Status Update
January 21, 2007
Dear Ones,
Please excuse my lack of updates over the past three years. There have been some “challenges” . . .
I live in a very remote region of the Southwest at 7,000+ feet and I’m told I fell down a mountain in a mountain-hiking accident on January 18, 2005 and spent a month in an ICU of a distant hospital. It took a few miracles to get me there alive. I’m told I fell about two hundred feet head-first into an ice wall.
I have no memory of the accident or the first two and a half weeks in the hospital. I had a shredded skull, severe brain damage, a blown ear drum, damaged eyes, and a variety of other “inconveniences.” I was told by the neurosurgery department that the severe brain damage would have left anyone else brain dead, at best. They don’t know how long it will take me to recover as they have never before seen someone survive such severe brain damage. I’ve also learned from others in the medical world that the University of Utah is considered by many to be the finest medical facility on the planet right now—it is not clear if I would have survived going anywhere else. I got there minutes before dying.
I am homeless, living on disability payments, and dealing with a variety of challenges. The good news is that I am finally able to get online occasionally again! (Now I’m working on restoring my brain!) Every time I go to the hospital for (yet) more head surgery, they ask me in pre-op if I have any allergies. I tell them that I recently discovered that I’m allergic to falling down mountains.
Because of the accident, I have had, and am still having, some powerful spiritual lessons that I am dealing with—gladly, deeply, but also very painfully. For months prior to the accident I had been asking in my meditations for an even deeper level of patience and an even deeper level of compassion. The “Gang Upstairs” obviously got the request—falling down a mountain is NOT something I would do without “assistance.” Now in my meditations I ask that if I haven’t yet learned my lessons, please just give me two more weeks before we do that again!
I will get better, at least as good as I was! It’s just going to take a lot of effort and time. I will never give up on the Lotus Dome, but I have no way to predict my future . . .
XXOO
R
The Lotus Dome prototype is nearing completion.
August 13, 2003
After considerable effort, the fabrication of a thirty-foot diameter Lotus Dome prototype is over ninety-percent done. All that remains is to purchase the clear polycarbonate and to make up some final pieces of hardware.
All available funds, however, have been exhausted. So if you know of anyone who is as excited about standing inside the prototype as I am and would be able to provide a loan for $24,000.00 for the completion of the prototype, please have them contact me. A loan of $50,000 would allow me to finish the prototype and pay the bills that have accumulated getting the prototype to this point.
Thank you for your patience—there's not much more to go!
Richard Fairbanks
Fairbanks Productions, Inc.
R@F-P-I.com