Fellow MechWarriors,
Way back in 2008, the folks over at Sarcastic Gamer started a charity called Extra-Life. Originally, the charity was setup to benefit the Texas Children's Hospital in memory of a young girl who lost her battle with cancer there. Since then, it's been expand to support pretty much the entire Children's Hospital Miracle Network, including my local one here in Colorado.
Late last year, my Daughter was referred to a Neurologist at our Children's Hospital by our Pediatrician. After meeting with the Neurologist, she was diagnosed with a combination of relatively rare conditions that combined were causing pressure on part of her brain stem, and some other nerves. We got sent for a MRI, and a visit with a Neurosurgeon (we got assigned to the Chief of Neurosurgery). We met with the Neurosurgeon in January to go over the MRI results, and discuss our options. We were told this was a 'fixable' situation, and had been caught fairly early (some kids diagnosed with one of these conditions develop painful, debilitating headaches, that prevent the kid from doing pretty much anything). However, it was going to require surgery (My Daughter turned 7 last December). We were advised that 'sooner' would be better for the surgery, both to prevent further problems, and to improve the odds of existing neurological damage being repairable. So, we scheduled her for the first date the Neurosurgeon had available (mid-February).
We had to go through more blood tests, MRIs, X-rays, etc.. in preparation for the Surgery..through it all, the staff at Children's was amazing. They answered our questions, our Daughter's questions, and did every they could to help ease her fears. Finally... the day of the surgery arrived.
After about 6 hours, she came out of surgery, and was moved to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. We spent two days in there, with nurses helping us get her to eat, move her head (her incision started at the base of her neck, and continued to pretty much the top of her head), clean the wound, and of course, deal with the pain.
After the PICU, we were moved to a 'regular' recovery floor, where again, the friendly Children's Nurses, and Doctors helped us ween her off the narcotic pain killers, get her walking, and using her neck muscles. She even had a Nurse who'd had a similar surgery when he was a kid!
5 days after Surgery, it was time to go home. As a testament to how wonderful the staff at Children's was to our Daughter... she cried when we told her it was time to go, because she didn't want to leave her Nurse friends.
Because of the amazing care my Daughter received, I'm going to participate in this year's Extra-Life gaming marathon to benefit the Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals, specifically, I've chosen to raise funds for the Hospital here in Colorado.
Here's the information about the event itself:
The Extra-Life Charity's site is here.
http://www.extra-life.org
The page to donate to my 'campaign' is here.
http://www.extra-lif...icipantID=53438
On November 2nd, starting at 8:00AM MDT I'm going to start gaming. I plan on going for the whole 25 hours, until 8:00 AM MST on the 3rd. To keep myself going, I plan on streaming gameplay throughout the day via my newly setup twitch channel:
http://www.twitch.tv/BigDamnHeroes
Games that I'll be streaming are:
MWT (I got permission, since we're still under NDA)
MWO (Watch me get blown up in my Project Phoenix 'Mechs!)
Saints Row IV (AFTER my kids are in bed... I so don't need to explain some of that content!)
SWTOR (my son will want to play with my for a few hours)
Star Citizen (Either a couple of walkthroughs throughout the day of the hangar, or the dogfighting module - if it's out by then).
I'll be adding other games to the list, as I figure out what I want to play (and, I need to do some testing to see how much playing + streaming is going to tax my PC).
As we get closer, I plan on setting up an actual schedule of which games I'll be streaming, and when, so that people can tune in to watch me play specific games badly (I'm sure the ones on the morning of the 3rd, after being up for 20+ hours will be really, really, bad!). ;P
If you're able to, please consider donating to my Extra-Life campaign.
If you have any questions, or have a suggestion for a game to play/stream that day.. please let me know.
So, here's the streaming schedule (all times are listed in Mountain time, since, you know.. I live in Colorado):
0800 - 1000 - MechWarrior Online (I'll be playing in my new Phoenix 'Mechs, come watch them get shot out from under me)!
1030 - 1230 - MechWarrior Tactics - I've received permission from IGP to stream, even though the game is currently under NDA. If you want a sneak peek at the game, stop by!
1300 - 1500 - Star Wars: The Old Republic (special guest appearance by my son, since we'll be playing together).
1530 - 1730 - Hearthstone! I just got in the beta, there is no NDA, come watch me figure out how to play!
1800 - 2000 - MechWarrior Tactics again (Once is not enough, and the prime time slot might allow more people to stop by).
2030 - 2230 - Saints Row IV (Not for those who dislike pixelated nudity, cussing, or over the top violence) (totally inappropriate for kids!)
2300 - 0100 - XCom! (watch as I see how many squad members can die on any given mission!)
0130 - 0330 - MechWarrior Online (Nothing says 'time change' like knocking someone back an hour with a PPC blast to the cockpit!)
0400 - 0600 - Borderlands 2 (PEW PEW, BANG BANG!)
0630 - 0800 - Baldur's Gate! (That's right! I'm finishing off the marathon with a classic!)
(This is a copy/paste of my post from the MWT forums)


Extra-Life Charity Drive
Started by Mal, Nov 01 2013 10:17 AM
5 replies to this topic
#1
Posted 01 November 2013 - 10:17 AM
#2
Posted 03 November 2013 - 06:17 PM
So... 25 hours sure felt like a really, really long time yesterday... especially watching the clock fall back, and re-doing the hour from 0100-0200... lol
Extra-Life has posted up their initial tally of funds raised this year..
$3,404,267.78 is the total (so far, I guess some donations are still being tallied). That is a LOT of money raised, for a very good cause! Just under 30,000 gamers participated in the event, so there is a lot of support there (I know when I was dropping in MWO there were several matches that had other folks streaming for Extra-Life).
If you participated, either by gaming, donating (or both), THANK YOU!!!
I received just under $300 in donations from friends, family, and the MechWarrior Community. That money is going to the Colorado Children's Hospital, since that's the one I was fundraising for.
I want to call out Niko and the rest of the IGP team, for their assistance in promoting this event, and letting me stream MWT as part of it. I had a blast hanging out with Niko on Teamspeak for a few hours yesterday, talking BattleTech, Video games, and other fun stuff (the guy REALLY likes his job, and I must admit... I'm jealous, he's got a fun job!).
To the other MWO players who were supporting Extra-Life via streaming, and to those of you who asked how it was going during the drops I was in (errr... sorry bout those late night ones, maybe shooter type games aren't the best choice for after hour 18, and several beers), THANKS!
Extra-Life has posted up their initial tally of funds raised this year..
$3,404,267.78 is the total (so far, I guess some donations are still being tallied). That is a LOT of money raised, for a very good cause! Just under 30,000 gamers participated in the event, so there is a lot of support there (I know when I was dropping in MWO there were several matches that had other folks streaming for Extra-Life).
If you participated, either by gaming, donating (or both), THANK YOU!!!
I received just under $300 in donations from friends, family, and the MechWarrior Community. That money is going to the Colorado Children's Hospital, since that's the one I was fundraising for.
I want to call out Niko and the rest of the IGP team, for their assistance in promoting this event, and letting me stream MWT as part of it. I had a blast hanging out with Niko on Teamspeak for a few hours yesterday, talking BattleTech, Video games, and other fun stuff (the guy REALLY likes his job, and I must admit... I'm jealous, he's got a fun job!).
To the other MWO players who were supporting Extra-Life via streaming, and to those of you who asked how it was going during the drops I was in (errr... sorry bout those late night ones, maybe shooter type games aren't the best choice for after hour 18, and several beers), THANKS!

Edited by Mal, 03 November 2013 - 06:18 PM.
#3
Posted 03 November 2013 - 09:38 PM
Just thought I would add my cool for you here (I also put it on your MWT) page. I don't know if I dropped against you during my 25 hours of solid MWO drops. But it is good to see others in the community were involved.
I have a video about my son, which is why I did this marathon, on the forums here: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2745754
I have a video about my son, which is why I did this marathon, on the forums here: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2745754
#4
Posted 03 November 2013 - 10:01 PM
Tomman, on 03 November 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:
Just thought I would add my cool for you here (I also put it on your MWT) page. I don't know if I dropped against you during my 25 hours of solid MWO drops. But it is good to see others in the community were involved.
I have a video about my son, which is why I did this marathon, on the forums here: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2745754
I have a video about my son, which is why I did this marathon, on the forums here: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2745754
Just watched your video.. glad he's doing better.
I know as I was dropping yesterday, there were quite a few folks who said they were supporting ExtraLife. Maybe next year we can have an official MWO Team, and spend the whole time just playing MechWarrior Games.
We saw with Sarah's Jenner, and again through Extra-Life, that while the MechWarrior community may no always get along... we do tend to pull together for the important causes!
#5
Posted 03 November 2013 - 10:15 PM
I will admit that I had plenty of positive responses to announcing that I was doing the Extra-Life marathon... but there are always the, well lets just say negative responses, as well.
#6
Posted 06 November 2013 - 10:47 PM
I wish off-topic got the traffic it used to so posts like these could be more visible. The one downside to the forum-split last spring
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