I’m extremely excited to bring you this news today. We signed up for Austin Pets Alive! this morning and wow, what a wonderful feeling it is. The orientation was scheduled at 11 this morning at the popular Mars resturant on Congress. Honestly, I did not know what to expect. I had always wanted to do something like this but never had. So without much preparation, we just showed up there (5 minutes late actually!). The APA folks were really accommodating and welcomed us with a big smile. The orientation took about an hour or so. We could see a lot of cool, motivated people who in turn motivated us quite a bit. It was very exciting to see so much enthusiasm amongst Austinites especially for such a great cause. After the introduction, we were given our volunteer T-shirts which by the way are super-sexy! Then we got to meet the wonderful dogs that APA is trying to find permanent homes for. This was the most fun part. It is heartbreaking to see so many dogs waiting to find their homes. Without sounding exaggerating, I feel they are some of the most amazing dogs I have ever come across. Keep in mind, many of them were either abused or were just stray. At the same time, a big thank you to all the foster parents who have been taking care of these guys till they find their permanent parents. Remember, each one of these guys was on an euthanasia list at some point and would have certainly died had it not been for these wonderful people. I shall be writing soon about our own foster experience soon. In the mean time, I’m looking forward to all the great experiences that APA is going to provide us in the coming weeks. In fact, tomorrow itself we are heading to the Balcones Petsmart for an adoption event. Extremely excited!!! If you happen to read this article and know someone in Austin who might be interested, please have them get in touch with me @ praveensg[AT]gmail.com or Khushbu @ kkhushbu[AT]gmail.com. It’s worth every bit of it!

Jeff Palermo, CTO of HeadSpring Systems

The ever-charismatic Scott Bellware who is also pretty active on the ADNUG group.

Sharon Cichelli

Joe Ocampo, the Agile evangelist

Robert Stackhouse as laid back as ever

Chad Myers

Me me me

The link to the set is here

Thanks Doc for the great pix.