Keep the Bird burning

Earlier this week, Jonathon “Dishmatique” Delacour sent out an email message to everyone on Shelley “BurningBird” Powers’ blogroll. Shelley’s popular blog, BurningBird, consumes about 12 gigabytes of bandwidth every month — something I’ve only been able to do once, as a result of the New Girl story — and that’s not cheap.

Shelley’s finances have taken a beating this year, and she’s had to think about cutting back on non-essential expenses, which include webhosting. I think losing BurningBird would be terrible: it’s a terrific blog for matters both technical and personal, and she’s been quite an influence on my writing. Her blogger webring — Bloggers with Attitude — was the first one to accept me into its fold, and she’s been nothing but encouraging to me. Finally, without Shelley, we’d lose a rare female voice in the world of technology, a world that really could use a good deal more.

I know what it’s like to have your finances drained through unemployment and deadbeats. I’ve been lucky. Thanks to a little help from the folks, living in Canada (it’s better to be rich in the U.S., but it’s better to be poor in Canada), the “Save Joey’s Christmas” sale and for a short while, the accordion actually covering my groceries, I’ve been able to get by without giving up less essential things like internet hosting.

(A good thing, too, because BLOGS SAVE LIVES!)

Jonathon’s set up a PayPal fund for Shelley. As a way of spreading the grace/karma/good mojo around, I donated the $20 I made from a kind stranger as thanks for playing the Hokey Pokey for a little girl to Shelley. I know Shelley well enough to know that someday, she’s going to pass it along too. If you’re a reader of BurningBird, how ’bout throwing a little extra cash Shelley’s way? Just click on the logo below: