Dear Family and Friends everywhere:

So many of you have called, emailed and sent cards over the past seven weeks asking how you can help Addi and Cassi in their battle against Niemann Pick Type C disease. We wanted to let everyone know that we have set up a website and blog for Addi and Cassi which is located at http://www.addiandcassi.com.
Many of you have asked us how you can make monetary donations or what else you might be able to do to directly help our family. We have an entire webpage on the website as to how you can help. In addition, we have established a research fund called the Addi and Cassi Fund to accelerate near term therapies for the girls. This new fund is set up through the Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation and will be 100% directed by our family. You will find all the information you need about the new fund on the website.

Christmas is just around the corner and we have a few big wishes this year. Our first wish is that the new Wishes Box we have set up on website fills up with messages from people all around the world. Please help us make our wish come true by spreading the word on NP-C and this lethal cholesterol disease. We are asking that everyone who receives this email forwards it on to their network of friends and family so we can spread the word worldwide. If anyone can help get the word out and drive awareness for NP-C, it’s our wonderful network of friends and family!

Our second wish is that everyone who receives this email considers making a financial contribution to help children afflicted with this devastating “Childhood Alzheimer’s”. We hope you will take a few minutes to read the website and our blog posts, as many children are being denied medication by their insurance companies and can not afford the astronomical price of potential lifesaving drugs.

We are doing everything we can to utilize our relationships, skills and resources to move the ball forward for the entire NP-C community and to solve this cholesterol mystery once and for all. We are also challenging the medical system to do things entirely differently in the way of treatments for Addi and Cassi, which we believe will have an impact on how other rare diseases can be treated in the future.

Finally, we have set up a mailing list on Addi and Cassi’s website and have taken the liberty of adding your name to this list. You will continue to get email from us periodically. If you prefer, you can remove your name from the list by using the links below. If you are not on the original email and this has been forwarded to you, you can sign up for the mailing list here.

We intend to keep AddiandCassi.com updated regularly with blog posts. We appreciate all your support to help us remain positive and get our message out to the world.

Peace To All During This Holiday Season,

Much love,

Hugh and Chris Hempel

Last week I attended the annual PRSA What’s Hot and What’s Not event held at the Computer History Museum. Ann Winblad, co-founding Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, did an impressive job moderating a panel that included Kara Swisher, All Things D, Victoria Barret, Forbes, Jim Goldman, CNBC, Rob Hof, BusinessWeek, Don Clark, The Wall Street Journal, and Robert Scoble, Scobleizer. The panelists gave their impressions of 2007 and their predictions for 2008 – some were very predictable (Facebook, Google, iPhone), and a few came as more of a surprise.

What we learned:
- 2007 was the year of Facebook and social networking, the iPhone, and Google. With every turn this year, there was a new social network that required new log-in information, a new friend’s list, a new space in your favorite’s toolbar – however, we all did sign on to build that ever important online presence. We waited in line for the iPhone ooohing and ahhing at the fancy touch screen and ease of use. We marveled at the Google Empire and their stronghold on the online ad industry. So what’s next?

- In 2008, the panelists predicted that consumer technology companies would be hit by a recession and enterprise would become the new black. They predicted that the online advertising industry would take new forms, and that many companies claiming ad-based revenue business models would slowly fade away. Some of the panelists predicted that Yahoo! would be acquired, while others thought it would undergo some major transformations in an effort to survive. So what will really happen? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

And if you missed the PRSA event and wanted to attend – thanks to Kara Swisher, you still can. She captured it all on video and posted it to her blog.

- Jamie