Thank you so much for your interest in contributing to the 2010 Ride for Roswell, to benefit the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, United States. Whether you are a cancer survivor yourself, or the friend or loved one of someone who is fighting cancer or who has lost that fight, we are banding together this year to increase awareness and to provide funding for the next year of patient care and research at the Institute.

Before I discuss the different ways that you, as a Second Life resident, can help to contribute to the cause with your time  or resources, I would like to tell you the story of why I became involved in this project. Three short years ago, I'd never met anyone with cancer, nor anyone affected by cancer. I was very lucky that, at 24 years old, nobody I knew was afflicted with the disease, and I had never lost anyone to the disease.

However, as all of us did at one time or another, it was in my personal wanderings over the Internet that I came into Second Life, and like we tend to do, I began making friends. Whether it was playing Slingo at a local facility or just hanging out playing cards, I met people. And about three years ago, as of the time you read this message, I met a very dear friend of mine, whose name is ShujinTribble Kawanishi.

Now, Shujin and I met at a club where I was working at the time as a DJ, and he was a very nice guy. We became fast friends, and though he was a humorous and intelligent person, I always got the feeling something was there, under the surface, that he didn't talk about. Well, some time went on, and Shujin (or Shuie as we affectionately call him) became a DJ at my side, and we worked together to help benefit one of the places that would become our home.

In May of 2006, the club for which we work decided that we would do a charity event, which would become an annual occurrence. While many of the staff had their own ideas about what charity to choose, it was Shujin's story - his very deep, personal story, which touched and forever affects not only his life, but the lives of those of us privileged enough to know him as our friend. This is the true story of cancer, and of angiosarcoma specifically, that motivated every single member of our staff and the 1,000-plus members of our club to band together to support this organization.

ShujinTribble, like many of us, wandered off to college in his late teens. Now, Shujin is a social, outgoing guy now, but like all of us, things were a bit more awkward at that age. He didn't date much throughout college, only twice in fact. However, very near the end of his college career, it would be that second date, that second meeting, which would prove to change his life forever.

Fujin Tribble, as she was affectionately called by her husband, was a vibrant woman who was passionate about art and music, and to call it love at first sight was an understatement. As Shujin told me the story of he and his wife's meeting, "We both knew we were going to be together for all of time."  I never had the privilege of meeting Fujin personally, but with all the stories that I've heard from my long-time friend over the years, she has earned a place in my heart, and I feel as though I've known her nearly as long as I have him.

Fujin and Shujin were celebrating the birth of their first daughter, nicknamed Tiny Tribble to this day by all who know her father's affection for Star Trek, in 2002 when they learned of Fujin's diagnosis: Angiosarcoma, a quick-acting, extremely malignant form of cancer which is hard to treat, and is so rare that even America's oldest cancer center - the Roswell Park Cancer Institute - considers it a "one in a million" chance they would receive a patient with it.

Tiny Tribble is the beautiful young girl who appears in the "Who We Are" section of the website. There's a strong resemblence between her and her mother, and the bright, happy, brilliant personality that Fujin was known for by those who loved her, lives on in her daughter to this day.

Six weeks after their daughter's birth, Fujin was regrettably unable to continue breastfeeding her first child. As anyone who has experienced cancer treatment, either themselves or through family members, knows, it's an unpleasant process. There were several surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Even with all this, however, the rarity and lack of research on this cancer left some pretty grim odds: Only 1 in 5 people who are diagnosed with Angiosarcoma survive to the five year mark. By comparison, 49 out of 50 breast cancer patients will survive to the five-year point, as a result of great breakthroughs in treating that condition.

It was just under three years, though, before Fujin lost the battle against angiosarcoma, with her husband and her mother at her side. The part where Shujin always tears up as he tells me this story, which I'm now sharing with you, are the last words that he shared with his beloved wife as she fell asleep for the last time: "We will beat this for someone else. My word." It makes me tear up too. I've taken my dear friend's promise to his wife, and I've made it my own, as have the 1,400 members of The Feline Conspiracy. I hope you will help us to fulfill this promise today.