In early 1990, my father was diagnosed with MND (known as ALS in the United States). At that time, none of my family knew anything about this horrid disease. On the 16th of September, 1991, less than 2 years after being diagnosed, my father passed away.

Over the last 24 years my family has learned quite a lot about MND. We have also been involved in some way or another with helping raise funds for the research into MND/ALS, while my mother spent many years as a member of the Victorian MND Association.

Recently, the MND/ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has gone viral throughout the world, and my family and I were, of course, going to be a part of it!

So for your viewing pleasure, here is my Bucket Challenge video - In honour of my Dad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QtMK9uN0hs

This next video was compiled by my niece. The participants are my mother, my wife, my 3 children, one of my nieces, 2 of my nephews and a cousin and her daughter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9P5X4IL5DQ

I hope you enjoy the antics of me and my crazy family. But we had a lot of F U N doing it! :D :D ;D

That did look like fun. Well done to you and your family for supporting a good cause.

Mark, that was great :) Hope you haven't got a cold :)

No. I'm fine. The heater and hot coffee was available after we had finished. ;D

The temperature was about 12^oC (it's still Winter here) when I checked the weather app on my mobile phone. Brrr :D

Edit: Here is an article in the local weekly newspaper (The Miner):

http://www.theminer.net.au/index.php/news/684-blossom-connect-brings-ice-bucket-challenge-to-ballarat-through-mnd-victoria

And it's on the front page too. Yikes!!! :D ;D

http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/vv58/Markoz958/10491206_10152476230082529_376007987633060866_n_zpsc5421c65.jpg~original

http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/vv58/Markoz958/10492098_10152476230077529_1819224040869874218_n_zps390d9420.jpg~original

Nice to see you have a happy and funny family. But it takes a lot of courage to play ice buckets challenge during the winter, although australian winter, as here, must be mild. :)

The newspaper article claims that the temperature at the time we did it was 7^oC (45^oF). I don't think it was that cold, but most of the family were pretty well rugged up (wearing jumpers and/or jackets), while I was outside in my black shorts and white T-shirt for the better part of an hour without feeling too cold. If it really was only 7^oC, I'm sure I would have felt it. :D

GREAT JOB MARK!

I don't care if it's 7 degrees or 27 degrees it is still COLD!

Our local fire department also did the challenge
but when they talked about the bucket part they failed to mention it was ice from the bucket of a front end loader!  :o

They dumped the whole bucket on about 15 of us... It was COLD and knocked most of us to the ground.

I'm a member of the fire department, but too old to climb
up & down the ladders so we serve as fire cops who protect the fire fighters
and direct traffic at fire and crash scenes.

Here I am doing just that....  ;D

http://www.camphillfire.org/photos/image/31-img-1941#fwgallerytop

Thanks for doing that Lou. Although I wouldn't have recommended using a front end loader to dump it (I've seen that done on a few videos).
We are hoping that with the money raised, the researchers will find out the cause, and possibly if there is a way to prevent it, or a cure (which would be fantastic).
I still vividly remember the phone call from my mother to tell me my father had I died. I knew it was coming, but I dreaded it happening. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. :(

Oh Mark!

Mate you must be mad, wearing shorts and tshirt in Ballarat in mid winter is enough to get you certified. Let alone ice buckets!!

Good on ya mate, a great way to honour your dad and bring recognition to the disease. Motor Neurone does not get the funding it needs in this country.

Pinatubo wrote on Aug 28^th, 2014 at 3:31am:

, although australian winter, as here, must be mild. :)

Don't bet on it.
Ballarat is freezing in summer let alone winter.

It's not 40-50°C everywhere.

Cappy wrote on Sep 5^th, 2014 at 6:00am:

Pinatubo wrote on Aug 28th, 2014 at 3:31am: , although australian winter, as here, must be mild. :) Don't bet on it. Ballarat is freezing in summer let alone winter. It's not 40-50°C everywhere.

http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/vv58/Markoz958/Ballarataveragetemperatures_zps37979385.jpg~original

AP means the Airport, which is where the weather recording equipment is. ;)

Cappy wrote on Sep 5^th, 2014 at 6:00am:

Pinatubo wrote on Aug 28th, 2014 at 3:31am: , although australian winter, as here, must be mild. :) Don't bet on it. Ballarat is freezing in summer let alone winter. It's not 40-50°C everywhere.

Well, looking the table added by Mark, I would say Ballarat has pleasant summer temperatures and, it's a little too cool but not freezing, during the winter.

I would love to live in a city like that, with a summer without much to complain about. Without a ton of oppressively hot days. ;)

Pinatubo wrote on Sep 6^th, 2014 at 4:16am:

Cappy wrote on Sep 5th, 2014 at 6:00am: Pinatubo wrote on Aug 28th, 2014 at 3:31am: , although australian winter, as here, must be mild. :) Don't bet on it. Ballarat is freezing in summer let alone winter. It's not 40-50°C everywhere. Well, looking the table added by Mark, I would say Ballarat has pleasant summer temperatures and, it's a little too cool but not freezing, during the winter. I would love to live in a city like that, with a summer without much to complain about. Without a ton of oppressively hot days. ;)

The summer in Ballarat can get very hot. We had buy an air con last year because we had too many days that were between 35^o and 42^o Celsius. So there is plenty of complaints about the oppressive heat here. ;D

Unfortunately for me, the hotter the temperature, the more pain I have! :(

Pinatubo wrote on Sep 6^th, 2014 at 4:16am:

Cappy wrote on Sep 5th, 2014 at 6:00am: Pinatubo wrote on Aug 28th, 2014 at 3:31am: , although australian winter, as here, must be mild. :) Don't bet on it. Ballarat is freezing in summer let alone winter. It's not 40-50°C everywhere. Well, looking the table added by Mark, I would say Ballarat has pleasant summer temperatures and, it's a little too cool but not freezing, during the winter. I would love to live in a city like that, with a summer without much to complain about. Without a ton of oppressively hot days. ;)

Where I spend a good part of the year (Marble Bar) it's known as the hottest place on earth. However it's not as bad as it sounds, yes it gets bloody hot but when I'm in a place like Darwin where it's 32 all day every bloody day of the year I nearly keel over. It's in the tropics and I find the near 100% humidity very hard to handle.

One interesting fact I heard recently was medical people were recommending that visitors/workers new to the area should budget for 25 litres of water per day per person. That's 10X the recommended average!!! Apparently after two weeks your body starts to acclimatise to where you get back to "normal". 25 litres = a lot of sweat!  :o

As soon as it dips below 30 I reach for a jumper..  :P

The beauty of humanity is we all have different tastes.  :)

Mark: speaking of ice buckets--and since you have one on your CPU--why don't you ever pop that pup over 4Ghz? Every time I see your signature, it makes me curious...

I've got a 3770K that runs stable at 4.7... yet I still lag with these CS (and other) aircraft...

garrettprs wrote on Sep 15^th, 2014 at 3:42am:

Mark: speaking of ice buckets--and since you have one on your CPU--why don't you ever pop that pup over 4Ghz? Every time I see your signature, it makes me curious... I've got a 3770K that runs stable at 4.7... yet I still lag with these CS (and other) aircraft...

I overclocked it to 4.2GHz quite a while ago, and it ran fine, but I never tried any higher than that, then I returned it to its default setting and I've left it there.

One day I'll overclock it again, but I'm not sure when that will be. :D

Happy Birthday Markoz.

I can't start a topic yet so I'll put it here. Many Happy Returns Mark  [smiley=birthdays.gif]   and hats off to you for your wealth of knowledge so patiently given here.

(I saw it was your birthday on the another company forum).

hifly wrote on Sep 21^st, 2014 at 4:24pm:

Happy Birthday Markoz. I can't start a topic yet so I'll put it here. Many Happy Returns Mark  [smiley=birthdays.gif]   and hats off to you for your wealth of knowledge so patiently given here. (I saw it was your birthday on the another company forum).

Thank you.

Note. I thought that once you reached 10 posts, you were then able to start a topic. :-/