UPDATE: Check out this week’s Cover Story at Bhamweekly.com
Jeremy Harper is counting to one million — live on the Internet beginning at noon today.
He isn’t jumping the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle or escaping from Alcatraz, but MillionCount.com is nonetheless a stunt of such proportions that most people’s imagination won’t stretch that far. Inflation and Publishers Clearinghouse have diminished the seven-figure number in people’s imaginations. What’s one million, after all, when Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have billions? Indeed, Harper says that the toughest thing leading up to this stunt, has been explaining to people how big one million is.
Perhaps the best explanation is how long it would take. If he’s successful, the minimum amount of time it will take him, he figures is five seconds per number, 16 hours per day for 90 days. Or in more simply put, it will take him all summer.
A UAB grad and computer programmer originally from Jemison, Harper, 31, has rigged up live cameras and microphones throughout his Birmingham apartment, in every room except the bathroom. The cameras will always be on, he says. Even at night, when he’s counting sheep. He has a hand-held button he will push with each number to keep his place.
Harper is selling ad space on his website. Half the proceeds will go to the charity, Push America. The other half will pay his expenses. He’s auctioning off his sponsorships on eBay.
Still, there is always the unexpected — what Harper fears the most. Can someone speaking for 16 hours a day non-stop keep his voice? Will he go insane, in what he calls the Clockwork Orange scenario? Only time will tell, but in the meantime, Harper is keeping his “Sanity Blog” which you can follow here.
— Kyle Whitmire
Follow this story in this week’s Birmingham Weekly.
