That’s right! We have made it to the third and final round of the Mashable Open Web Awards. The final round of voting begins today and completes on December 14 at midnight. You can vote once per day to help out your favorite image hosting wet site.

Final round of voting for Tinypic in the Open Web Awards

I love this time of year. Two ski mountains in Colorado opened up a couple days ago, which means the rest will be opening up soon. I always look forward to taking pictures and seeing pictures that others have taken on Tinypic. Check out some of what we have currently:

Arapahoe Basin Ski Area

Loveland Ski Area

While neither area has a lot of snow yet it does mean we can start getting our legs in shape. It also means that Warren Miller’s next film should be showing fairly soon. These two events together signal the season has begun!

So, send us your pictures. We would love to see them.

How else would you be able to enjoy life in a down-turning economy, but to look at pictures. We have all sorts now, especially around politics. There are a lot of creative users on Tinypic, and these pictures are a lot of fun!

Joe Biden on Tinypic

Joe Six Pack on Tinypic

Sara Palin

I can hear you thinking NO. But what if you did decide to give up a kidney for someone? You would only have one kidney left, which is fine, unless something goes wrong with your kidney. But what a generous gift you’d be giving: life. If someone needs your kidney, it’s because their own are no longer functioning, and they’re likely surviving on dialysis, hoping someone has chosen to be an organ donor or will choose to be a living donor.

It’s probably not the kind of thing you think about, unless you know either a donor or someone whose kidneys are failing. As it turns out, I know a living donor. When he said he was going to be in the hospital because he was donating a kidney to a friend’s daughter, I thought, “Wow, there are only 5 or 6 people to whom I’d give a kidney, and that includes my spouse, mom, dad, and sister.” And here was someone I know giving up a kidney to a person that he wasn’t even related to!

So, you make the decision. You’re going to give your kidney to someone because…your reasons will be your own. Then what? Lots of tests. Not every kidney will work for every person. You should have:

• A compatible blood type with the donor.
• Tissue antigens that are close to the recipient’s antigens.
• A healthy kidney to donate and a healthy kidney to keep.

You also need to be in good general health because this is major surgery. If you want to see pictures of the surgery, hosted on TinyPic, click the kidney bean!

And after all that, sometimes it doesn’t work. Despite anti-rejection drugs, blood, tissue, and cross-matching, the recipient’s body can create antibodies and kill off the donated kidney. After the recipient recovers from the removal of the failed donation, there’s a waiting period for the recipient’s body to clear all the drugs before s/he can accept another donation.

For in-depth information on being a living kidney donor, see http://www.livingdonorsonline.org/kidney/kidney.htm