Ponytail Victory Dance!

Months ago I asked you if you had hair to spare. http://calandroslihd.blogspot.com/2009/02/do-you-have-hair-to-spare.html I wanted you to cut your hair and donate the ponytail to help make wigs for cancer patients through Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program. My friend, Linda, and I created a contest to see who could collect the most ponytails hoping to inspire more people to make the cut. The final count was much smaller than we had hoped, but I still won the contest. I collected nine ponytails (plus one promised to me) and my friend, Linda, collected five.

As the winner of the contest I get to gloat and brag for the rest of my life. I also get to publicly perform a Victory Dance! This is my celebration for all the ladies who cut their hair; for all the ladies who battle cancer bravely and with dignity; and because life is to celebrate -and what better way than to dance!

Linda and I are growing our hair out again. If I can manage to keep out too much grey, I should have another ponytail to donate in about three years. Do you have hair to spare right now? Find out how to donate your ponytail here: http://www.pantene.com/en-US/beautiful_lengths.jspx

Thanks to everyone who read my posts, who cut their hair or even considered it, and for supporting me in another Calandro Crazy idea. My friends and family are some of the most supportive, generous people on the planet. Who's lucky? You guessed right -I AM!

Momming with a Brand

The connections that were created at CES between the Calandro Family, Panasonic, Mom Central, and Crayon were fantastic and beyond what we could have hoped. I'm excited for one of our blog readers to be the proud owner of a Panasonic videocamera and to start Living in HD. Simply click on this link to MomCentral.com and follow their directions for a chance to win. It will certainly change your life as all of the products have changed ours. Good luck and good videos!

Take a look at our other posts to see what Living in HD has done for us. And remember, Panasonic is looking for other families to Live in HD. It could be you! The experience is incredible! You can enter at http://www.livinginhd.com/.

Four big boxes

Our contact from Panasonic called us about a week and a half after we had found out that we had won. He explained the program to us:

We are family 39 and they are adding more families throughout the year. We would be asked to participate in weekly surveys and would be encouraged to use and share our equipment. Panasonic really is interested in knowing what we think about all of the equipment we would be receiving and would use the information we provided to improve and enhance future products. The entire family is encouraged to use all of it and we are expected to report the good and the bad.

A few weeks later, we finally had a date set to receive all of our equipment. Before the equipment was shipped, we participated in a family pre-interview that asked about our family, our viewing habits, our use of technology, and how we thought things would be different when we got the equipment.

To be honest, at that point, it was really hard to imagine...What would it be like to have all of this new equipment in the house. When my wife and I sat down to think about it, we realized it was very rare for us to buy the best of anything (mostly because we can't afford it). Here we were, about to receive not only all of the technology that I had ever wanted, but it was the best equipment there was- and we were getting all of it...at once...and it was all going to be installed!

A few weeks later, Here is what we saw:

Four big boxes- The TV (WOW!!), a big mystery box simply labeled "39 Calandro ", some speaker stands, and another long box...The box was delivered while I was at work. I had to sit through a rather long meeting knowing that it was all there...waiting... My wife was kind enough to wait for me!

Needless to say, the boys were excited.

And were dying to see what was inside the big box, which contained a ton of stuff!

Like the video camera (note the stunned look on my face- not my best look!), the receiver, the speakers, two digital cameras, power strips, cables,

the Wii (the boys' favorite thing!),

and a big bag of other stuff- cables, SD cards, blu-rays, Wii games!!! Wahoo!

The youngest, of course, just wanted to play with the box from the computer.

The excitement was beginning to peak...We opened everything up and charged all of the batteries so we would be ready for the installation....