Daily Archives: 02/06/2010

(Community Matters) Our friends at the McDonald Observatory have been nice enough to include us in the VIP/Board of Visitors weekend.  We didn’t stay for last night’s dinner but did make the reception at the Hyatt (which is looking fantastic btw).  Connected with a few friends including Joel Barna, Jeff Kodosky, Andy & Karen White, Rep. Elliott Nashitat and Saralee Tiede.  Missed Joe & Tana Christie – Joe’s on the BOV;  I’ll see him at today’s meetings.

Especially enjoyed meeting and chatting with four astronomers/PhD candidates: Amanda Heiderman, Carey Dean, Bi Qing and Jeremy Murphy.  Their areas of research: star formation, planet formation, where metals come from, and the principles of dark matter.

Today’s meetings include a special presentation from Dr. Charles Gebhardt. Jeremy is one of his graduate students – the lecture about giant elliptical galaxies and the measurement of dark matter.

(Community Matters) Steven and I had dinner at Annie’s last night.  Wow, have heard so much about it.  Suppose it could have just been an off night – no attention whatsoever to presentation.  The waiter fumbled Steven’s order, and even though it wasn’t very crowded, the food took a long time to arrive.  Nice enough staff and decent ambiance.  Definitely want to give it another try.

(Community Matters) I sent out the following update this morning to friends who’d donated to HelpHaiti.  Thought some readers might find of interest:

Good morning,

Once again, welcome to our new friends on this list of HelpHaiti (http://GiveToAustin.org/HelpHaiti) contributors.  We’ve raised $730k, still expecting to raise $1.2mm.  We have earmarked $150k for 30-day challenge grants specifically for 3 charities doing outstanding work in Haiti – more on this further below.  As a reminder, we expect to raise funds over a 5 or 6 month period.

Below I’ve pasted notes from three telephone calls with our operating partners in Haiti.  There’s a lot of information – sorry for the detail but I thought some would want to see it and others could just breeze over it.

You’ll notice the addition of Catholic Relief Services as a partner.  In our conversations with Concern Worldwide and Partners in Health, Catholic Relief Services stood out as a trusted and critical partner, especially for food and because of their distribution network through churches all around the country.  We had an enlightening conversation with CRS’s Director of Worldwide Emergency Operations, Pat Johns.  Pat was in charge for CRS in Indonesia for 5 years after the tsunami and oversaw $130mm worth of relief and rebuild – notes from this call further below. Continue reading →