Interesting details missing: how does one run a marathon in Antarctica anyway? Firstly, how do you get down there? And secondly, where do you find a good place to run (ie somewhere where you won't slip on ice or fall into a crevasse?)
1) Set up a plane to Puntas Arenas, Chile.
2) Coordinate with group of other crazy people to fly to Antarctica
3) Bring LOTS of warm clothing.
4) To run, be very careful. Mostly shuffling.
5) Find big ice sheets to run on
Wow, I'm extremely curious how that will pan out. Going to Antarctica has been a lifelong dream of mine, and I always thought it was relatively difficult to do, but I suppose there aren't border guards.
Incidentally, I'm from North Dakota so I know we're supposed to be mortal enemies, but I do wish you the best of luck.
That's great. Running a marathon (I've already done a half) and visiting Antarctica (I've already done all but one of the other continents) are both on my to do list. I probably shouldn't tick them both off in one go, though.
For all that the US News rankings methodology is basically crap, they often do reflect something close to conventional wisdom. Stanford is 5th, with four Ivy above and four below.
Travis: if you ever want to learn web development with Ruby on Rails, you've got a free PDF+screencast bundle from http://railstutorial.org/ waiting for you. :-)
I for one support your use of PHP. I'm thinking now my donation request will consist of you putting up some permanent ice monument in support of PHP in Antarctica.
Why would one really does this? This does not seem reasonable what so ever. I do like the kid's idea, but its counter intuitive. The cost to get to Antarctica ranges from 5-14k. I dunno if that came out of his own pocket or what, but from what the article infers, it didn't. Also running 7 marathons in 7 continents, seems pretty expensive again. All that money wasted on travel could of gone to running the same program you already have locally. I have more questions but I'll direct those via email.
I'm doing this because I wanted to do something so crazy that it would help raise awareness for this organization. In two hours here's what's happened:
1) We've raised $3,000 (6% of the goal), 2) 10 schools from California to Brazil want to run our program, 3) offers for in-kind help (programming, pr, news, etc), and 4) It's fun! It's spreading the word in an innovative way and I'm loving what we're doing!!
Yeah, I know. I'd love to set up something like WePay but simply didn't have the time and we're already verified on Paypal. But I would like to talk to the WePay guys... :)
