Liana and Adam! This is the first personal post on this blog in a long time. It’s extremely personal and I hope you or your friends can help me with this. My best friend mysteriously went missing on October 4th. I’ve been desperately spending my days trying to find her when I learned she was in the hospital in LA. She has been very sick and unable to communicate with friends. Her family is finally with her and contacted me today (the 17th) and gave me an update.

I don’t know if she’s going to be ok. Her personal life was private although she was a very active member of the social media and San Francisco tech community. Me and Laura happily considered her our best friend. The recent events are so unfortunate that Laura and I will be going down to visit her. I’ve always wanted to go to LA but not on these conditions.

Here’s the problem with this situation. I worked for her part time as an assistant. She operated a Podcasting studio here in SoMa, San Francisco called Podango. She was over the day to day activities of the studio as the sole employee and I helped out. Well, she’s been missing for all of these days. We’ve lost every contract and we are 17 days behind on paying bills. I’ve spoken to the CEO of the company in Utah and here’s the deal. He’s going to close the studios on Monday and liquidate the nearly 50 thousand dollars in audio equipment. I pleaded with him and he told me that if I can get 4 grand in contracts for the space for this month then we can save the studio.

This is my friend’s livelihood and a place where our friends come to produce awesome content. We’re a proud member of the new media community by sponsoring events, taking part in barcamps and letting people use the space for free when they’re getting started. Our bread & butter is corporate contracts and now those are all gone. I have until Sunday to make this a reality and I think it’s a job that’s bigger than I am.

I’m begging for your help. Please contact me at [email protected] and I’ll send your our fees for renting the space. If you live in the bay area and know someone that needs the space then I can even give them a first month’s discount but we need people here and we have to break even. I’m not making any money from this. We just have to save the studio because it would break my friend’s heart and she’s too sick with an unknown illness. I can’t even contact her right now so i’m doing all of this for her. THANKS!

You can contact me a few ways:
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: adamjackson

Here are some of Liana’s social network spaces:
Friendfeed
blog
Flickr
Twitter1
Twitter2
Upcoming
Flickr photos tagged with lianalehua

[UPDATED]
I’m sending this email to friends. Feel free to pass it on.

Hi. This is Adam Jackson. I have emailed you to ask for a little assistance with something. My friend, Liana Lehua, mysteriously went MIA on the 4th. As you can see from her friendfeed account http://friendfeed.com/fittorrrent.

I’ve tried to contact her and get through to her family and friends for weeks. I was one of Liana’s best friends and she has been missing. Her sister contacted me today and said that she’s been in a hospital in LA for weeks with an unknown illness. The problem is. Liana operated a podcasting studio here in San Francisco in SoMa. Almost 50K in equipment, very professional and we even have a 30’ greenscreen at our disposal. It’s a fantastic space and she was running it prior to this horrible illness.

In the past 13 days since she went missing, the studio has lost all contracts and the funding partners have told me that they’re going to liquidate and shut it down on Monday. I need to prove to them that we can secure some contracts for the space to keep it up and running. I’m including the price sheets for the space. I’m one of the audio engineers here and can answer any questions. I don’t know when my friend will be back but I need to keep things going for the sake of her livelihood and this very community oriented studio space.

Please forward this if you can and hopefully we can get the business going in her absence. Thank you!

Here is a photo slideshow of our space:

[UPDATED 2X]
I’d like to clarify something in order to clear up things that I said earlier over Twitter and on Mashable.

Scott Bourne, who launched Podango Productions, actually enabled several incredible opportunities for Liana as host, producer and tech evangelist. He built an incredible podcasting studio and together with Liana, built several shows into viable properties. These include Girls Gone Geek, Apple Phone Show, and other great shows. Scott resigned from Podango Productions on July 31 to pursue his first love, photography and you can catch his This Week in Photography podcast and blog.

I shouldn’t have said Scott turned his back on her. He has indeed opted out of Podango, but not his friendship with Liana and it was a mistake for me to imply differently. Scott, Leo and Alex have also been incredibly supportive to Liana and what would the podcasting industry be without them. So I want to clarify that comment.

My reason for posting is to rally support for Liana who is fighting her way back to health. And Liana wants to find a way that the community might help us continue the great work at the studio here. I’m not an employee of Podango and my efforts here have been supportive of a dear friend.

If anyone reading this wants to see this podcasting studio continue as a community facility, then maybe there’s a chance we can raise the cash to acquire the assets and pay the rent.

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