UPDATE:

Thank you to everyone who contributed! This was a lot of fun and I really appreciate all the people who helped to support Special Olympics. The water was indeed cold, and I jumped from the far end of the dock. It was like needles all over my skin; an unusual but strangely not unpleasant feeling. As promised, my bellyflop, though there was some adjustment of it to avoid the guy directly below me (you can see him in the pic). There is a video on youtube:

www.youtube.com/watch

Intro

Thanks for visiting! I haven't done a lot of fundraising in the past, so I'm really excited about this one. Plus the opportunity to dive into a freezing river sounds pretty awesome.

So I'm encouraging your support for me in this effort. I'll be posting the details after the dive on my blog and myspace and facebook, with lots of pics, too.

What this is all about

This is a fundraising event for the Special Olympics. It's called a polar plunge, and basically people pledge money and you jump into a body of water in the middle of winter. In this case, that body of water is the Columbia River, and looking at its temperature over the past (http://www.cbr.washington.edu/dart/river.html (use PAQW station)), it has a temperature around this time of about 4 degrees Celsius. So we dive into the water, then swim back out, and all you have to do is donate.

Motivation

These are some pics of me in a bathing suit. As you can see, there's very little insulation, and I'm so white, even in summer, that I could easily be mistaken for an iceberg after jumping in the water. Since this event is taking place in January, and there's currently snow outside, it'll be a bit different than a pleasant summer sail.

Misc

I'm also looking for ways to do the jump into the water. I'm thinking of a few different ways, and I've decided that the final digit of the amount I raise will determine what I do. So if I get $1045 in donations, I'll do a cannonball.

0: Cannonball
1: Front flip
2: Back flip
3: Side flip
4: Feet first
5: Cannonball (a repeat, but diving headfirst isn't allowed)
6: Front flip
7: Bellyflop
8: Back flip
9: Feet first

Call to action

But remember, you're not donating for me, you're donating for Special Olympics Washington and Team Battelle. Team Battelle has a separate donation page at http://www.firstgiving.com/teambattelle/, so you can check out that page and donate through there if you want to, or just scroll down a little and click on the 'sponsor me now' button to donate. Woot!