Help Send Arif (and others) to Training Camp!

As you know, the Daily Norseman (and, I would like to announce, Vikings Territory) will be covering training camp in full once more this year, committed to providing the best coverage of any team by any media over the course of training camp.

This means up-to-the-minute updates on happenings around camp, with the kind of micro-analysis every quarterback throw deserves (but probably doesn't need). It also means the most thorough coverage of camp you've ever seen, with 5,000 word notebooks published every day, complete depth charts and reports on performance, organizational philosophy, schemes and more.

Unfortunately, my transition to full-time blogger means that I'm even less able to get to camp than before. Last year, you were able to cover half my camp costs and improve the hardware I needed to cover camp. That was extraordinary, and I thank you. I unfortunately didn't follow through with high-resolution pictures and video during camp for a few reasons, but I'll be able to do so this time.

Without a well of savings to draw upon to secure even a few days at camp, I'll need all of camp covered this time. But it won't just be me you'll help out. An allotment of all money donated through this fundraiser will help out the other staff members covering training camp and another allotment of the donations will provide for a charity to be named that Adam Warwas at Vikings Territory is committed to fundraising for because of some very personal reasons.

I do not have the details of that charity on me at the moment, but Adam will have a full post soon at VT with his story and charity. You of course can (and should) donate to that charity without going through this middleman at all, but if you wanted to contribute to both, this would be a good (non tax-deductible) way to do it.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a hard number for what percentage of your donation to the training camp fundraiser will go to the charity and other staff members because the percentage will be dependent on the ability to hit the goal. I can tell you this: before hitting the $3200 goal I've set, 8% of any money donated will go to a kitty designed to help absorb the costs of the other DNers covering the camp, and 8% will go towards Adam's chosen charity.

After that $3200.00 goal, 16% will go to the DNers and 16% will go towards the charity. That means once we've hit $3200.00, we'll have raised $256.00 towards Adam's chosen charity and $256.00 towards beer money for Ted, Eric, Ted, Di, Ted and CCNorseman (and Ted).

If we hit $3600, $320 total dollars will be donated towards Adam's chosen charity and the same to Ted's growing alcoholism problem. And so on. Hitting more than $3200 will be good for me not just because it will allow me to eat real food at camp, but resolve some (very workable) issues I'll have while there—coffee, an extended cell phone battery, a working hard drive (my computer currently crashes randomly at intervals ranging from 20 seconds to 3 hours) and gas money.

If you'd rather split your donation up a different way (say you're Ted and just want to keep your beer money in escrow), you can mark your donation as "private" and leave a comment with how you'd rather divvy up your donation to the coverage.

What's more, everyone who donates $25.00 or more will receive (if they want) a printed training camp guide written by me with extensive scouting reports on every single player, "what to watch for" at camp and the organizational philosophy surrounding different approaches to training camps. You should receive those a week before camp.

Anyone who wants to donate can donate through the GoFundMe page, where they'll have a number of donation options. They will keep a running total. As for how I'll split the content—the wordy notebooks will still be at the Daily Norseman, but I will be doing the interviews and other coverage at Vikings Territory.

Big thanks for Admiral Big Gun for allowing me to use his photo of me from training camp! Be sure to visit his website TailgateMaster.com for tailgate recipes. Recently, I used the bacon deviled eggs recipe to convince my girlfriend that hard boiling eggs was an amazing idea.

And once more, thank you for donating. I would not be able to spend more than one day at training camp without the help of you all, and I want to pay it back tenfold with stellar coverage.