The week in review

This week has probably brought 10,000 visitors to this site. Yes, that includes repeat offenders, er, I mean, visitors. Still, though — that’s some traffic. My inbox, I am thrilled to say, has been chock-full of comments from folks asking for the address and / or asking questions. Which is pretty darn-tootin’ cool, as I see it.

Speaking of which, I think there are two things I am going to try and focus on this week. OK, three — since one thing is to make the first deliveries.

Theme 1 for this week: humor. I joke about how this started with a vision of bundles that would be measures in tens, but now it’s probably going to be measured in hundreds. Please don’t think that this is work for me. I’m having a ball. Sure, there’s a lot to do, but I still get to sleep at night, I still get my two meals a day. I make it up to the laundry drop off every few days. But it’s a lot of fun. The absolute funniest was a customs form on one of the bundles that arrived. The form has a place where it asks what to do with the package if it’s undeliverable. The sender wrote, “Give to local Iraqi police.” So, look for the funnies this week.

Theme 2 for this week: bigger is better. Some of the bundles that have arrived have been filled with giant ball-thingies of yarn (yes, I realize there’s a technical name of them, I just have no idea what that is). Well, some are just plain stuffed, too. And some of the pieces of fabric have been really big. I see these things, and the little gears in my head start to spin. Small things are good, but big is better.

Oh, and if you’re worried that the rapid growth of this thing is getting to be too much, don’t. I have a few back-channel discussions ongoing with some real-heavyweights about just how big this thing can get, but really, I’m committed to this. You do not need to worry about it — we will take care of this end.

Two Three last things. Bundles from the US, in the flat rate boxes, seem to be taking about 10 days to get here. Traffic to the website, and folks looking to help, increased significantly starting last Friday, a week ago. So, if the weather holds, it should rain boxes late this week, I think. I added a running count to the top right corner of the column to the right (look up top over here —>), so you should b able to check in and see how it’s going.

I have a press guy now. Really. So, attention mainstream media, leave a comment and I will put you in touch with my media guy. Apparently, photos and text and even TV are possible. I don’t know if the Army will pay for me to take a business trip, to be a guest speaker at your Sock-a-palooza or national quilt convention show thingy, but I can certainly put you in touch with the guy to ask. Why am I even mentioning this? Yep — you guessed it, I’ve had inquiries.

And I got an owie.

Apparently, training for a marathon, in the dark on a near-moonless night, after midnight and in the desert, should probably include the active use of a flashlight, not the passive use of a flashlight. I busted up the knee, and sprained an ankle. But I went on to run 7 more miles, just with a slower pace than normal.

Until then, have some more kitteh.

Well, this didn’t take long

The bundle on the bottom is from Mrs. IBOL Guy. I was expecting something from her early on, as she was in on this project before it even had a name.

That pretty, wonderful, beautiful bundle on the top? Yeah — I have no idea who it’s from. I mean, sure, there’s a return address and a name, but it’s not from anyone who left a comment here, or anyone who contacted me.

And I think that’s totally awesome. Want to know the best part? They included a little note on the box, too.

The First Bundles Are Here!

Me and CPT T, who seems rather pleased with it all

Mail service here can be hit or miss. We can go days without getting a mail run bringing in new stuff. This was one of those weeks — I think we got mail twice this past week.

But we got mail today! And six bundles arrived. Six! I grabbed CPT T, the brains behind this whole thing, and we went to go open them up. Sure as you-know-what, we cut boxes open, reached inside, and pulled out complete bundles — exactly as designed! We took some more photos — click on the photo above or here, to go see the whole set. Yes, they’re tagged with the iraqibundlesoflove Flickr tag, too.

As we stood there, staring at these bundles of awesomeness, it was hard to imagine hundreds of these things headed our way. Wow. Whoa.

Two comments, before I close this up and go sleep for a few hours.

Already someone has broken the rules. Someone write a very nice and very personal note, and included it on top of the bundle. Which just about made me cry. Come on, people — work with me here. My reputation as a hardened killer is going to take a beating if you do stuff like that.

And two, three of these six boxes came from one person. Three! My goodness, the implications of that are tremendous — with 200 people having left comments here, and gobs more getting the address from others, it’d be a thousand bundles if everyone sent three or more! Heavens to Betsy, that’s a lot of love!

So, three cheers for the first round of bundles that arrived!

The week in review

IBOL Kitteh say, "Meh."

On this quiet Sunday morning, I thought I’d try and wrap up a few loose ideas and other things.

1. Thanks. Holy smokes, THANKS. I really thought that success for this project was going to be measures in tens, not hundreds. My units is trying to figure out where to put all these bundles until we start making deliveries — and yes, this is a marvelous problem to have!

2. Yes, by all means — I am totally OK with you giving the mail address to people. I ask a couple of things — a) I am trying to keep the actual address off of the web, since this thing only runs for so long (and since I leave not long after it ends), and 2) you pass along that stuff should be post-marked by 7 Sept. I think that probably applies for international mail, too. If you’re on Palau, well, I’d send stuff sooner rather than later.

3. Has anyone convinced their local fabric / yard place to support this by selling stuff at cost (or darn tootin’ cheap)? Please let me know. I would love, love, love to find a fabric / yard place doing this. It’s gotta be possible, right?

4. What if that store had local volunteers who built actual bundles? And took Visa? Suddenly, the non-quilting / knitting people of the world — stop laughing! They really do exist! — would have an easy way to pile on board, too. I could soooo sell that idea to nerds. And to people to go to sock week dressed as Darth Vader. And rock stars. The rest of the world.

5. Jacquie posted some wonderful eye candy about what she’s sending (here), and in the comments, Rachel made what was probably a tongue-in-cheek offer to send 20 yards for fabric in exchange for one of the pieces heading her way instead. Which might actually happen. Which got me thinking — one yard becomes 20? Really? How else is this thing mutating in weird, wonderful ways?

6. There’s a Flickr tag for this whole thing: iraqibundlesoflove. Over on Facebook, I am linking to some of the many photos of bundles that people are posting to the web, mostly on their own websites. And I gotta say — wow, they are stunning. And very popular with the cats, since they seem to be almost magnetically attracted to these bundles, too. Probably because the bundle represents a pile that they can either 1) sit on, or 2) barf on.

7. Fans of the blog Happy Zombie might want to swing by JoCo‘s site here and download the zombie song. Yes, it’s legal to download this (even in the US), and yes, it’s free.

8. The first day this site was up, 10 people visited. And I bet they all shared the same family name as well. And Google returned no results when you searched for the phrase Iraqi Bundles of Love. Friday, the site was hammered by just a hair under 2000 hits, and what seemed like 1000 people leaving comments asking for the address (Ok, it was probably just 50). There’s been a ton of visitors from the US and Canada. And Germany, my other home. And now some from Australia (!). And the UK. And Norway. It warms my heart plenty to have so many, from so many places, offer to help out this US Soldier. So, I will leave you with one of my favorite photos of all time, that I took in Flam, Norway, back when we were expecting IBOL Kid #2. Maybe it’ll warm our heart, too.

And for the record, yes, you can now go do your part to stimulate the international economy by shopping for material to re-stock your stash.