Hi friends, family, online peeps - this is a formal call for financial help for my husband, Pete. If you can help, that would be wonderful!

A little backstory:

Some of you know my husband, Pete. He's a writer, blogger, puppeteer, videographer, editor, cartoonist. He's a computer whiz, too...which is why the last months have been hard on him. His MacBook of 3 years began having problems a few months ago - slow loading, and then overheating and crashes about 3 times daily. This alone made his work difficult (editing and processing video, especially - some of you have hired him to shoot your shows for posterity). Then, about a week ago (and a few days before his birthday on June 6th), his computer completely went kaput. Now, he can't very much pursue his craft and find work without a computer, and is now relying on his little EEE laptop and iPhone to do email and a bit of blogging. Before his computer completely failed on him, Pete put a little 1-minute video together (literally putting a flip camera aimed at the computer while he worked) - it illustrates what he was going through for a month - crashes in the middle of processing jobs for really no reason at all. And it wasn't all sarchasm, let me tell you...

Pete & I are not able cash-wise to purchase a new computer (which will serve myself as an artist as well as Pete), and we are not able to take in any more debt by putting it on a credit card or on loan. This is where I hope you can come in - I am collecting donations towards a new computer for Pete. He has a paypal account -- thepetecom@gmail.com -- that you can donate to, or you can email me sirein@sierrarein.com if you'd like to donate in another way (cash, check, whatever's easier). Consider it a belated Birthday present!!! If we get 100 people to donate $10 each, that's most of the money towards a new computer, one that can get Pete back on his feet to do his work.

And it goes without saying, if you can forward this to others who might be able to help, please do so.

Thank you, friends!