We arrived back home to Florida in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and, as noted in my last post from Spain, I came home with a lot less hair than I had originally crossed the Atlantic with (none to be exact). PPX International Chairman Gregg "The Mad Barber" McNair finally ran me down in Valencia and persuaded me to give up my hair in exchange for donations to The Water School - a life saving organization that we both support in every way we can. 

In new photos that came out today (at right, courtesy of TargetDomain.com's Facebook feed) you can see how things got off to a bad start and quickly went downhill for me from there! I thought about trying to wiggle out of McNair's hot seat but once pledges hit $20,000 I no longer had the luxury of saying no because I know how far that money will go toward eradicating disease by introducing The Water School's inexpensive clean water solution in developing countries.

I am happy to say that pledges passed $40,000 by the time we left Valencia and donations can still be made at WaterShave.org. I'll be getting some more information on specific donors and amounts from Gregg in a few days so I can recognize those generous givers in this column.

I was also happy that we were able to do this in Valencia where McNair gave a terrific presentation that showed domainers on the European side of the pond how important the Water School's work is. The domainers there also showed how generous they are by extending a helping hand to those in desperate need of one.

After getting back home, there was still one bit of conference related business I wanted to take care of. That was to send a personal thank you note today to each of the 20 people or companies that helped Jodi Chamberlain produce the surprise video that was shown Friday night  after I was honored to receive Domaining Europe's 1st Award for International Communications in the Domain Industry. Their congratulatory messages made an already special night truly unforgettable for Diana and I.

Leading the lamb to slaughter - unlicensed barber 
Gregg McNair (left) and Braden Pollock (right). 

One thing bothers me - Gregg McNair 
has  way too much fun doing this!

I may look pretty happy here but this was 
before someone handed me a mirror!

In a related note, I learned today that in addition to the message they recorded for the video, the DomainAdvisors.com team (of Gregg McNair, Jeff Gabriel, Tessa Holcomb, Amanda Waltz and Gina Aubrey) had spent a good bit of time putting together a comic Powerpoint slide show centered around a night out with a Ron Jackson bobblehead doll that was 

originally planned for the video but could not be included.  It kind of reminds me of one of those Mr. Bill sketches from Saturday Night Live except I don't get abused as badly as Mr. Bill did :-)  

My only minor quibble with the slide show is it hints I might be a Boston Red Sox fan (since they are major  rivals of our Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East that could never happen!)  They also show my bobblehead cozying up to a New England Patriots jersey but the Pats are way too good for a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan like me to appreciate. I am however on board with the admiration my bobblehead shows Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird - he was the best. You can  check it out here to see what I mean.

Now, with a wonderful week in Spain in the books, we return to our regularly scheduled programming, starting with a new double length domain sales report that will be out Thursday night. In the meantime, thanks to all for the memories!