I’ve been chosen as a finalist in the Zagg.com ‘What Would You Do for an iPad 2?’ contest! But in order to win, I need YOUR help!     Zagg asked for ideas about what you would do to publicize their logo in exchange for an iPad 2. Most entries, as you’ll see, have to do with getting a tattoo of Zagg’s logo, painting the logo on your garage or car, et cetera. But I thought, maybe I could take this one step further. Maybe I could use this opportunity to make a difference.     For my entry, I pledged that if chosen as a winner, I would create hundreds of bright, bold, colorful pillowcases for wounded soldiers in Afghanistan!

    I’ve spent a lot of time around wounded soldiers at Bethesda Naval Hospital & Walter Reed Army Medical Center. I owe my life to the amazing doctors & nurses in our military. But I know first-hand just how drab & dreary military hospitals are, and how emotionally draining it is to feel miserable in such a dull, monochromatic environment. As tough as it is at a military hospital here at home, I can’t even begin to imagine how unbearable it must be out in the field! As simple as it may seem, color really makes a world of difference not just emotionally, but to the recovery process as a whole.

Click to zoom!

I created this prototype pillowcase to show what I have in mind. I drew on this pillowcase by hand using colored pencils, recreating the Zagg logo in painstaking detail. (That took me eight straight hours of work!) I want to create more pillowcases like this, one for each bed in the hospital at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. It’ll be a loving dose of cheerful color for the men and women who have sacrificed so much to protect our freedoms. It’s a token to keep with them throughout the recovery process, reminding them always that they are loved.     But in order to make this project possible, I need YOUR help! I need YOUR vote!

    The ten finalists who get the most votes will win an iPad 2 and possible assistance in carrying out their task. Then, out of those ten, whoever does the best job documenting their project will win an iMac!

    Please, I’m begging you, vote for my project! I’m really eager to do this. I already have the fabric, thanks to my Mom who was kind enough to donate fabric from her extensive collection. I’ve already come up with designs to make each and every pillowcase unique. I’m all set and ready to go.

    Now all I need is you!

Here’s How to Vote!

    Click here to go to the contest page! To vote for my proposal, go to Page 3 and look for “Sweet Zagg Dreams for Wounded Soldiers”. That’s mine! Click the big green “VOTE” button! And that’s it!

    As I’m sure you’ll notice, mine is the only charity project amongst all the finalists!

    You can vote once a day now through June 24th. Vote on multiple devices, vote every day, get your friends to vote; please, please, please VOTE!

    As an added bonus, each day you vote, you’ll get an extra entry in Zagg’s Daily iPod Touch giveaway! So you have a chance to win too! After you vote, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the button to go to the iPod Touch Giveaway entry page. It’s literally a win-win! Or rather, a win-win-win: I win, you could win, and most importantly, our wounded soldiers win too!

And if you’d like to help spread the word, please give this link to your friends: http://bit.ly/pillows4vets! I’ll love you forever if you do!

    Thanks very much!! And wish me luck!!

News, Updates & Gratitude

Update: June 11, 2:40am Wow! Some truly awesome people have retweeted links to this blog entry to help spread the word! HUGE thank you’s to host of VH1’s ‘That Metal Show’ Eddie Trunk, Red Eye Dude TV’s Andy Levy, and Special Report anchor Bret Baier! All of them were kind enough to send out links to encourage people to vote. And many of their followers also retweeted it!! Thanks, guys, I will love you forever and ever!

    And a HUGE thank you to all the followers of these aforementioned awesome people who retweeted the message again and again to help spread the word!

    I also want to thank Representative Thaddeus McCotter from Michigan. I asked him to retweet it, without thinking that it might violate House rules. He was kind enough to write back very quickly to explain & thank me for supporting the troops, which I thought was sweet. So thank you for your encouragement and incredibly fast response, Representative McCotter! I still think you’re awesome.

    Do you know anybody else who has shared the link to the blog? If so, let me know! I’ll post them here!

Update: June 11, 10:47pm Big thank you to Reason.com Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie, his swanky leather jacket, his sadly deceased handlebar mustache, & his awesome followers for helping to spread the word! Mr. Gillespie, your mustache will be missed.

Update: June 16, 4:43am Oh no! I just discovered that the bit.ly link I had been using to link to the contest voting site wasn’t working anymore! Eep! I’m terribly sorry for the technical difficulties and hope that you’ll please keep voting! The link is all fixed now – if you click the banner at the top of this entry, it will now take you directly to the contest voting site.

    Please keep sharing the link with your friends! I just double checked – the http://bit.ly/pillows4vets link is still working fine! That will bring people here to this blog entry where they can get all the info and decide if they’d like to support the project.

    Another way you could help is to suggest celebrities who might be willing to retweet the link to their followers! I’ve tried several celebrities over the past several days, from all points on the political spectrum, but sadly no one has retweeted it yet! I guess I’ve lost my mojo or something. I won’t name them, since that would be rude – maybe they’re just busy or something – but still. If you can think of anybody, please post a comment below, email me, or maybe even ask them yourself! If you’re successful, please let me know so I can thank them here!

    Lastly, I want to thank to my friend @StephieRawks for continuing to retweet the link and encouraging people to vote! Thank you!! You should all go follow her, she’s very nice. 🙂

Thanks! And please keep voting!

Update: June 19, 9:57pm I just changed the original publishing date of this post so that it would remain at the top of my blog, but I could still publish a new blog to commemorate Father’s Day. The original publishing date of this blog entry was June 10, 2011, at 9:30PM. I’ll switch it back once voting is over. 🙂