getwellgamer's Journal

Inside the GWG
Figured I should put something in here worth seeing.

There's about a meg of photos in here, so you've been warned. Also, excuse the blurriness on some of them- I'm not much of a shutterbug.

I had been advised to photograph what assets the Foundation had for insurance purposes, so I thought it might also be fun to show everyone where I work my Foundation stuff every day.

Start at the door to my office:

My office is really a converted guest bedroom, as evidenced by the big honking bed left in there. You can sleep on it, sure, but more often than not I wind up using is as a counter to pack donations on.

And if you're wondering what those two framed pictures obscured by the torchlamp are, they're nature photos.

I'm a huge fan of Thomas Mengelsen's "Images of Nature" work. These two Tiger photos are among my favorites.

I've also got one of a deer in winter and a trio of polar bears, but not in the office. Onwards!

The Mighty Desk Of Power. The nerve center of the foundation and where I spend 90% of my time when I'm not at school or work. The desk has a variety of functions, including, but not limited to...

The Shipping department. Here I have everything I need to ship donations to hospitals right from my computer using FedEx.com. Usually for a good deal cheaper than UPS or even the post office on occaison.

The Accounting department, such as it is. It's practically cobwebbed since we hardly ever have any money to spend.

And my Rolodex- everything from game companies to hospitals to office supply stores, wrapped in a rubber band. I really should think about investing in a day-planner or something.

Oh hey, what's this down here?

Why, it's The Briefcase Of Doom! Let's open it up!

Rar! Business Cards, CD's, and scary, scary paperwork! How much paperwork, you ask?

LOTS and LOTS of freaking paperwork. In case you can't read my brain-damaged scrawl, from top left it's Donators, Donator Reciepts, PR Materials, GWG Lawyers, GWG Bank of America Statements, GWG IRS, GWG Legal, Cashed Checks, GWG Hospital Letters, and Shopping Reciepts. It's a lot of paperwork to get a charity going and more to maintain it. The pile would be bigger if we didn't have a stack of forms at our CPA's office getting processed.

Speaking of Hospital Letters, that one's probably my favorite folder. Check it out:

Just warms the cockles of my heart, it does.

You know, speaking of donations, maybe it's time we turn around and check out...

THE INVENTORY!

This is every game the Foundation currently has in stock. Note that these pictures were taken after we sent out our first batch of relief kits for the Katrina refugee camps, so this is actually a bit less than what we should have.

Hal Halpin over at the IEMA always keeps us hooked up with PC games. Unfortunately, they're the hardest to get rid of because not all hospitals have PCs that can run current/worthwhile games. This is why consoles are easier- all you need is a TV and a socket and you're good to go.

Speaking of consoles, I found it ironic that the ratio of donated PS2 games to XBox and GameCube games almost mirrors their market shares- though I think the PS2 stack would need to be a bit taller to really be to scale...

Which isn't to say the classics don't get represented as well. Yes, those are NES and Genesis games next to the PS1 stuff. And while officially the Foundation doesn't "like" one system over another, I will say that N64 games are remarkably resilient and virtually always work on the first plug-in, as opposed to many of the cd/dvd-based games needing to be resurfaced before they'll function. And to test these games and make sure they work before they go to a hospital, I use the trusty...

Test Station Alpha! It's not much, but it's got A/V's in the front and an R/F in the back, so I can play anything on this little hand-me down TV. Of course, those drawers aren't just sitting empty- with that many games, you need...

Consoles! By the way, those two old monochrome gameboys don't work, but I can't get into them to fix 'em because Nintendo uses some wierd three-toothed screws that I can't get out. Anyone know what I need?

SNES, Genesis, N64... good times.

I call this the "Drawer of Irony", because I've wanted to play both of these systems for quite some time, yet both decks were donated sans any kind of cables, so they're basically doorstops until we find some replacements.

Speaking of cables...

This is a cool drawer. We've got all kinds of peripherals, adaptors, game genies, and a huge stack of manuals waiting to be paired with games. Makes for some fun reading- those old manuals really went out of their way to treat gamers like idiots, down to "Hey Kids! Get your Mom or Dad to hook up your Nintendo!", etc.

And here's our controller drawer. I try to supply first-party whenever I can, only giving hospitals third-party controllers as a last resort. Sure turbo is nice and whatever, but we try to stick with the reliability of first-party as a rule of thumb.

Two more stops and we're finished. The first is..

The Packing department. I think the Foundation has bought maybe three boxes the whole time it's been operating. Every donation that goes out nowadays is put in a box that was sent to us, usually filled with someone else's donation initally. The same goes for the packing peanuts, bubble wrap, etc. that keeps it safe. It's easy to be a proponent of recycling when you're too broke to buy the stuff yourself, heh.

Our last stop on the Tour is the Foundation's Vault. This little baby is the best $40 I ever spent. It's fireproof, waterproof, crush proof... basically, all of the documents and papers that make the foundation what it is in a corporate and legal sense could survive armageddon inside there.

Well, thanks for watching, and I hope it wasn't too boring. If it was, well, here's a picture of my dog Bubba, taking his usual position at my office door to guard me from the mailman:

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