If you have come anywhere near me in the last few months, you’ve likely heard me mention the Remodeling Show.  The 20th Anniversary of this industry trade show (and Deck Expo) is being held in Chicago, Illinois this October . . . .  What? You haven’t heard me mention it?  Well, you might now notice three widgets dedicated to it at the top of our sidebar.

When I first posted on our desire to attend the Show (and Conference), we had around $40 in Building Moxie‘s business banking account. Since then, I have sold some links on both our home page as well as in some of the individual articles found on this site. This quickly brought our (net) balance to around $300.  (And ummm . . . if you haven’t noticed, we have very little of any other sort of advertising here — so that decision, to add these links, was not necessarily slam dunk.)

Interest early on was encouraging, and there has been some discussion about writing-for-hire, but truth — as much has panned out as hasn’t.  While we have begun to receive a few modest donations, the big and breaking news is this >> I am proud to announce that we have received pledges from, and are now sponsored for this event by, not one but two top notch organizations:

* DuQuella Tile out of Portland, Oregon.  Cyra’s handcrafted and gorgeous tile was recently featured in an episode of the DIY Network‘s Bath Crashers, with Matt Muenster.  (Quick Aside:  The first time I have watched an entire episode of this show.  What fun! — a great premise.)  A fantastic write-up of the tile’s appearance on the show as well as on her tile’s all-around awesome-coolness on friend Nick Lovelady’s Cupboards blog, here >> http://www.cupboardsonline.com/2011/08/duquella-tile-diy-network-bath-crashers.html.

* Crestview Doors out of Austin, Texas.  Crestview makes light kits that can convert any plain, blah (flush) door to a mid-century, boo-yah! (curb-appealing) masterpiece.  One of first organizations that I came across on Facebook, the marvel of their light kits may best be seen in their Flickr photostream, here >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/crestviewdoors/.

Shouts to both these fine folks, our sponsors, and you’ll likely hear more about them in the coming weeks . . . .

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Going from recommendations I received from friends at MSLGroup — Chicago, I worked most of last week to identify venues in Chicago’s South Loop area in the hopes of hosting an event (or four) the week of the Show.  (The Show is taking place, and is centered, at nearby McCormick Place.)   While I have nothing to announce yet, I hope to finalize these plans soon.  (I do remain open to suggestions from people that may be in the know . . . so please leave a comment if you have any (low-cost) ideas.)

Of course, it occurs to me that if only a handful of our followers (on Twitter alone) contributed just five dollars over there ( >> ) in the PayPal Donate widget, we’d be well on our way to our $2500 goal.  I, however, am not so naive as to think that that could make for an effective campaign alone.  And while James @bluecollarcoach was nice enough to hit us with a donation last week (< thank you James!), the hope is still to gather two (or three) more modest sponsorships by mid September (< Still enough time to make travel and lodging arrangements as well as finalize itinerary for the mid October event).  So if you are out there, please act now!

I still have my fingers crossed and may likely be reaching out to you if you are reading this.  I will admit — the amount of energy that this effort is requiring has actually (really) surprised me, but we are making headway.  We are currently at a little over $1100, or at around 47 miles with 59 more to go.  NOTE:  If you donate and we do not end up going (because we may not) your contribution will be returned to you.

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Some have asked, “Where does ‘106 Miles’ come from?”  The answer — from the Blues Brothers, the clip embedded in that first posting.  Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) turns to Jake Blues (John Belushi) and says, “It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago.  We’ve got a full tank of gas, a half pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses.”  I won’t go into the significance of this statement or the context of it as it fits into the movie . . . I will say however the movie the Blues Brothers is simply a classic, and that they were on a “Mission from God.”  (The “God” correlation simply coincidental and fun for a title.)

Thanks for reading.  Please feel free to comment or to contact me, happy Monday and enjoy. ~jb