Scott Hanselman is starting an online pledge drive for the American Diabetes Association. I am planning on donating between May 9th and May 11th, because Larry O’Brien is matching donations during that time period (many other people are offering to match donations as well, not sure of the time frame or the amounts). In addition to Larry’s match, Microsoft will also match my donation as well so whatever amount I throw in will be tripled. I urge you to consider donating as well.

Scott is a fantastic guy. He gives back to the technology community in oh so many ways. Want to see one? Look at the source code for the page you are viewing and you will find his name in at least one of the javascript comments. He is the lead developer for dasBlog, the engine that many of us use for our blogs. He also is a frequent presenter at community events like Deeper in .NET last year in Milwaukee. I ran in to him at MIX a few days ago and despite needing to find his room (long story), he took a couple minutes to chat with some of us.

Personal Connections

I give money to the ADA every year anyway, because my mom was diagnosed with diabetes about 23 years ago. Joining Team Hanselman is just a way to give an extra shot in the arm to the donation that I would be giving anyway. My mom has done very well with her treatments because she is very diligent about it.  The ADA is doing a lot to help people with education programs, early screening for high risk people and research into better treatment that helps everybody who is living with the disease now. All this while keeping their long term goal of finding a cure moving forward.

I also want to take a moment to point you to a diabetes resource site: http://www.dia-log.com. My friend Mike built the site from the ground up (with a little help from some of his friends). The site will let you log and monitor your blood sugar level and it cost nothing to use (it is a labor of love with a few ads on the page to try and recover the hosting costs). I know that he has people from all around the world using the site. Check it out and point friends or family that may have diabetes to the site.