Another Miles(')tone brought to you by Panasonic

I know that title looks a little odd but it concerns our 3-and-a-half-year-old M3, Miles, who we are quickly realizing is becoming the Panasonic kid. About a week ago, Miles decided he wanted to take the training wheels off of his little bike. He's only been riding it for a couple of weeks with the training wheels because he is more interested in riding his scooter with his brothers. (I think it's because he can go so much faster on the scooter.) His balance on his scooter is great, so we decided "Why not?" and took them off.

After 3 back-breaking attempts (for dad, not for Miles- few things are more painful than running in a half crouch holding onto the back of a bike ridden by a wobbly three-year-old who is top heavy due to the ginormous bike helmet he has on...) and no success at balancing on the bike, we called it a day and he asked for his training wheels to be kept on. For some reason, he couldn't get it through his head that he needed to keep pedaling...

Today he asked for his training wheels to be taken off again. I took them off, and we had a little more success. I told him to race me and that got him motivated to pedal (even though I was running behind him hanging on to the back). On our first trip, I let go a little bit and I got the feeling this was actually going to work. Miles, on the other hand, decided he was done and asked me to put the training wheels back on.


Here's where Panasonic comes in. I knew he could do it, but I had to make it entincing for him. I told him that we would put the training wheels on, but he should try it one more time so we could film him. I got our video camera out- the Panasonic HDC-SD9- and told him that he would ride again, mommy would film it, and when he was done we could watch it on the "big TV" (which is what we still affectionately call our Panasonic TH50-PZ850). This was an incredible motivator. There are few things in the world that our boys like more than seeing themselves on the "big TV". Miles got back on the bike. We filmed it, went right upstairs, popped the SD card into the front of the TV and watched it over and over: immediate gratification.


You can see the results if you click on the video posted here. And he is now perfectly happy to leave the training wheels off.

Once again, Panasonic has inspired Miles to do more than he thought he could. When we were pulling our hair out trying to find something to motivate him to be potty trained, we found a goofy Japanese potty training video online. We used our Panasonic Toughbook Laptop (the CF-Y7) in the bathroom while he was sitting on the potty and would play the video when he did his business. We never had any worry about bringing our Toughbook into the bathroom- it can survive being dropped, bonked, and (as I found out when I accidentally spilled milk all over the keyboard while it was turned on...) wet. We do have video of this potty training process though for Miles' sake, I don't think I'll subject his future self to any undue humiliation by posting it! If it weren't for the Toughbook, I don't know how much longer it would have taken to potty train that boy!

When Panasonic gave us all of this equipment they hoped that it would inspire all of the members of our family. I know that they had expected this inspiration to come in the form of content that we would create, but they have inspired the youngest in our family to accomplish some major milestones in his life. Pretty darn impressive.

Thank you, Panasonic, for inspiring Miles to become potty trained. Thank you, Panasonic, for inspiring him to find the courage to ride his bike without training wheels. We love our equipment and will keep looking for interesting and exciting ways that it can inspire us and, hopefully, you.

Remember that you can be a Panasonic LiHD family, too. go to http://livinginhd.com/ join the community and enter to win!

Panasonic's Fearless Party

When we throw a party here at the Calandro Casa we always bring our A-game. We go all out with the invitations, food, decorations, favors and we even wear sweatshirts that are decorated with the theme for the party. Our friends and family travel from all over and re-arrange their schedules to be here for the festivities. We enjoy entertaining our friends and celebrating with them. It's just what we do.

We don't get paid for these parties, it's not how we bring money into the house. So, if a party flops it doesn't mean we don't pay our mortgage or we have to lay off members of our family from their jobs. It's just for fun, but we put so much effort into these events you would think that the lifeblood of our family depended on it. Well, our reputation for throwing great parties could get shattered, but we could recover from that ego-bruising pretty easily.

Now consider this twist: We plan for months for a party and the financial stability of our family is crucial to its success. Then we ask our guests to tell us anything and everything we did wrong or anything we did right. We've invited everyone to our house, fed them, entertained them and shared all our best efforts to show them a good time. Then we welcome their criticism as well as their accolades. This means that if people didn't have a good time, we'd have to hear about it and we would have a hard time paying our bills!

This doesn't sound like something I would want to subject myself to, but Panasonic has done this and we were invited to this party.

Panasonic created their Living in HD program as an invitation to a Panasonic Products Party and they want to know what we think of this celebration. This is a fearless approach that can only be created by a company that believes strongly in their product and seriously cares about what their consumers think. If you read back to our earlier posts you can see how this process began and the experiences we have had as a result of Living in HD. In a nutshell, it has changed our lives and we have Panasonic to thank for it. They gave us a suite of products and have asked for our opinions about them. And they really want to know what we think.

You may be thinking we have to say these things because we are a part of this program and we owe it to Panasonic. Well, we don't. Panasonic has never told us we had to say or do anything. In January we were honored to appear at CES in Las Vegas as representatives for the Living in HD program. Our entire family was up on the Panasonic stage to talk about what it was like to live in High Definition. We were not scripted in any way. We were just asked to talk about it-the good or the bad. We have three young boys; if there was something they didn't like or thought was junk it would have come out on stage and there wouldn't have been anything anyone could have done to stop it. What a potential loose-cannon!

We were also asked to do a podcast with Joe Jaffe of Crayon and other members of the Panasonic team. Again, we were invited, but never once were we told what to say. Even this blog you are reading can be whatever we want it to be. We can choose to turn it into a blog about dust-bunnies and their plight in North America and Panasonic wouldn't tell us we couldn't. (That's a joke, but the Panasonic part is true.)

Panasonic took a huge risk putting us out there in front of their audience without any control of what we were going to say. When you are confident in your product and message, you can afford to take risks and let people be who they are.

We are not a family that is in business or marketing, we make our living in education, so we are not experts in the corporate or advertising world. However, we think giving a group of consumers thousands of dollars worth of products and then asking them to tell you what you REALLY think about all of it is pretty outstanding and innovative. And brave. What if the TV stunk? What if the blu-ray player was a lemon and skipped around when playing a regular DVD as opposed to a movie in blu-ray format? What if this laptop I'm using right now malfunctioned when it got milk and cereal spilled all over the keyboard and it wasn't as "tough" as it was said to be? Panasonic would want to hear about it and they would want us to tell others as well. That's how great they know their products are. Panasonic knows the only way they want to compete for consumer dollars is through integrity and transparency. They have nothing to hide.

Who does this? Who invites people into their home, gives them the best of what they have to offer and then genuinely asks, "So, what do you think?" Panasonic does. They do it because they believe in their products, the minds that create them, and the people of their company. They all work together tirelessly to create the best products they can for their consumers. Panasonic wants their products and technology to improve our lives. They feel the best way to do this is by asking their consumer what works and what doesn't, not just relying on sales figures to dictate what the market demands.

Maybe our parties are driven by the same motivation as Panasonic's for their Living in HD program, just on a much smaller scale. We work tirelessly for our parties to be the best they can because we care about our family and friends' well-being. We look at our "product" -our parties - as a way of showing them we are willing to do our best on their behalf, for their entertainment. When our parties are over we assess how the event went; we look at what food was consumed and what is still left on the table. We think about which games were a hit and which ones caused injuries (yes, unfortunately, that has happened!). We don't give our guests formal questionnaires, but we learn from our experience. This is how Panasonic is creating a dialog between creator and consumer and they are listening to what we have to say.

Here's the best part about the Panasonic Party: this invitation doesn't have an end time; it just keeps going. So consider yourself invited to one of the best parties the Calandro Family has ever been a part of. Go to the Panasonic Living in HD community. Join the conversation. Tell them what you think. Be honest. Panasonic is listening and wants to know what you have to say. With Panasonic you are a consumer with a powerful voice. We always love a great party - and we don't have to clean up after this one! Enjoy! And tell them the Calandros sent you!

Mighty PIZZA NIGHT-y

We know times are tough - if you don't know that, you have been living under a rock and you need to come on out and get some air. Times have been tough in the Calandro house before: the toughest was when Max was born: we went down to one income and John had gone back to school to get his Masters. It wasn't pretty around here, just like it's pretty ugly in a lot of places right now.

Out of this difficult time, we created a wonderful family tradition: Friday Night Pizza Night. It all began when John got a bread maker for Christmas. (That year I got a jigsaw - we're not real big on gender specific roles here at the Calandros.) Anyway, we started making our own pizza dough with the bread maker and it was better than any dough we could purchase. We started making pizza on Fridays because it gave us something to look forward to as a family every week. Everything came to a screeching halt for Pizza Night. We got a movie from the library (because it was free), got a bottle of two-buck-chuck (do the math), and made our own pizza for a fraction of what it would have cost us to get it delivered to our door. We all watched the movie together, breathed a big sigh of relief, and celebrated making it through another week, and it only cost a few dollars. All our other meals are consumed at our kitchen table, but Pizza Night happens in front of the TV. This distinction makes it very special and something for our boys to look forward to.

Through the years, pizza night became "Pizza Night" with initial caps because it deserved that status. Our three boys know it as the benchmark of the week. Miles, our three-yer-old, doesn't know the days of the week yet and will ask all week long, "Is it Pizza Night?" He lets out a big,"Hooray!" when we finally answer yes to his question. All our family knows about Pizza Night and will schedule visits to either be a part of the tradition or avoid disrupting it. Friends honor it and love being a part of it. Some friends get "Pizza Night Cravings" and call us up when they need a fix. Family and friends are always welcome and as we say as the Calandros: once you've been here for Pizza Night, you're family.

Now Pizza Night has been taken to a new level thanks to Panasonic and their Living in HD program. Now Pizza Night is PIZZA NIGHT. It deserves to be in all capital letters because our set-up has made it unbelievably AWESOME! The movies we watch on our 1080p plasma screen television are better quality that we see in our local movie theaters. The sound is incredible and you can't beat the convenience. The combination of the clarity capacity of our TV and our blu-ray player quality is unbeatable. Even our DVDs look better when played through the blu-ray player and displayed on our TV.

We feel so lucky and spoiled. We probably shouldn't admit we're a little sad at the end of the evening when we turn off our TV and head downstairs to watch Letterman on our dinky little television in our bedroom, but we are sad. Our set-up is that good. I guess the good news is our TV gives us a reason for getting out of bed in the morning so we can go upstairs to watch it! Okay, that's extreme, but it is beautiful. John says he wants to hug our television. Until you see it, you would just think he's wacked.

With our fabulous Panasonic set-up or just our old TV, PIZZA NIGHT has become the stuff of legend for the Calandros. It gives us the opportunity to come together as a family and mark the passing of another week. We celebrate with family and friends depending on what is happening for all of us. It is grounding to have a tradition every week our children can rely on, no matter what. We hope our boys will grow up and remember PIZZA NIGHT on Fridays. We hope they know how much we love this tradition and how much we enjoy creating it each week with them.

If you're ever in San Luis Obispo on a Friday night, you probably won't see us downtown at the local movie theater. You'll see us at our own home theater, munching on home-made pizza watching a movie, thinking about how good it is to be here on a Friday. Heck, let us know you're in town, and you may even be invited to attend. And then, as I mentioned before, you won't just be a stranger passing through town, you'll be family.

I've Made the Cut!

In my last post I announced the latest Crazy Calandro philanthropic adventure and invited you to come along. I asked you to help me win a contest my friend and I have started to see who can get the most people to cut their hair and donate it to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program.

Well, I did it. I cut my hair last weekend, as you can tell from my "after" photo above and I'm already loving it after one week. My hairdresser cut off ten-and-a-half inches so it is definitely a new look for me! The last time my hair was so short was when I had just had Miles three years ago. I had forgotten how much less time it takes to have short hair! Less shampoo, less time combing it out, now it's just wash and go - I love it!

So now I'm asking again, do you have hair to spare? Will you cut your hair for a cause? My girlfriend, Linda, is ahead of me in our contest already - she has three ponytails and I only have two! (It helps that she has two daughters with gorgeous hair - I'm the mother of three BOYS!) Come on people! Check out the Pantene Beautiful Lengths website at http://www.beautifullengths.com/ to see a complete list of the requirements and get an address for where to mail your ponytail.

I can hear you already, "But, Eileen - I don't live in beautiful San Luis Obispo! How can I prove to you that I have cut my hair and help you get credit for my donation?"

I'm so glad you asked! Linda and I are hoping to get donations from all over the country for our contest. How to prove your donation is easy. Simply shoot me an email at eileen.hairtospare@gmail.com containing your before and after photos. In this email, please include some sort of declaration of authenticity. Here is a sample of what we have in mind:

I, (state your name), do solemnly swear, on my cut ponytail, to the sisters-of-another-mother Eileen and Linda, that I have cut my hair and have sent it to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program.

You can make up your own declaration, but this gives you an idea of what we are looking for. The most important part of this whole process is you actually sending in your ponytail!! If you are anything like me, you avoid the Post Office at all costs. (I swear I must have appeared on a wanted poster in another life!) I hate going there, but I will do it for a good cause.

Here is the address if you have made the cut and are ready to head out to the post office:

Pantene Beautiful Lengths

511 Wisconsin Drive

New Richmond, WI

54017-2613

Make sure your ponytail is dry and collected with an elastic band. Seal it in a zipper-lock bag and mail it in a padded envelope to the address above. Include your full name and return address with the ponytail.

Please keep in mind: I am not getting anything out of this. No one is paying me, this is what we Calandros do for fun. Okay, I'll admit, if I win, (WHEN I win) I am going to be ecstatic to do the victory dance and post it on YouTube and then gloat all over town about how I won this contest! Linda will have to endure much neener-neenering and ribbing from me for the rest of our lives (or at least until she beats me at another contest). But really, I'm just doing this because I wanted to see how much hair we could get donated. We're aiming for one hundred heads of hair - that's six hundred ponytails - and we can't do it without your help! Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested in helping me out. Thanks for your support!

As of now, the total count is 5 ponytails. Only 595 to go! WILL YOU MAKE THE CUT?

Do You Have Hair to Spare?

I have been growing my hair out ever since Miles was born three years ago and now it is time to cut it and donate it to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program. I have donated my hair to another organization in the past, but this time I wanted my hair to be used for a wig for cancer patients. A friend of mine has recently been going through tests and consultations to determine if a cluster of cells is, indeed, cancer. She is being incredibly strong, but beginning what could be a long struggle is, understandably, worrisome for her. My ponytail is dedicated to the hope that she won't need a wig, that she won't be positively diagnosed, that this questionable mammogram will prove to be nothing more than a short scary time as opposed to a long, gruelling journey for a cure. Other women I have known have gone down this road and arrived victorious. They lost their hair, but not their lives.

These women I know, and women I don't know, who battle for their lives are my heroes. The least I can do is grow out my hair and send it off to help a woman feel more confident and comfortable as she faces a struggle I can't begin to imagine.

If you check out our last post, this process encompasses five of our six credos. Here's how I'm going to have credo #6 (the bonus credo: create fun and adventure) be a part of this process. And I need your help. My twin-sister-from-another-mother, Linda, and I are competing against each other to see who can get the most people to cut their hair and donate it to this program. Our collective goal is to collect six hundred ponytails. This is a lofty goal, but as we say in the Calandro Family, "go big or go home"! It takes six ponytails to make one wig. These six hundred ponytails would make one hundred heads of hair. One hundred wigs.

The contest ends on our birthdays: May 7th, 2009. The winner will get to do a victory dance that will be posted on YouTube for all to see. Of course, my dance (if I win - which I plan to!) will include much neener neenering and jubilation and would be fun to watch. Who doesn't love winning a contest? We are open to suggestions of ways the winner gets to celebrate and ways the loser has to endure the title of "loser". I'm guessing there will be t-shirts involved. We Calandros are big on creating t-shirts for big occasions, just check out previous blog posts.

So there you have it. I know cutting off at least 8 inches of hair (what Pantene requires) can be a huge change for most people. It may even be a Samson and Delilah moment, but trust me, I've done it before and you will gain more strength and identity from your donation than from any length of hair cascading down your back. Spring is coming, the weather will get warmer, your hair will grow back.

All I'm asking from you today is to think about it. Spread the word. Linda and I only have two ponytails to donate. This crazy idea won't be any fun unless you JOIN IN TO HELP ME WIN. In my next post, you will see an "after" picture of me, links to the Pantene website, and more information about how you can let me know you've cut your hair. Stay tuned.

Are you with me? Please consider cutting your hair, helping a cause, and, of course, helping me win! I can't do my victory dance without you!

Onward!

The Calandro 5 Credo

Being a Living in HD family has brought us countless wonderful experiences. However, a by-product of this has caught us by surprise. Living in HD has helped us bring our family's values into clear focus. One of the questions on the former LiHD website asked: "What is your family motto?" This got us thinking about what ours would be. We have created our credo. It consists of five rules, plus one bonus rule, that the Calandro 5 try our best to live by. (We thought it was cute to have five rules and five members of the family, but the bonus one couldn't be ignored.) Here they are:

#1 Be nice to everyone.

San Luis is a small town and if you've been here long enough, which we have, everyone is connected by only two degrees of separation, as opposed to the usual six. Everyone is connected to everyone, so let's keep it clean, folks. The more people we know, the smaller the world gets. A little bit of kindness goes a long way, it is usually an unexpected surprise for the recipient, and it's free. Free is good. (Not a credo, but we say that a lot.)

#2 Do the right thing.

This credo can get tricky. Sometimes the right thing isn't what we want to do AT ALL, but it is the right thing to do, so we do it. Period. Sometimes the right thing to do is right for the Calandro 5, but not for others, and people get disappointed. Weighing out who gets to be right is the tricky part. Rest assured, if we're doing something, we feel it is right for the most important people involved in the situation, and we know we are not always the most important people.

#3 Respect.

This simple word encompasses a multitude of things. Respect people, family, children, the earth, nature, where people are coming from, honorable professions, time, energy, resources, talents. The list goes on. We will begin a relationship with respect, but this must be maintained. We are nice, but we are not doormats. Respect is given by us, but it is also earned and maintained over time.

#4 Help.

"What can we do to help?" We try to have this be the first thing we say when there is a celebration, a terrible situation, or anything in-between. In return, our family and friends are some of the most generous people on the planet. We give to them, they give to us.

#5 Contribute.

This sounds similar to #4, but it is different in a way. We contribute by the professions we have chosen and we believe our jobs should provide more than just a paycheck. They should use our talents to help make the world a better place. We feel we have been so fortunate and blessed in our lives and we try to give back in any way we can. We work to "pay it forward". If we can't contribute money to a cause, we contribute time, which is priceless. We contribute to our community because we love San Luis Obispo. We contribute to our schools because knowledge is power. We contribute as much time and energy as we can to our children and family because at the end of the day, we are all we have.

#6 (The bonus rule) Create fun and adventure.

And be ready for it. Adventure can come knocking any day, at any time. Being a member of the Calandro 5 is a wild ride, mostly by our own invention, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

So there's the Calandro 5 Credo. Of course, it is subject to change as we do, but it has gotten us this far and seems to work really well. Do we expect everyone to live by these rules? No way. We know how crazy we are. This list is all ours. Living with these rules at the front of all our decisions (along with "The Coin of Destiny" - but that's a topic for another blog post) has served us pretty well so far.

Do you have a credo? Is it working for you? How do you feel when it is challenged? We'd love to hear from you.

Onward!

Connected to Panasonic

It has now been almost a month since the Crazy Calandros went to CES and were wowed by Panasonic, their incredible products, and personable family of employees. The experience will go down in our Calandro Family History as the stories are told and retold. However, this little anecdote takes the entire journey to a new level of service and dedication. This is a story of when a little bit goes a long way:

A few weeks ago we received a very discrete letter from Panasonic. The return address was pre-printed on the envelope with the words "Panasonic Ideas for Life". It looked like it could have contained anything, but what was inside was anything but ordinary. It was a thank you letter from Yoshi Yamada, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Panasonic of North America. He thanked us for appearing on the CES 2009 Main Stage as a Spotlight on Ideas speaker. He told us we contributed "a new level of extremely relevant information" with our appearances. At the end he simply said, "I know this kind of commitment of your valuable time was a challenge, and I truly appreciate your making it happen."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? Panasonic flew us there, gave us money for food, put us up in a hotel room for five nights, and celebrated my son's birthday as if he were a member of their own family and HE is thanking US! Sure, organizing the five of us to appear onstage every day and getting to and from Vegas was no small task, but we never dreamed of getting this kind of acknowledgement for our efforts.

Plain and simple: Panasonic gets it.

Mr. Yamada, in front of everyone who is reading and listening: we thank you. From the bottom of our Crazy Calandro hearts, thank you. Being with your company and your employees at CES gave us the opportunity to connect with a brand in a way we never thought possible. Everyone we met and talked with cared about us and what we had to say. Panasonic was interested in our opinions; we mattered. As humans, we instinctively want to feel like we are important, like we belong. Everyone at Panasonic listened to us when we talked about their products or even when we were just talking about our lives back in San Luis Obispo. For that, we thank you. We thank you for working tirelessly to link your philosophy to your consumer and the Panasonic products. Your company's vision was presented to us every day: you care about the people using your products and you want Panasonic to improve people's lives. Your personally signed letter following our trip demonstrated the importance of us to you.

That's the part you got completely correct, Mr. Yamada: you and Panasonic have improved our lives more than you can ever know. Tonight John is relaxing in front of our awesome TV and I am blogging via our laptop while sitting at my kitchen table. Tomorrow I will be taking our youngest son, Miles, to his first day of preschool. At night we will all gather in front of the TV, insert a little SD card in the slot on our television and our whole family will share in this momentous event in HD. Four months ago these occurrences would have been drastically different in our home and far less enjoyable. Thank you Mr. Yamada and Panasonic. Your "Ideas for Life" have made ours absolutely wonderful.