Justice Conference

I decided to attend the Justice Conference about 3 months ago with the intention of trying to understand what Justice really is, and try to understand the meaning of justice, and what a just person looks like. (I had just read Plato’s Republic at the time).   I didn’t really know what to expect so I was a little bit nervous as the dates for the Conference came closer.  I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to attend, whether it would be worth it, I had a lot of stuff to do the week leading up to the conference and I also had a lot of work to be done over the weekend.  I flew in on Friday and got into the hotel at about 3:00 the main conference registration didn’t start until 4 so I had some time to get mentally prepared for the conference.  I took some of that time to plan out doing some of my school work throughout the conference and looking at the schedule to see what it looked like, took a shower and then registered for the conference. 

I went over and the first night was good, there were some interesting speakers, but my mind was elsewhere and I was a little bit out of it because I was tired.  The first day ended at 9:15 when I went back to my room, did some organizing and some work and was in bed asleep by 10:30.  I woke up and got to the conference again at 9:30 in order to hear the end of the first speaker and from this point I started to get excited and enjoy the conference a lot more.  During the lunch break I met a few people at a pizza place right by the convention center from Louisiana.  We had some good conversation that started to engage me in the conference and bring up my spirits.  After they left, I invited someone to sit with me named Maddi.  I am very glad that I did because Maddi is an amazing individual from Seattle, Washington who became a conference buddy (that means we hung out together for most of the rest of the conference).  It was a real blessing for me to meet her and share my experience of the Justice conference with her and share in her experience of the conference as well.  I hope that this is just the beginning of a long friendship. 

A few other highlights of the conference include saying hey to a good family friend Noel Castellanos (a speaker at the Justice Conference), hearing all the rest of the amazing speakers (my favorites were Shane Claiborne, Dr. John Perkins, Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lisa Sharon Harper, and Claire Diaz-Ortiz), getting Lisa Sharon Harper to sign a copy of her book for me, giving and receiving 97 Free Hugs, meeting a whole bunch of awesome people and hopefully finding cool opportunities to learn and create a more just and peaceful world in addition to giving away free hugs. 

I still have a lot of materials that I received at the conference to go through and process but I am really glad that I decided to stick it out and go even though at first I wasn’t amazingly excited about it.  Thank You Justice 2013 for a great time!!

Birthday Bliss

My birthday was a few days ago on Wednesday February 20.  I just wanted to take a moment to write about how amazing and awesome my 20th birthday turned out to be.  I started out the day by getting up at 7am to get ready for my Math Class at 830.  After class I found a lucky penny (heads up) on the ground, from that point on, I knew that it was going to be a fantastically great day.  I went back to my dorm and then approved production of my Free Hugs book.  I am now in the Production phase of getting my book published!!! How crazy is that? That was super exciting.  From there I went to my micro econ class which was rather ordinary then I studied and took my philosophy exam on Plato which i feel really good about.  I then was able to hang out with a group of close friends (Mallorym Gianna, Kelly, Rachel, Katie, Ashely, and Sandi)  After that My mom dropped off some mini chocolate dalek cakes that she made for me for my birthday!! It was fantastic!! I ended the night hanging out with my friends from my dorm (Maia, Maggie, Emily, Marissa, and Alex.)  Thanks to everyone for a fantastic birthday.  It couldn't have happened without you!! :)

Ice Skating!!

Yesterday I went ice skating with some of my family and some friends.  I decided to wear my amazingly awesome Free Hugging outfit.  I gave away 30 hugs and was able to talk to some people about my book!!

I first met a group of 4 friends Kirsten, Jessica, and Michaela celebrating their friend Katya's birthday.  It was cool to meet them and talk about my book.  I then met some people from Chicago Cru as well as some people from Africa!! :) 
As I was talking about my book with people while skating, I realized that I have not really done much with updating my blog in over a month.  A lot has happened with my book and there are some cool awesome things still to come.  I have submitted all of my photos and my manuscript to the publisher to work on.  The next steps are to get a professional copy edit and then 7-10 weeks after that my book will be in production.  That will hopefully if all goes well mean that the book will be out and ready to be sold at least a month before I start my tour on June 14th!!
I would also like to inform you all that you can track my daily hugging progress on my twitter @duckydavehugs with the #davesdailycount!! Be sure to check that out and follow me on twitter.  I will try and keep you all updated as new developments become available!!
Lots of hugs,
David Melia (Professional Free Hugger)

I MET OTHER FREE HUGGERS!!

Yesterday I was able to receive and give out 1000 hugs!!!!!!! It was totally crazy!!  This is my total hug count for the day, not my free hug count, there is a difference between the two which I am still really trying to understand fully myself but the gist is a free hug comes mostly from strangers and doesn't count friend hugs too much whereas the daily hug count is the number of times hugged in one day so friend hugs qualify for that count.  I am trying to explore this more and it will probably be written about in a future book... But speaking of books, I have a book that is coming out and I need your help in order to make sure it gets published!!! You can learn more about that here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/duckductdave/free-hugs-its-more-than-a-campaign-its-a-lifesyle?ref=live 
Yesterday morning after bible study in America's Center I encountered another person who was planning to give away free hugs at the conference!! It was amazing and exciting and fantastic and fantabulastic, there are no words to describe my joy at having the opportunity to hug with Jacqueline yesterday.  So I Free Hugged with Jacqueline yesterday in the morning before the morning session and then after the morning session I went and bought some supplies to be able to make a couple more free hugs signs for other huggers that would want to free hug with me.  There was also a group from North Carolina that hugged with me for a good amount of time in the afternoon and evening and Jacqueline joined for a little bit of time before heading over to the evening session in the dome.  All in all yesterday was one of the most inspiring and crazy amazing and awesome days in my whole life with receiving 1000 hugs... 1000 hugs!!!! That's a lot of hugs..  and meeting others who were excited about giving away free hugs and joined me in my mission to hug strangers and brighten their days one hug at a time.  I am very blessed that I met them and I hope that this is just the start of something bigger, the creation of a more intimate and caring worldwide community brought together though the simple action of a hug from a person to a stranger. 
I wish you all lots of hugs!!!
Hugs,
David

Urbana Update!

So I am really excited to say that yesterday I received 312 hugs at the Urbana Missions Conference!! I have also been able to take part in some of the Launch Lab where I got some advice about my Free Hugs Tour project that I am working on.  I have a lot of stuff to work on getting my team together for my free hugs tour and working out all of the details of how my team and I are going to go about getting all of the necessary preparation for the tour and coming up with a plan of how the tour might actually look and other opportunities to work with others to make Free Hugs Tour 2013 the greatest experience that it could be.  As I walk around Urbana Free Hugging I am meeting a lot of really cool and interesting people that I am blessed to come into contact with.  It's really exciting and amazingly fun.  So far at the conference I have gotten 378 hugs and my goal for Urbana is to get 1000 hugs.  If you are at the Urbana conference I hope to be able to hug you soon.  :)
Hugs!
David

News

So I just got to Urbana in St. Louis.  I'm all checked in and ready to go.  So these past couple months I haven't been updating my blog very much at all...  Well like not really at all because there have not been any new blog posts.  I was really busy with school from September 1 until November 20 and then I started writing a book about free hugs.  I have completed most of the book and am now in the final editing stages working on getting it ready to publish.  Since I am going to self publish it I started a Kickstarter.com campaign where you can order a copy of the Free Hugs book so that I will have the money in order to get it published.  This only happens if I raise my goal of 3000 dollars in order to have the money to get it published so if your interested in getting a copy pre-order a copy here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/duckductdave/free-hugs-its-more-than-a-campaign-its-a-lifesyle?ref=live  :)
I also have changed up my itenerary for Free Hugs Tour 2013 a little bit which I will share shortly as well. 
Anyway I am really excited for the Urbana Conference and hope to bring more updates shortly and more consistently. 
Hugs!
David

Free Hugs Enterprise?

These past weeks I have been getting into the swing of college life.  I am taking some pretty amazing classes this first quarter at DePaul.  I have Business Calc 1 and Philosophy on Mondays and Wednesdays, Digital Cinema on Tuesdays, and a writing class on Thursdays.  I have meet some really awesome people, hopefully long-term friends.  I am also a part of Intervarsity, Young Life, Entrepreneurship Club (CEO), and Change Makers which is a social entrepreneurship club on campus.  I might look into bicycling club as well at some point. 
One of the things that I love about my class schedule this quarter is all of the classes that I am taking can be applied to my goals for the future.  In my digital cinema class we are going to be learning about documentaries and techniques for making movies which I will be able to employ while working on getting footage for my Free Hugs Documentary this summer.  Philosophy can basicly be applied to anything and I am a philosophy minor so that is always fun.  Math is good because I own a business and learning how to do fun calculus will always be a blast.  Finally in my writing class we are writing "books" like 2 chapters with at least 2000 words, so not super long, but can be a start for a book that I have been thinking about writing.  The question that I am tackling for this book is "How do you create a free hugging enterprise and what are the pro's and con's of such a creation?"  Which can be a good start to a book that I might be able to finish up sometime in the future.    
In other news, I have not yet finalized my itinerary for my free hugs tour.  If all goes according to plan I hope to have that up and ready at the latest the beginning of November but hopefully I will get that up way sooner than that. 
Hugs!!
David

Free Hugs Tour!!

I now have a preliminary schedule for my Free Hugs Tour this next summer!! So right now I am working on organizing my schedule and figuring out and pinning down the exact dates for when I will be where for my tour.  This tour is going to be pretty legit!! I am going to like print posters and get them distributed where I am going to be hugging and stuff and couch surf and free hug for 8 hours a day! The range of my tour is going to be from right when I finish my freshman year at DePaul University, June 14th until about August 31 and then I would move back for school to start soon after that for my sophomore year.  I also hope to be able to get it organized so that I can create a free hugs youtube video for each city that I visit and hug in and have a local band or a band originally from that city to play the soundtrack for the Youtube Free Hugs video.  In addition to that I hopefully will be able to get enough footage of me hugging and talking with crazy awesome people that I can create a documentary or maybe start writing a book or both or something crazy like that.  I am super excited about this and hopefully it will be much better organized and put together than my trip was this past year.  This past year was great and fun but didn't involve as many hugs as I had imagined.  It was more learning about myself and organization but this next summer is going to be all hugging!!! Let's brighten lives one hug at a time together!!! I hope to see you all sometime on my free hugs tour! I will hopefully get those dates pinned down sometime within the next week or at longest the next month.. I'll keep you updated!!
HUGS!!
David

LEAKY CON!!!

These past 4 days from August 9th to the 12th I attended Leaky Con.  Honestly it was one of the most amazing and greatest as well as inspiring experiences of my life!!! The people that I got to meet there were some of the most interesting and inspiring people that I ever met.  I got to meet some other crazy awesome free huggers and am now starting to work on organizing my free hugs tour that hopefully will be happening this next summer.  I am going to start working on a preliminary list of places that I will want to go and maybe some famous people that I would want to hug.  I will also try and make a plan to capture and document my trip this time unlike I did for my first free hugs journey.  I hope that this next one will be a lot more organized and benefitial not only to me but to others that I meet along the way. 
I also got to meet the author Stephanie Perkins!!! I mean I really haven't read any of her books yet but she is such a great and awesome person that I think I am going to start to read them now!! :D
Now I also have to start sending emails and getting in touch with people to help me plan and organize my free hugs tour.  I have a tenitive budget kinda and a loose idea of what I want the tour to look like but hopefully I will be able to raise and earn enough money to make this tour a reality.  I might try and do an indiegogo campaign or other crazy stuff.  I'll keep you updated.  Email me or leave comments with awesome ideas!! I need them!! :D
Til next time this is David signing off. 

Super Awesome Happenings and Plans!!!

The Flea Market in Greensboro was a lot better than the show in Muskegon but it wasn't what I was hoping at all.  I spent more on gas and travel than I made but I did meet some really interesting and cool people!! I mean what more can you ask for right?  The coolest I think would have to be a group that I met when I stopped at a rest stop in North Carolina :D
Now that the Muskegon and Greensboro craft fairs over I am in full work/organize/inventory/organize/get ready for college/Free hug whenever I can mode.  I am working at a friends house so that I can get some more financial backing for the money that I lost and getting my inventory organized using a program or two trying to figure out the right program for me right now.  This Saturday I am going to try and free hug from about noon til 8 or so to get in some good free hugging hours. 
I am going to free hug at Leaky Con in Chicago from August 9-12 :).  I have a swap meet coming up in Muskegon on August 25th which is exciting.  I also start school at DePaul on September 5th.  I hope to have all of my stuff organized and ready by then.  That's my goal at least.. I think I can make it... maybe.
I am also in the imagining phase of a plan that I want to do next summer.  I really want to go on a free hugs tour around the country and spend the whole summer at craft fairs and free hugging with people from all over the country!! Let me know what you think!!
Lots of hugs!
David