It looks like Team NECC is up and running and their donation site is as well. Head over to help Mike reach his goal of raising $5000 for John’s school.

According to The Autism News, some autism groups are upset over the tone of the video below. I do agree the beginning paints a stark picture, but watch the entire clip. The overall message is one of determination. Also interesting is how Autism Speaks, producer of the video responded:

Peter Bell, executive vice president of Autism Speaks, says the video got plenty of positive response from the autism community. “But we realized it did hurt a certain segment of the population, which is why we removed the video link from our website,” he says.

“I Am Autism,” which turns hopeful about halfway through its 3 minutes and 44 seconds, was created for a World Focus on Autism event that coincided with the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in September. “It was never intended to have a life beyond that event,” Bell said.

Uh, Mr. Bell, the video is posted on YouTube.

I added the About.com:Autism blog feed to the bottom of the home page. The site is well organized with tons of content not only for parents of children with autism, but also for families and friends. Worth checking out.

To keep track of the autism-related events in the Boston area, I created a Google calendar which now appears in the right-hand column. Please tell me of any events and I’ll add them. Or better yet, send me your gmail address and I’ll share the calendar so you can add them yourself.

We’re a few months removed from the Boston Marathon. Mike is most likely running again next year. Me? I’m not so sure. I like to bike more than run and fundraising’s not in my blood. Still I am going to maintain the original purpose of this site and continue to raise awareness of autism and the efforts of NECC.

To that end I made a few changes. First, I updated the WordPress theme. Next, instead of a separate Flickr account for photos I created a Flickr group. That way anyone can join the group and post their own photos (and I don’t have to maintain two accounts.) I also added a Google News feed about autsim to the bottom of the home page. More changes to come…