this is the first time i'll have written a post and wanted it to get to the main page. i'm interested in doing something good. something great. something that'd save a life. so i contact the national marrow donor program. i just sent those little cotton swabs in yesterday. i don't know if i'll ever be a match for someone, but i hope i am. i don't really know, or care to know, all the goings on. i just know it involves lots of blood and lots of big needles. i do know that your bone marrow comes right on back! so that's pretty cool. after just a few weeks, it's like nothing ever happened. i would be more than happy to donate bone marrow, as many times as i could. so long as my body goes into it without any complications, and i'd like to believe that i have a pretty healthy body, then i'll heal up better than ever.

buttttttt i also want to donate an organ. i really want to. if i've got something that someone else needs to live... just sitting inside me taking up space!! well than i want you to have it. honest. i don't know too much about the donation process. i've looked at the kidney and liver stuff. i thought those were the only two living donations you could do. but at my two second glance at the lungs and intestines, i believe i saw that you can donate some of that tissue also. now i'm not looking to have a whole bunch of my organs all harvested up just yet. from what i've read in the past day or two of pondering this idea, i'd feel most comfortable donating some of my liver. i hear that can grow back to darn near full size, right?

anyway look, i don't have all day to write, i've put my homework off all weekend. i'm 24 years old. blood type a positive. i live near chicago. i would like to donate anything i can to save a life. it might be a little off putting to some people, but i'd prefer to donate to someone younger. the younger the better. or a parent with a whole bunch of kids. or a vet too. i'd donate to any vet or public service person like an emt or police or firefighter.

i emailed a lady from Kidney Mitzvah last night... she's got a pretty nice story. i wonder how many lives she's helped save? awesome stuff. so yeah, i don't even have a lot of friends on here. but i'm gonna tag the heck out of this. maybe see if a few of those 'ish' sites will put this up. i don't know how that all works.

so basically i'm just asking for your guys thoughts or ideas on the subject. would you or wouldn't you donate an organ? bone marrow? even blood? if it's against your religion, i'd really like to know why. send me a private message if you want. so, what do you think? do you know of any people that are in need of a donation? i'd like to hear any and all thoughts please!!

and remember! donate blood! if you like to run, go run for a charity! if you don't like to run, give them some money! if you don't have any money, give them some blood! please spay and neuter your pets too.

p.s. my thoughts and support go out to any person or people attached to said person who is waiting on a transplant list. i'd like to hear any and all stories, but i am sorry if i cannot help any single person. please don't let that stop you from telling me anything that could help me make an informed decision.

okay. okay. okay. okay.

holy cow.

sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

when i went to bed thursday night i kept telling myself, tomorrow is going to be the most important day of my life. i went out to michigan city pretty early in the morning so i could go to this open interview at a kfc on franklin. after that i went north and grabbed a dozen more applications or so. i stopped at the marquette mall, mainly to get out of the cold and to sit and eat. well i want to get to the good stuff, so i'm just going to copy and paste from yesterdays post. sue me.

---
 this was the first place i saw. looked like a restaurant, so i went in and talked to the hostess and asked for an application. she turned around and asked the owner if they had any and he told her, ‘no just have him put down some information, we may need someone soon.’ so she handed me a piece of paper and i spun around to find a seat and start filling it up. before i made it to my seat, i saw an aquaponics set up with a few catfish and a few tilapia swimming all around! the set was full of tubes and nozzels and bottles and rocks and plants and lights and everything! i was stunned! i’ve never actually seen a working aquaponics system with mine own two eyes!!! so i gasped something that sounded like, ‘bahwahgoogoody!! aquaponicsgoogoody!!!’ as you can imagine, that caught a few peoples attention. hahaha. so after i stopped freaking out the owner came over to talk to me and was all like, ‘oh you like my tank? no one ever knows what aquaponics are...’ yadda yadda yadda. so we sat down and talked some and apparently they’re going to be expanding their aquaponics tanks out here in michigan city, getting some koi fish soon too. oh yeah, and they also have about 75,000 sq ft in downtown chicago that they’re going to be making into a HUGE aquaponics facility!!! and they liked me!! they really liked me!! i am so excited.
---

okay sweet. yesterday my dad got a phone call from the aquapoincs dude, chris. they had a little chitchat and chris gave my dad a number for me to call. i just did. we were talking for a little while and apparently they are getting some huge investments from or for a restaurant called 'stony gardens' and they're going to have a huge place in downtown chicago. it is going to look a lot like the rainforest cafe. only it's going to be real! they'll have plants all over the friggin' place and all sorts of sea food swimming around the walls. the bigwigs or whatever have permits for three restaurants and two farmers markets. one of those farmers markets are going to be incorporated into this restaurants parking lot, about a half acre. so chris and i were talking for a little while. his wife actually goes to brown mackie college too! she's graduating in november to be a vet tech also! serendipity! geez, i can't even think right now. my heart is pounding and my body is all goose bumped! this dude has a degree in horticulture and botany. he's going up to see this really amazing fella, will allen, in wisconsin sometime in near future to get certified in this accredited aquapoincs school. we talked about mr. allen for a second, because i was aware of his work too. i said something like, oh gee i didn't know that he did classes. i wish i could go, but with my school schedule and all. he said, well maybe sometime on your summer break we can work something out. oh gee! this is just so awesome. oh yeah! so the investors or whomever were looking to buy a twenty something acre farm down in evansvillie and while in the process of looking into that, they found a farm in michigan city that's somewhere the sixty acre area. two ponds. they're gonna have some livestock like pigs and turkeys and goats and stuff like that. chris wants to get a few people in on the ground floor. and i'm in! i'm going to go meet with him tomorrow over at his house in the mc and talk with him into a little more detail. i can't believe my luck. i just knew yesterday was going to be a great day. i kinda messed up chicago. i threw a silly tantrum. ugh. but it's better now. so so so so so much better. i'm going to go live on a farm. i'm going to be a farmer. farmer ben. suck it. friggin' suck it.