Help Allan first.

I don't make it a secret that I'm horrible at asking for money or running donation drives. Every time I open my mouth, I say something wrong or inappropriate. There also is the little pride factor of having to admit I'm in need of any financial help... so since I started the Guide site, I told people to donate to Mepis first, then to MepisLovers... and then, only then, think about supporting the Guide site.

Well, at the end of October I ran a piece about asking for Intel hardware and Nvidia hardware... and in the last post I mused over getting a Macintosh. The system I listed there... isn't quite ready... but I'll go into that in another post... because somebody else... needs the money first again.

You can read the short version of what happened with Allan's family over on Lobby For Linux. Allan's daughter has been in a wreck out in Florida. Allan himself lives near Long Beach.... California. Lobby For Linux lists the accident report and a local report from a Florida newspaper. A call to the Melbourne Police Departments Records Division indicates that yes, it is real, with the officer answering asking how I was related to the incident. Good question.

Let me put it this way : http://mepis.gabston-howell.org/

Allan, or EnigmaOne as he is known on MepisLovers, has been the guy behind providing a community mirror of the Mepis releases again... and the Mepis Community Repository.

Like me though, as indicated by Lobby For Linux, Allan doesn't like asking for handouts... Sometimes though... hoping others find the service you deliver valuable enough to support... is all you can do.

http://gabston-howell.org/index.php?/pages/donate.html


Checking the top level of Allan's site reveals a post on his blog about the accident.

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Edit: 12/9/07 : Lobby For Linux pulled their blog entry since the Police Report wasn't actually supposed to go up. Basically, the report, while containing the name of Allen's Daughter, also lists the others involved... including those responsible for the wreck. The Police Report itself will be made available to the public through the Melbourne Police Department after 60 days has passed from the initial accident report, so no private information was published.