Last weekend, I braved to last hurrah of our Minnesota winter and jumped into Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. It was the Polar Plunge and they cut holes in the ice so that we could do something that probably was a bit more crazy that it sounds like.
I’ve wanted to do the polar plunge for a few years now. This year, Tracy McKibben (Blog | @realsqlguy) organized a group of SQL professionals to do the plunge. The group included Tracy, Andy Lohn (Blog | @SQLQuill), Afroso, and myself. The big question is… was the water cold? Damn right it is. From the moment I hit the water, I was gasping and hoping to get warmed back up. As the photo shows, I went in with a Zombie mask and my MVP jersey. The unicorn mask suffered from poor scheduling on my part.
The purpose of the jump was to raise a little bit of money to help fund the Special Olympics. In total, I helped raise $1,150 of the more than $700K that was raised by the event. I never would have been able to meet my goal without those that pledged to have me go jump in a lake. My pledgers included:
- @DBArgenis
- Christina E. Leo
- Dan English
- David Black
- Doug Lane
- Ed Watson aka @SQLGator
- Ivan Dixon
- Joe Sack
- Lara Rubbelke
- Linda bowers
- Mark Holmes
- Michael Lacey
- Mr. Boyer
- Paul Timmerman
- robert & penny zimmerman
- Robert Bauer
- Robert L Davis
- Roger & Janelle Strate
- Rufus, April, Carl and Torrin
- Sarah Strate
- Shahryar G. Hashemi
- Sherie Wood
- The Wallingtons
- Those Vaillancourts
- Tom Schiro
Thank you to everyone that pledged to help me with the plunge. It was a great way to wake up after a red-eye back to the Twin Cities. And something I look forward to doing again next year.
Related posts:
- SQL Server Special Ops
- Will You Sponsor the #SQLPlunge?
- Minnesota BI Special Interest Group (BI-SIG) – March Meeting
