Fourth Annual Spina Bifida Awareness Raid Train Fundraiser

 

Over the weekend I hosted the FOURTH annual Spina Bifida Awareness Raid Train. It is hard to believe that this has been the fourth year in a row that this has happened. 

And the third year in a row that I was able to incorporate an actual way to raise funds for the Spina Bifida Association. Although this year in 2025, the funds went to the Spina Bifida Association of Texas, instead of the Spina Bifida Association of America. And this hit closer to home as I am located in the Austin, Texas area. The Spina Bifida Association of Texas is in or around the San Antonio area, so it is not too far away from me personally. 

And as I reflect and ponder and think back to previous years, this year just exploded with bigger surprises than ever before! 

It started out as a $500 fundraising goal. Nine live streamers on Twitch (including myself) and it didn't take very long for a lot of generous people made the decision to give donations. 

One of the things that sticks out in my mind is the fact that 60% of the original fundraising goal was met in just about three and a half hours into the event. The third live streamer had not even come to the end of their time slot, and 60% of that $500 goal had been met. Something that hasn't happened before in the years doing this event!

I believe that with the participating live streamers who added in incentives to their live stream was what made the difference. The variety of incentives for each individual live streamer was unique and fun. Therefore, there were a few times when someone who donated to the fundraiser had given more than one donation in an effort to troll their community and the live streamer. 

I recall laughing and giggling to myself whenever I saw someone give a donation to troll the streamer who was live at the time. A few of which would go speechless for one reason or another, but that would come back to bite me when it was my turn to live stream at the end of the event. 

The event had four live streamers left to go when the $500 goal had been reached. I had the ability to stretch that out to $650. 

$650 was the amount that was raised last year in 2024 as a grand total. I had thought we could try to beat that for the remainder of the event and beat it we sure did! 

I stretched the goal once again to $750, and then again to $1000, and finally once more to $1200 by the time I had started my own live stream to bring the whole thing to a close. 

I personally had not been streaming very long before longer donations were pouring in. I was stunned and flabbergasted, and the only thing that came to my mind was that my moments on camera of being speechless were a result of me laughing and giggling when it happened to someone else earlier. Apparently, it was MY TURN!! 

The fundraiser had reached $948.68 when I started and at some point MaestroSpooks brought the total to $1200, and it finished at $1210. The most ever received with this event. 

It is worth noting that many of those people who contributed to the fundraisers were live streamers on Twitch themselves, whether they are someone that I give a helping hand and moderate their streams or someone that I frequently visit whenever they are online. I guess you could say that "my polls numbers" are high. 

The event raised $1210 and what was so surprising for me is that a total of 45 individual donations were given during the event, which was the MOST CONTRIBUTIONS ever received since I started doing the event with a fundraiser. Last year in 2024, there were fewer than 30 contributions. This year was 45. We broke records this year. 

I did promise that there will be one in October 2026 for a FIFTH annual. I have aspirations and dreams to make it even bigger and greater. I hope that I have the support and energy and the resources to make it happen. My hope is to have those people who participated to participate in 2026 as well as any of the previous people who have participated in the last few years. I would like to make the event something that happens over the course of many days during the month of October which is Spina Bifida Awareness Month. 

I want to say thank you to everyone who agreed to help out and participate this year, and a tremendous amount of thanks to those who felt moved to contribute the total of $1210. This year would not have gone as well without any of you. 

My heart is full. 

overkill_jill
JerfoTheMusicAddict
crrissa_the_cyberbard
jon_oakwood
FridenAndFriends
ImprovisationStation
vaidahK
kellygates47

If you are on Twitch, please do show some support and follow these wonderful and beautiful streamers. 

IF YOU WISH TO DONATE TO THIS YEAR'S FUNDRAISING EVENT, YOU CAN DO SO HERE. 

I plan to keep this open until the end of 2025 for those who wish to donate. 

When Someone You "Know" Goes Viral On The Internet

This is WILD.

On Sunday the 28th of September 2025, I was scrolling through social media and came across one of those random articles that news outlets post. Now I was not following this particular news page but there it was on my timeline. 

An article coming from California, and more specifically the San Francisco Bay area about a woman who was looking for love.

The thumbnail image to the URL caught my attention as it looked like the woman from the article was someone that I once knew a long time ago. So when I clicked the link, and I read the article, I was stunned and surprised that it was in fact the person that I thought it was!! 

Let me summarize the story that started to go viral beginning with TikTok (from what I learned) and I will include my own story about this. 

"Lisa" is a woman who lives in the Bay area, and she is looking for love. She is very much so marriage-minded and either she got stuck or has become very frustrated with the dating apps out there in the world, or maybe both. Lisa now has used a most unconventional method of putting herself out there to look for a future husband, by buying up billboards along the California freeway. 

Yep, those big giant signs you see while driving she has now gone and bought up some of those to promote a website that she created in hopes of finding her future husband. 

The website contains an application where men can fill it out hoping to be a match, so to speak. 

Lisa had been in a long-term serious relationship with a man but tragically he passed away from complications of an illness in 2023. 

Now recently her story of her billboards is capturing the attention of a lot of people, and she has gone viral. A lot of people have come out with negative commentary and opinions, but it appears that Lisa is not bothered by them, in fact it sounds like she was anticipating it. 

Also her website has a few things that is mentioned that she is looking for in a man. Some of those things are not negotiable for her. If anyone out there wants to take a chance, they should pay attention to those things that she has listed. 

Now let me you tell you my story about how I know who Lisa is.

I met Lisa on the Internet in early 2011. She has her own YouTube channel and eventually I would find her on social media where it would come to be that Lisa and I shared a common interest in music. At the time, I was finding a lot of people with the same interest and was continuing correspondence with them via social media. If I had to guess, there was probably at least ten of us who fit inside that circle and I was friends with all of them on Facebook, including Lisa. 

Lisa and I did communicate with each other frequently and often at the time...almost every day it seemed. And as time went on, she and I would get to know each other on a personal level and not just talk about the things in which we had in common. 

I never met Lisa in person, although some of the other people in our Facebook social circles did have the opportunity. I never did. She was in California, and I was in Texas. I felt that was very unfortunate to be honest.

Even then I knew that Lisa was looking for a husband. She wanted to get married, have kids, the whole thing.. just like so many other women. I just knew that I never would fit inside all of the boxes that she had when it came to what she was looking for. 

During the time that I was communicating with Lisa, I would hear her talk about how she was dating certain men that she met, but those relationships fizzled out pretty quickly. I am sure that just added to her frustration. Eventually Lisa would find a man that she was interested in, and I on the other side of things actually disagreed with her decision. 

Of course, it was not up to me in who she was dating. But this one time I felt that things were just going to end up in disaster yet again for her because of her recent break ups and I ended up telling her this, believing that I was just being honest with her with sharing my opinion and it was an opinion that she definitely did not agree with.

Looking back at it now, there's a good chance that Lisa probably thought that was I was coming across to her as some jealous idiot and thus that was why I was telling her that I didn't think it was a good idea. 

So she did what anyone else would do, and she separated herself from me by removing me from her social media pages. I KNEW at the time that I was telling her something that she did not want to hear, and I thought that if I laid low for a few days, then she and I could go back to just communicating online like we had for a long time at that point. After about a week of not hearing from Lisa, I went to look for her on social media only to find that I had been blocked. I accepted the consequences of my own actions when it came to this, and we affectively had stopped talking to each other, we had been talking from 2011 until 2014. 

The last I had heard was around 2015 when someone in that social media circle had confirmed that Lisa was dating that man that I thought was a bad idea, and I was surprised to find out that they were still going strong.

I was wrong about it; I can admit it.

I was wrong in thinking that they were not going to last, and I was also wrong in doing what I did which was express that dissenting opinion to her face. 

Over the next decade the people that were in that social media circle all but disappeared with the exception of one or two people who remain connected on social media to this day; however, I do not communicate with them much at all. It is very hit and miss with them as everyone kind of moved on, did different things with their lives and what not. 

It was quite a shock that the article even was on my timeline to begin with. Let alone having this viral story being about someone that I used to talk with a lot so very long ago. 

I reached out to a couple of people that I knew also was in correspondence with Lisa and asked if they had heard her story about looking for love by way of using billboards along the freeway, and they had. And I was even told that the man that she was in a long-term relationship with for a number of years was actually the SAME MAN that I expressed the opposing opinion about. I would like to let Lisa know that I apologize to her about that, but I don't think that the opportunity is going to present itself. 

I thought about going to the website and filling out the application. Not to throw my hat into the ring for her consideration but more of a move to let her know that I see her and that I know about her plans and ideas of trying to find a husband but doing it that way is just wasting my time and wasting her time as well. It is not like she is going to respond back to me. That application is for those who want a chance at dating Lisa.

I mean after all, she shot her shot and me going in there just to tell her that she is seen does not make sense.

I do not feel the need to add on to the pile of people who are going to fil out that application just to be a troll. 

A real wild story, don't you think? I KNOW of someone who went VIRAL on the Internet!!! It just blows my mind. 

I do hope that Lisa eventually finds what she is looking for. I honestly do! Whether it be from someone finding one of her billboards on the California freeway or through some other way. Whatever it is she is looking for, I hope she finds it in such a great and grand fashion. Whatever makes her happy, ya know?!?

It has been over a decade since I have corresponded with her. I never thought that she would pop up like that. But here we are.

And wherever you are in the world: GOOD LUCK, LISA!!!!