Momentum

It's a mad mad dash. Long days before we go- we drove the bus to the DMV today to see if it qualified as an RV, and it does! We need to get it weighed, but the registration is in the pocket and we can pick up a license plate same day. We are meeting a nice insurance agent on Monday, so we have the weekend to make more renovations.

Only 6 days til we hit the road for the first legg of our tour, and there is lots happening. The band brought all the instruments to the bus last night so Levi could make sure everything fit. They ended up having a musical jam during sunset that I was sad to miss. Me? I have been preparing all the graphic design files for CrankySigns, who is donating some vinyl wrap, and will soon be joining some of our sponsors. The designs are being printed this weekend and installed early next week. I'm including one of our online producers who uploaded a cool picture.

Meanwhile Brokesy is working on our jumpsuits, Sarah and Juli are following up with regional coordinators around the country, and Fiona is researching bio-diesel. Our events are also coming together, with amazing teams of volunteers starting to pull rabbits out of thin air.

Can all this stuff really get done? I think the micro-collaborative structure of this production is really starting to blossom.

Tomorrow morning we are looking at a PA that we may get for the trip. Then we are headed to the Armory to work on the bus. After the DMV we drove the bus to Home Depot to pick up some lumber- i watched two people checking out our bus, walking all around it and even taking pictures of it with their camera phone. That really made my day.

Plus it seems like a lot of people are building crews of fellow producers and starting to connect. It's really exciting to see the site start to come to life now that we have new tools for communicating. It will be important in moving forward.

Mike B has been setting up the computers that Apple donated, and the word is that they rock and are digitizing HD footage like butter. We were having such a hard time before. Its an exciting relief to finally be getting footage in a place where we can start editing it!

And today we had a really good day of fundraising online- over $1,500 raised! $1,000 came from a generous donation from CELCO - a really cool company that makes the equipment we will be using for converting our frames of animation to 65mm film. We will share more of that process when we get to it. And thank you everyone else who donated today as well, we officially passed 7,800 Producers, a new record!

Celco joins our Top 11 Executive Producers-for the first time, everyone in the top 11 has donated $1K or more. These large donations are a huge help- the Top 11 account for half of all the money we have raised. But of course the $1 donations continue to add up, and we wouldn't be attracting larger donors if not for all the grass roots support.

Okay, I'm rambling. But there is a lot of exciting stuff happening. A producer from Current TV may be coming out to our bus on Saturday or Sunday to research a possible pod on our project, which is pretty cool. Volunteers are much needed this weekend- we are building the credit stand caboose- probably the most exciting feature on the bus. Check our Event Calendar for details about this weekend.

Thanks everyone! This is getting really exciting and I really appreciate all the little things everyone is doing. :)

n