The 2007 Webchick Hugathon (or, Angie Byron's Laptop Stolen!)
If you've spent any time in the Drupal community, you've run into the unstoppable Angela Byron -- a.k.a., Webchick. She's one of the pillars of the Drupal community: she writes documentation, helps train new users, organizes important projects, tests patches, writes modules, writes patches for Drupal Core, is a member of the Drupal Association board, and is basically everywhere at once and friendly while doing it.
Last night, while she helped organize a dinner for Drupal's founder Dries Buytaert, Webchick's car was broken into and her MacBook Pro was stolen. Like most of us geeks, Webchick's laptop is the hub of an entire digital life, and replacing it is no picnic. The good news, though, is that it gives us all a chance to do something cool for Webchick -- I've set up a Chipin.com fundraiser to replace Angie's laptop. Let's see if the Drupal community can take care of this little problem and get a brand new computer in her hands, eh? Eh! If you want to toss a few coppers in the can for Webchick, click here!
UPDATE! Hooooray! We raised just over $1500 for Angie, enough to pay for what her insurance company didn't cover, and some spiffy add-ons to make her computing experience even spiffier. She's now getting back into the swing of things and should be around soon! Thanks to everyone who donated and expressed their support. The Drupal community rocks.
sad misfortune
Thanks for giving me an opportunity to help out as best I can. Insurance is a pain to deal with, but often car insurance, homeowner or renter's insurance or even VISA cards built-in insurance (if the item was stolen from a car rented with that card) will help replace items stolen from a car.
Yep.
Webchick is trying to sort through that stuff now -- between the deductible and the coverage amount, the replacement cost would still be pretty high. I ran into a similar problem a few years back when my digital camera was stolen under similar circumstances. I ended up buying a new camera entirely before the insurance coverage even "kicked in."
State Farm
.... had a circa $30/year zero deductible "Personal Articles" rider that I used to cover a succession of laptops. And they didn't drop me after I dropped my TiBook and made a claim.
HOLY CRAP!!!
I'm speechless. I really don't even know what to say. You all are so unbelievably awesome... Even though this weekend started pretty crappily, I consider myself SO lucky to have such amazing friends. Wow...
Yeah, we are looking at what we can do w/ insurance. I'll be giving them a call tomorrow to find out what the deal is. If there is any overage, I promise to donate it to the Drupal Association. And either way, I'll find some way to pay your generosity forward.
Incidentally, if you find yourself in an Internet café next to someone with a banged-up MacBook Pro whose space bar is exceptionally loud (tickety-tickety-BAM!!), please "accidentally" spill searing hot coffee in their lap for me. Thanks. ;)
Good luck Angie!
Sorry to hear your laptop was stolen Angie... that's always a fear for me when I take my big honkin 17" MBP out on the town (it's just so shiny and sparkly, it's hard for the evil scheming crooks not to notice haha). Hopefully you have a pretty recent backup - in my case for fear of this (and the fear of clumsily dropping it haha) I started running automatic SuperDuper backups on a daily schedule. It does give a surprisingly "pleasant" level of peace of mind, though it would still suck to replace the laptop. If you sleep your MBP at night as I usually do, just set an automatic wake-from-sleep time in Energy Saver preferences. Sometimes I go and check the backup logs to make sure it worked, since it's so easy sometimes I don't believe it :P Or better, Time Machine's almost heeeere :D
Anyhow, good luck and I hope you get back up and running without too many headaches.
- Dave
Just found a solution.
I just blogged about an rss feeds and I have found a solution. All you have to do is offer free beer for life like what was found here http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/19/laptop.beer.ap/index.html
Anyhow, this is absolutely horrible but take comfort that you are not alone Angie.
Sorry to hear that. It's sad
Sorry to hear that. It's sad that even though Humanity has considered it so progressed and advanced, yet we have have people performing shameless acts such as stealing from one another. Sadly I'm a poor college student otherwise I would toss some $ your way, but good luck with getting the replacement, I'm surprised at how many people have already donated.
You guys are awesome!
Angie, so sorry to hear that your laptop was stolen. Some people just suck. Your Drupal friends on the other hand, well that's a different story. I think they (Jeff and all people who Chipped in) are pretty awesome. Hopefully, you can get a shiny new one, with all the stuff you lost soon!
Jacine :)
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