

In Avon you got a t-shirt when you sign up, then two more for the walk. Really, who needs 3 of the same shirt?

So there you have it. I will defiantly be participating in the 3 Day again. Haven't decided if I'm going to come back and do the one in Chicago next year or do the one in Philadelphia. (yes, for those of you who don't know, I'm moving to Philly!)

Again, these are simply MY experiences with the two walks. Take what you will from them.

*HUGS*

K.J.

My dear pet rat, Inar, passed away this morning sometime between 4:00 am and 6:30 am.

I woke up to use the bathroom around 4:00 am and peeked in his cage., he was breathing. At 6:30 am when I got up, he wasn't.

These last few weeks have been really hard watching him like this. I just hope now, he's at least comfortable.

From the first time I laid eyes on him a year and a half ago, I knew he was destined to be mine.

I was taking out the trash and there he was. looking at me with his one eye with a look that said "please take me! Please don't leave me out here to die"

After bringing him inside I saw not only was he missing an eye, but someone had taken a bite out of his ear and his left foot was chewed up.

Him and my other pet rat, Ivanka, became fast friends. Ivanka passed away a year ago labor day. I know Inar has missed her.

Inar has been so appreciative every time I fed him or gave him a treat.

I can at least take some comfort in knowing the second half of his life was much better than the first before I got him.

I will always love that little guy.

Before I get into this past weekend's Breast Cancer 3 day. I want to say rest in peace Bernie Mac. The world will be a less funny place with you. I love you.

OK, on to the walk.

From the beginning.

Tuesday; August 5, 2008

Started trying to organize the packing. Did laundry, laid out all the cloths I planed to wear for the weekend.

Taking the advice I got from several veteran walkers, "pack EVERYTHING you don't want to get wet in plastic ziplock bags, if it rains, your bag and everything in it will get soaked"

I grabbed 3 larger sized freezer bags and place each days outfit in one bag. I figured it would make getting dressed in the morning easier to not have to dig through a bunch of clothing in the suitcase. Each bag contained a pair of shorts, shirt, sports bra, underwear and a pair of socks. Then used 2 small sandwich sized ziplock bags, I put small hotel sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner, contact lens solution, eye drops, small tube of toothpaste, toothbrush and mouth wash, along with my medication. I then used one more bag for a bar of soap.

The I took each of the 3 bags with my outfits, and one at a time, set them on the bed and sat on them while zipping them closed. They then looks like they were vacuum packed, I figured this will take up less space in the suitcase. I managed to get the air mattress (thank you Bjorn) and pillow into a backpack.

I left everything laid out and ready to go.

Wednesday night, things got insane at work and I had to pull a late one. Didn't get home until midnight.

The I went into a panic because I couldn't find the pump for the air mattress. tore the house apart looking for it until 3 am. The pump is built into the mattress! Duh! Blond moment.

I bought those giant ziplock bags and put in my sleeping bag, a sweatshirt, my pink flannel pants, and pink fuzzy socks, and again, sat on it until the air was out and zipped it. The managed to get everything into my suitcase.

Transferred the important contents, (wallet phone, small mirror, eye drops, chapstick) from my purse to my fanny pack.

I finally got to bed but didn't sleep much.

Alarm went off at 7:00 am. Put in contacts, brushed teeth, showered, Fixed myself a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of juice, then went to my room to begin prep.

Nothing fancy this weekend, we're supposed to be roughing it. Combed my hair back into a ponytail and put sunscreen on my face and neck. Then removed my pajamas, and put sunscreen on the rest of my body. The powdered my whole body with gold bond medicated body powder to prevent any chafing. Got dressed, put gold bond foot powder on my feet (not sure if there's really a difference between the foot and body powder) put on my socks and shoes, sprayed bug spray, and tied my pink ribbon bandana around my head.

Mom showed up, to drive me to Northbrook. We loaded bags and took off. We left shortly after 9:00 am. Traffic was horrendous! I was supposed to be there at 10:30 am. I was an hour late. I was freaking out thinking they were going to leave for the campsite without me. Turns out I wasn't the only one caught in the perpetual construction.

Now I love my mom, but she tends to have very bad tunnel vision, some how, she couldn't see all the HUGE pink trucks, and the gigantic inflatable 3 Day things in the parking lot of this mall, even when I was pointing it out to her.

After getting my bags out of the car, letting mom take my pink by the giant inflatable pink thing that she finally sees. I kiss civilization good bye for the weekend as I head to the port o potty. The mall parking lot had been transformed. Had one big tent set up with chairs and a projection screen, the check in tent, and a tent with water and Gatorade.

After checking in, getting my t-shirt loading bags onto trucks.

We got started, after a rundown on what was going to happen as set up crew, we set off for the campsite.

It was so cool seeing the pace transform. When we showed up, there was nothing. We spent the whole day setting up tents, tables and chairs (oh my!) and mapping out the tent grid. By the end of the day, the place was a pink 3 Day city.

Cameron said he had dinner reservations for us at 8:00 pm. We got done with ten minutes to spare. Just enough time to get out "homes" set up before dark.

Once you get the hang if it, the pink tents set up pretty easy. Put my bag in, unloaded the air mattress and sleeping bag, rolled it out but didn't inflate it yet. Have you ever seen a memory foam pillow that's been crammed in a backpack all day?

So we had this big 10 passenger van, we get to the parking garage and that clearance bar dragged across the roof. We freak thinking we're not going to fit, we can't back up because there this pickup trunk behind us laying on the horn. We're inching a long, as we get to the top of the ramp not sure if we're going to make it, Cameron yells, "EVERYONE DUCK!" like that's going to make the van shorter.

We got to this restaurant, really fancy looking place, we looked so out of place in running shorts, tops, and sneakers.

Cameron said dinner's on him, I ordered ice tea, the next person ordered a beer, to which I responded "we're allowed to drink!? I'll have a martini" (The rule book said we're not allowed to drink during the event)

I could rant about desert, but I won't, most people who've eaten with me have heard the rant before. If you really want to know what I'm talking about email me.

Got back to the camp site about 10:30. We were told we'd leave for opening ceremonies at 6:00 am for anyone who wanted to go.

After laying for what seemed like a long time listening to the guy in the next tent snore loud enough to wake the dead. Finally, I could take no more. I got out of the tent, grabbed the bottom edge of the corners and dragged the tent, with everything in it, including my tent mate, about 50 yards away. She didn't even budge.

The next morning, she crawled out of the tent, noticed we were in a different location, and sleepily said "I thought I heard you move the tent last night."

I woke up at 5:30, hot the shower. For the record, showering in a truck is not bad. The water is nice and hot and great water pressure.

I just missed the ride to opening ceremonies. I was disappointed to miss it, but everyone else who chose not to go to opening was still asleep, so I crawled back into my tent and went back to sleep. Woke up about 9:30 thinking "oh ****, I over slept!" ran off and saw Peter getting out of his tent. He over slept too, and he hadn't even hit the showers yet.

I ran over and found the rest of the crew. They said I hadn't missed anything. There wasn't much to do around camp until the walkers show up.

Around 10:00 am, the gear and tent crew showed up with trunk loads of the walker bags. We help unload then in piles according to tent assignment.

The recommended baggage allowance is under 35 lbs., not many follow that. We came across one small bag, the gear and tent crew captain took it cradled in in her arms like a baby, and said "someone paid attention, this is going right up front".

Around 11:30, the gear and tent captain came over and said "please take a break for lunch", our response "but we're almost done!"

We had box lunches. The vegetarian ones had a sandwich with lettuce, sprouts, cheddar cheese and hummus; a bag of chips, apple, potato salad, and chocolate chip cookies.

I don't like red apples or potato salad, but the rest was good. Since they don't serve drinks other than water or Gatorade, I knew this and brought some of those individual powder packets of crystal lite lemonade.

The fist walkers arrived around 1:00, but there was a several; hour gap before any other showed. Talk about speed demons, I don't even see how it's possible to walk 20 miles in that amount of time. What's they do? Take a taxi?

After lunch, we didn't have anything much to do until dinner, so I went to the camp entrance to hang out with the check in crew and help cheer walkers as they enter camp.

As I see a tall guy with long blond hair approach, I call out "are you Blake?" He nods and we hug, Myspace buddies meet!

Dinner was spaghetti and meatball or soy "meat" balls, along with salad, breadstick, steamed veggies and a brownie.

In camp, there is a big beverage tent with ice water, hot water with assorted tea bags and hot chocolate mix, coffee and decaf, lemonade and ice tea and several canned sodas and sparkling waters.

after getting dinner cleaned up. I headed over to the 3 Day Post Office. I had two letters. Thank you Justin and Bjorn. I gave the address out to about fifty people, two people actually wrote me. I guess there's a reason they're my top two.

The camp set up is so cool. When I say 3 Day city, seriously, throughout camp you could hear "3 Day radio" fed in via satellite with music, weather reports, and other announcements.

The evening ended with "3 Day Rock Star" karaoke.

I hot the shower again around 9:30 after final clean up. Lights out is 9:00 pm for walkers, but the showers stay open until 11:00 for crew.

I slept much better that night, the person in the next tent snored, but nothing compared to the guy the night before. The only problem, all the water they make us drink, I had to pee just about every hour. The ritual: unzip sleeping bag, take off socks, put on flip flops, unzip tent door, walk to port o potty, walk back, use hand sanitizer, re-zip tent door, take off flip flops, put on socks, get back in sleeping bag.

Breakfast was biscuit oatmeal, fruit, and hash browns. There was also bacon and scrambled eggs, but I don't eat that. The beverage tent had all the same as last night except, in stead of lemonade and ice tea, they had orange juice. Still had coffee, tea hot chocolate and water.

When we finally got the last walker out of camp, we started with clean up.. Now we got nothing until dinner. I went to go visit the check in crew again. They made an announcement over 3 Day Radio that there was a chance if rain, so those of us who though it would be a good idea to leave our tent doors open to air the tent out, go zip the door shut. Then go check all the walkers tents. All 2,300+.

It rained for about ten minutes.

Cameron showed up with the trunk and said since we had nothing to do until dinner, we would take us out to see the route. I was excited about that since I never saw that before. So we drove along honking and cheering, we stopped at a few pit stops.

Around mid day, Cameron says, "do we want to go back to camp and have the box lunch, or do we want to go out?" we ended up at a bar.

We got back to camp and I rejoined the check in crew, I made a sign that said "Free Hugs" half the people thought that was coolest thing they ever saw, the others recoiled saying "ew, you don't want to hug me, I'm all sweaty" I just smiled and said, "I've hugged pro wrestlers, I can handle you"

My bad hip started acting up. I went to medical and iced it for a while and had one of the volunteers on the medical crew pop it back into place.

Dinner was vegan cutlet, broccoli, rice and strawberry shortcake.

After dinner clean up, we had the 3 Day Rock Star Finals, followed by the 3 Day Dance Party. That rocked!

I headed to the showers with the sinking feeling realizing that this was our last night there.

We were told to have out stuff packed and tents broke down before we came to breakfast.

Breakfast was cream cheese filled crepes with strawberries on top, hash browns, and fruit. Yes, they had scrambled eggs and sausage too.

Breakfast clean up was much more involved this time, instead of clearing trash and wiping table, we had to break everything down.. Fold and stack all tables and chairs, load trucks. Fold, stack and load all chair from the shower area. Break down all tents, load walker's luggage. Beak down and load everything.

We apparently got this done in record time! Everything was back to the way it was before.

We loaded vans and drove a few people to the site of opening ceremonies to pick up their cars. Then cruised the route towards closing ceremonies, Solider Field.

One thing funny about downtown Chicago, the rest of the rest of the route, when you honked, the walkers would throw their hands up and scream "WHOOO!" But since everyone lays on their horns in downtown Chicago, they couldn't tell if someone was honking to show support or just being an @$$hat driver.

We drove by leaning out the windows honking and cheering, while getting confused looks from the hundreds of pedestrians.

Got to the holding area for closing ceremonies. Someone took the last vegetarian box lunch! The staff thought it was an accident, someone didn't see the big black "V" on the box. So I got no lunch. Oh well, I wasn't that hungry.

Closing ceremonies was wonderful, brought everyone to tears. The ending has a tradition of everyone taking of their shoes and holding them up. Even as unlacing my shoes, I was muttering "I'm not taking my shoes off" I took them off.

Mom was so moved by closing ceremonies, she says she wants to join me on the walk next year!

I'm already signed up for next year!

I wasn't sore at all Sunday, but when I woke up Monday morning, YIKES!

A few hot baths later, I think I'll survive. Of course, any excuse to use John Frieda on my hair...

As I said I would, some time over the next week, I'm going to write a comparison of Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3 Day.

*HUGS*

K.J.

P.S.: I was asked to call into this radio show Saturday night. You can hear it at:

http://audioam.blogtalkradio.com/show_251412.mp3

Nothing like a toy wrestling ring with a dead rat in the mail to make your week. No, I'm not kidding, I wish I was.

Bristol opened the other weekend. It feels weird not being there.

On a lighter note, as if we referees don't have a bad enough reputation, I got my 2008 - 2009 license in the mail the other day. Inside the envelope, was the license card, patches to sew on my shirt, and a letter listing this season's meeting and training clinic dates. On the letter, was a bright pink post it note that said "please remove your license from the envelope before discarding".

My question, how many officials accidentally threw their licenses away with the envelope for them to put that in there?

If you can't take a card out of an envelope, then you should not be charge of calling the match!

I have been assigned a tent mate for the 3 Day walk. Haven't met her, only talk briefly via email. Seems nice.

K.J.

So, is a sign of getting old when the shows you loved as a kid start appearing on Nick at Nite? Though I love seeing Family Matters again.

My throat is infected again. I have had no voice for about a week and it's painful to even swallow liquid. If the antibiotics don't knock this out soon, I may have to get my tonsils removed. Eww. Anyone that knows me knows that for me, surgery is the absolute last resort. As in, not going to happen.

It's been a long while since I posted an all positive blog hasn't it? Well, at least this one has SOME good new in it.

The day after I got back from Pennsylvania, United did get my luggage back to Chicago. It was dropped off at close to midnight. Nothing missing and everything intact.

So, half if Chikara's not speaking to me ad the other half have nothing nice to say. Got a few nasty MySpace messages from a few Chikara guys. Guess I'm not welcome there anymore.

At the risk of getting anymore wrestler in trouble, here's a sample, though I'm not naming any names.

Though with the pictures I got from King of Trios, if I wanted to stoop to their level, I could post a very thorough "Chikara unmasked" album.

*********************

"Squats? Squats? He got squats because he forgot he is a new student and he hasn't paid his dues yet. As for me... I do squats in my sleep. I'm a machine!

I hope you enjoyed the shows. I know I did (expect falling on the back of my head on the third night. That's never fun.)."

*********************

"Yeah, wrestlers/promoters can be very weird. Sorry you had such a horrible weekend. Your Soul Touchaz so be ashamed of themselves for not hanging with you after the show. I guess quack is pretty scary. I'm glad I'm your gay buddy, as opposed to that asshole from king of trios. So thanks for that. Hope life has been better since that trip."

*********************

""kayfabe Nazi" = LOL! Awesome.

I've been in and around CHIKARA long enough to know, that what you've said here is not only very likely, but something I've seen myself.

Sorry to hear about the weekend taking a turn for the worse"

*********************

"It ain't rocket science as to why he isn't speaking to you. What you did was f***ed up. No need to mention it anymore"

**********************

"Some people take this Kayfabe thing too far. It's your decision and your post however I think you should leave it up let people know wow you were treated. I actually never heard of CHIKARA until your first post about it and I called C -Red to ask him what it was and how it went. But I you had never mentioned it I would of still never heard of it and I'm sure other heard it first from you so now you can let them hear how CHIKARA and Mike treats both it's fan and talent"

***********************************

"Well I can truly understand your frustration however I hope this turns out to be just a temporary much needed break -I've taken a few of them myself from time to time. I've seen you in the ring and can testify to how you can steal a show just from the seats so I hope you will soon reconsider and pay a visit every now and then"

*************************************

"Wow. That's pretty crazy. Kind of sours the entire experience, and any before it I imagine.

Sorry to hear about all that. Maybe it will all blow over?"

************************************

"WOW...
I can tell you honestly (not that you need to hear it), you did nothing wrong...the fact that you were invited somewhere completely takes you out of picture. I am really sorry you had to experience something like this. You seem like a pretty nice person that doesn't have the intention of pissing anyone off.
I've heard some not so flattering stories about Mike. The guy is who he is...try to ignore him.

I completely understand your frustration. It sounds like something I would be pretty hot about as well. Just know some people take this business to the extreme, to the point where they cant see they themselves are completely crossing the line.

Again, sorry to see you disrespected in such a manner. It's not something that would really fly if I was around. I hope you look past all this, but if not I completely understand. I hope all is well with you, and please don't let this bug you. It's not something to ever worry about, not even for a second. It was one man being a dick...that's it."

***********************************

Take a guess as to which ones are from Chikara and which are from others. Thank to all of you who sent the supportive emails. Those are just a sampling, and some of the others from Chikara were way too "colorful" to post.

Though I have gotten two sets of flowers since then. Along with one set of "flowers" emailed to me. Thanks Justin.

So there's at least two people in Philly that want me there. Just wish I knew whom the mystery person is.

I've pretty much decided I'm done with wrestling, even started giving away all my wrestling stuff. Prince Ali has gets the most credit for making me reconsider. Which says a lot, even C Red and Dymond spending an hour and a half on the phone with me still hadn't changed my mind.

Since the ticket is already paid for, I will go to AAW this weekend, plus it's always nice to see Arik Cannon and the Northstar boys. We'll just see how it goes. Right now the thought of wrestling still makes me a bit sick to my stomach. We'll just see if I can sit through a whole wrestling show without breaking down crying. Maybe Arik Cannon and the Northstar boys can help me remember the good times in Philly. We'll just see how it goes, for now, I will leave it at that.

On to the good news.

So far the Breast Cancer 3 Day is going great!

The kick off expo and the crew training day were a blast. This group seems much more organized, and I seem to fit in with them better. However, no one's perfect. I think when this is all over; I will post a detailed comparison of the two events.

On that note, everyone please write me. I will love to get motivating notes while on the event; here's the information:

Getting ready for the Breast Cancer 3-Day is a big job. Here are some ways to support your walker before the big day arrives.

Write a letter expressing your love and support to your walker, which we'll deliver to them on the event at the 3-Day Camp Post Office. (Envelopes only, please. No boxes or large packages. Mail must be postmarked no later than August 1st in order to ensure delivery at the 3-Day Camp Post Office. Any mail that is not retrieved by the walker by September 1st will be destroyed.)

Please send letters to:
Breast Cancer 3-Day Camp Post Office
ATTN: Kaje Svendsen
P.O. Box: 577305
Chicago, IL. 60657

I got some dates for the fall season at Buckley Homestead. We'll be kicking things off next week with a volunteer appreciation day at Deep River Water Park. Monday; July 14, evening, I'm allowed one guest, free entry and we'll have the whole place to ourselves, so no lines. I have no one in mind, so if you're in the area and want to come, let me know.

Looks like I'll be back in my previous roll at Fall Festival, hayride worker. Cool, I had load of fun last year. Even getting attacked and buried in hay was fun.

Nothing set in stone for Sleepy Hollow yet. Honestly, I don't care. Any roll would be fun, So whatever part I'm given, it should be good.

Only odd thing. I haven't seen or spoken to Lyle since last October, could be weird working with an ex. But I don't think it will be a problem. I'm still friends with, and still work with lots of exes. We don't hate each other or wish any ill will. So we should be fine. May even get some closer I never quite got.

That's all for now. Please send out some healing vibes for my throat and hope I get my love for wrestling back.

*HUGS*

K.J.