Help Mike Survive For A Month
Donation protected
I'm asking you to help me survive until the software I'm writing works well enough that my client will send it to their customers for testing.
This is called "Beta Testing" or just "Beta".
When my code goes to Beta I'll get quite a lot of money.
I was paid some up front when I started. That money would have been enough to cover my expenses until Beta - but this project is taking quite a lot longer than I at first expected.
I would not need your help had I not gone through five years of homelessness before getting this contract.
I'm asking for enough money for one month of food, phone and Internet bills, dental insurance and for the chiropractic treatment of a pinched nerve in my neck. (I've already paid my health insurance.)
I have a mental illness called "Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder". It's just like being Manic Depressive and Schizophrenic - at the same time. Sometimes I hallucinate, sometimes I get paranoid. Sometimes I experience a euphoric state called "mania". When I'm manic I don't sleep. I laugh at things that aren't funny. Sometimes I get suicidal.
Very few Schizoaffectives are able to work. Most live with their families, in psychiatric hospitals or face homelessness on the street.
I take medicine for all that but sometimes the medicine does not work. That started in 2009 and continued until early last year.
I'm not real sure how many times I was admitted to mental hospitals.
Many, many people urged me to go on SSDI - Social Security Disability Insurance - but I refuse to as I don't regard my mental illness to be a disability. Suppose I couldn't walk and had to use a wheelchair. Writing software works well for paraplegic people.
My degree is in Physics, but I work as a Software Engineer because coding accomodates my mental illness in a way that Physics does not.
Until quite recently, just looking at my client's source code - the basic instructions for computer programs - made me panic. I was once quite a good coder. I'm getting that back, but being out of work for so long led my skills to atrophy.
My client is a "fabless semiconductor firm". They design computer chips then pay a fabricator to make the actual chips. My client then sells the chips in bulk quantities to computer peripheral manufacturers who then sell finished products to the public.
Before they retained me, my client's chips only worked on Linux and Microsoft Windows. I'm writing "device drivers" to enable them to work on the Macintosh.
Device drivers must be flawless or they will crash your entire computer - often at the cost of losing your data. When this happens, you must cycle your computer's power to shutdown and reboot it.
During my homelessness I was offered free housing several times, but each time I refused as I wanted that housing to go to someone who did not know how to survive on the street.
There is a blind man who eats and - just sometimes - sleeps at the Portland Rescue Mission. Why do I have an apartment when Barnaby has to sleep out in the cold?
Some of my professional colleagues argued that I was far more likely to get back to work if I had housing. My experience proves them correct. I finally accepted housing that I got through my mental health clinic, Community Services Northwest in Vancouver, Washington.
The clinical term for my pinched nerve is "Cervical Radiculopathy". While the pinch is in my neck, I experience pain - sometimes crippling pain - in my left arm and shoulder.
My doctor told me there was nothing she could do about it. I fully expected to have that pain for the rest of my life.
I looked into surgery, but a spinal surgeon advised me to get chiropractic treatment first. The surgery is only done when one has exhausted all other treatments.
After two weeks of Chiropractic "adjustment", my pain is no longer severe. Sometimes - to my great delight - I have no pain at all.
My chiropractor is expecting me to pay in advance for November. That's $325. Before I thought about GoFundMe I had no clue where I would get that money.
Even if my product reached beta test tomorrow, there is likely to be a delay before I actually receive my client's payment. Right now I have only fifty dollars left; I plan to use all that money to buy food.
Sometimes crowdfunding works better than expected, so I might get more than $700. Were that to happen, I would keep only the $700. I would donate the rest to the Portland Rescue Mission. I often slept there too - but _only_ when I won the bed lottery.
This is called "Beta Testing" or just "Beta".
When my code goes to Beta I'll get quite a lot of money.
I was paid some up front when I started. That money would have been enough to cover my expenses until Beta - but this project is taking quite a lot longer than I at first expected.
I would not need your help had I not gone through five years of homelessness before getting this contract.
I'm asking for enough money for one month of food, phone and Internet bills, dental insurance and for the chiropractic treatment of a pinched nerve in my neck. (I've already paid my health insurance.)
I have a mental illness called "Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder". It's just like being Manic Depressive and Schizophrenic - at the same time. Sometimes I hallucinate, sometimes I get paranoid. Sometimes I experience a euphoric state called "mania". When I'm manic I don't sleep. I laugh at things that aren't funny. Sometimes I get suicidal.
Very few Schizoaffectives are able to work. Most live with their families, in psychiatric hospitals or face homelessness on the street.
I take medicine for all that but sometimes the medicine does not work. That started in 2009 and continued until early last year.
I'm not real sure how many times I was admitted to mental hospitals.
Many, many people urged me to go on SSDI - Social Security Disability Insurance - but I refuse to as I don't regard my mental illness to be a disability. Suppose I couldn't walk and had to use a wheelchair. Writing software works well for paraplegic people.
My degree is in Physics, but I work as a Software Engineer because coding accomodates my mental illness in a way that Physics does not.
Until quite recently, just looking at my client's source code - the basic instructions for computer programs - made me panic. I was once quite a good coder. I'm getting that back, but being out of work for so long led my skills to atrophy.
My client is a "fabless semiconductor firm". They design computer chips then pay a fabricator to make the actual chips. My client then sells the chips in bulk quantities to computer peripheral manufacturers who then sell finished products to the public.
Before they retained me, my client's chips only worked on Linux and Microsoft Windows. I'm writing "device drivers" to enable them to work on the Macintosh.
Device drivers must be flawless or they will crash your entire computer - often at the cost of losing your data. When this happens, you must cycle your computer's power to shutdown and reboot it.
During my homelessness I was offered free housing several times, but each time I refused as I wanted that housing to go to someone who did not know how to survive on the street.
There is a blind man who eats and - just sometimes - sleeps at the Portland Rescue Mission. Why do I have an apartment when Barnaby has to sleep out in the cold?
Some of my professional colleagues argued that I was far more likely to get back to work if I had housing. My experience proves them correct. I finally accepted housing that I got through my mental health clinic, Community Services Northwest in Vancouver, Washington.
The clinical term for my pinched nerve is "Cervical Radiculopathy". While the pinch is in my neck, I experience pain - sometimes crippling pain - in my left arm and shoulder.
My doctor told me there was nothing she could do about it. I fully expected to have that pain for the rest of my life.
I looked into surgery, but a spinal surgeon advised me to get chiropractic treatment first. The surgery is only done when one has exhausted all other treatments.
After two weeks of Chiropractic "adjustment", my pain is no longer severe. Sometimes - to my great delight - I have no pain at all.
My chiropractor is expecting me to pay in advance for November. That's $325. Before I thought about GoFundMe I had no clue where I would get that money.
Even if my product reached beta test tomorrow, there is likely to be a delay before I actually receive my client's payment. Right now I have only fifty dollars left; I plan to use all that money to buy food.
Sometimes crowdfunding works better than expected, so I might get more than $700. Were that to happen, I would keep only the $700. I would donate the rest to the Portland Rescue Mission. I often slept there too - but _only_ when I won the bed lottery.
Organizer
Michael David Crawford
Organizer
Vancouver, WA
Begin your fundraising journey
