Amidst the papers and final projects of the last month my friend Hannah had time along with some other classy gals from TheBirdhouse™ to put on a benefit concert for Vancouver based charity Imagine1day.

imagine1day is a nonprofit organization that provides an opportunity for donors to be directly connected to projects that provide primary education for all children in Ethiopia, Africa.

For the event I designed some small handout cards where people could write what they imagined for the future. They turned out great and we’re accompanied by lovely music by The Magician, Eisenhauer, and In Medias Res. By the end of the evening we were able to raise over $1000 for Imagine1day, it was awesome.

I really love the way Imagine1days online giving works. They list actual items (e.g. chalkboards, a school roof, windows, paint, desks, etc.) that you can purchase. It makes the whole process so tangible and I love that.

You can support any of the elements of an education venture, such as the roof of a classroom, the water system, or the desks and blackboards. 100% of your contribution will fund the children’s education project of your choice and no administration fees are kept.

Crazy! Innovative, and awesome. Check them out. Imagine1day

More photos at flickr.

Impromptu dance party last night at the mansion. I busted out the flash to get some shots, but really I just wanted to document and learn from Mr. Jones dance moves.

We partied to Girl Talk

Ba•rack•to•pus (noun): “A unique species of octopi that is typically red and blue in color and has lots of charisma.”

A few months ago my roommates and me started drawing on our fridge with eraseable marker. Everything started when someone drew a hawktopus, which was followed by a shocktapus, jocktapus, glochtapus, clocktabpus, rocktapus, bachtapus, and then Johnny drew Baracktopus. From that original fridge illustration came ideas for making some rad t-shirts that would  help a rad cause and bring positive “change” to the world.

All shirts are printed on American Apparel t’s. For each shirt sold 30% of the sales will go to Save The Children International. The other 70% will help pay off student loans and be supporting a rad artist and all around good dutchman.

Cheers to Reuben for making a rad internet home for Baracktopus with his mad coding skills.

Me demonstrating my skills of cat like reflexes

As you can see the sign has been changed to “Attack Zach” nice touch.

The team and myself. Please note awesome goalie (John Harkness).

The face of victory

Canam was awesome and we had a great team this year. (All photos taken by the wonderful Robyn, who also made the signs with some help from Amy. Thanks guys!!!)

Cheers.

Sometimes at the Milner Mansion we like to stay in shape in unconventional ways.

sarah: Krista and I just watched Bride & Prejudice and now we’re going to sleep…hell yeah.

me: Bride and prejudice? Or pride? Send me digital encouragement!

sarah: Bride. You are doing a great job, you have really good ideas, and it will be awesome. And jesus is starting to love you more than other people.

me: i’ve suspected for a while…the first hint was all the answered prayers…i mean talented, AND BEAUTIFUL? wow.

me: edit. replace beautiful with handsome as a fox.

sarah: Hell

sarah: What i was meaning to write was ‘hella gender appropriate’ but then i didn’t think it made sense so i was erasing it and then sent it by mistake. Still funny.

‘let’s go hunting’