For most of this time, especially since I live in a warmer climate, my daily uniform has gone from full windsor knot to polo shirt and shorts. So, nearly two months ago when Lands End contacted me about reviewing their new line of polo shirts I was interested. In talking with them about doing the review I only accepted after getting some additional time to put one of their claims to the test, specifically that their new mesh polo shirt has a no-curl collar.

It’s not that I didn’t believe them, but I was skeptical of the claim. When our household went from dual income to single my annual trips to Brooks Brothers to replace my worn out polos was one of the first things to go. Typically these shirts would last me about three summers, so with each spring I’d buy replacements for the ones that had seen better days.

As I began shopping elsewhere to save money I noticed the shirts I was buying wouldn’t hold up nearly as well and would barely last more than a year. Also, most them that claimed to have a no-curl collar were the first ones to go all Flying Nun on me.

I received the shirt in mid-February and am pleased to report that after six runs through the laundry cycle the collar still is remarkably curl-free. The new Lands End mesh polo is a heavier weight than before, yet is still surprisingly soft. Overall I am very happy with the quality of construction and will consider purchasing a few more for myself to replace some of my older shirts.

My one complaint, and this is a very minor quibble, is that I wish the shirts had three buttons instead of two. The reason for this is I have a bad habit of storing my clip-on sunglasses there and in my experience the polos I have with three buttons keep them in place better.

The shirt off my back

However, if you don’t want to take my word as to how good these new shirts are, I’ll give you the shirt off my back. Well, sort of. Lands End has generously allowed me to give a few away (three, to be exact) so you can see for yourself. Obviously my skills as a dad blogger are improving as my second ever giveaway isn’t coming out of my own pocket.

Enter now!

If you’re interested in getting one for yourself (or partner, husband, dad or brother; Father’s Day will be here soon enough), here’s a few ways to enter my Lands End polo contest:

1. Cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with a HERRING! and automatically win one shirt (video evidence required)
2. Solve the current NFL labor crisis before midnight EST on Tuesday, April 12th and win all three shirts (see disclosure below for complete requirements)

Or, if you’re not quite up to those challenges, you can help me by supporting a fellow dad bloggers’ effort to bring comfort to abused children.

Telling Dad’s Sweet Dreams Fund $1.11 Campaign is an amazing cause that I’d like your help with to promote and support. So, rather than ask you to post messages on your bliggity blog, faceyspaces or tweety pages about mine, I ask that you instead do those things for the $1.11 Campaign. Greg is trying to raise $1,200 to support the work of McMahon/Ryan Child Advocacy by getting 1,111 people to donate $1.11 each.

The first commenter that donates five (5) or more pledge units (1 pledge unit = $1.11 x 5 = $5.55) will automatically be awarded one (1) shirt as a thank you for supporting this very worthy cause. The only stipulation is that this donation must be made AFTER this post was published. If you donated prior to April 6th it will not count for the automatic prize. Update ** – 4/6 We have our automatic winner. Thank you, Jason!

The other two (2) shirts will be selected by Random.org from all of the other comments received.

Here are the different ways you can enter by dropping me a comment to let me know you did one or more of the following between now and midnight EST on Tuesday, April 12th:

• Post your Twitter status URL (maximum of 5, 1 entry per tweet)
• Tell me that you liked them on Facebook (1 entry, obviously)
• Blog about this campaign and leave the post URL (maximum of 10 entries)
• Donate any number of pledge units (1 entry per pledge unit donated, no maximum)

The winners will be announced on Wednesday, April 13th on my Twitter account, my Real Men Drive Minivans Facebook Page and by an update to this post.

Update ** 4/13 – Congratulations to Dan and Dear Mr. Man for winning the other two shirts, I’ll be in touch soon.

For your convenience, here is a quick Twitter message you can use if you so choose (totally not required):

I entered to win a Lands End polo from @pjmullen for supporting the Sweet Dreams Fund $1.11 campaign. http://bit.ly/exkfkw

Also, if you are compelled to donate after reading the story of how the Sweet Dreams Fund came to be, I will personally match your donations in the aggregate up to 100 pledge units. I have already gone ahead and donated 20 pledge units. Therefore I am committing to an additional 80 pledge units based on your generosity.

Update** – 4/8 – Thanks to your generosity you have maxed out my match commitment and I have donated an additional 80 pledge units as promised. Thank you for your support!

Disclosure: I received one (1) new Lands End mesh polo for evaluation purposes free of charge. Lands End and/or its affiliates have made no requests of me other than to publish my full and honest opinion of their product and to conduct a giveaway for readers of my blog. Resolution of the NFL labor crisis includes an immediate end to the lockout and all associated litigation, as well as a new collective bargaining agreement with a minimum term of twelve (12) months and that requires the NFL Sunday Ticket to be made available to Roku box owners.

Continue reading »

Screenshot of part of the quiz

This week, through Friday, four websites are hosting a game that will give you some fun, benefit charities and allow participants to win excellent prizes. But unlike many contests that benefit charities, you get to pick whichever charity you want. You can donate to ANY charity, as long as they are 501c3.

Here’s how it works. Decide which of the four sites on which you want to take the quiz: Twaggies, Boing Boing, Neatorama or Treehugger. The site you pick will be your team. Take the quiz, then, on your own, make any size donation (at least $1, please) to the charity of your choice. There is no built in form, so just donate to a charity in the usual way. Next, send an email to Play@QuizPlayDay.org and tell how much you donated, to what charity and which team/blog you played for. Also, be sure to send them your quiz score! This is all on the honor system, so be honest.

Doing all of this will enter you into a drawing where you could win one of ten Wii game sets and a chance to talk about your experience and your chosen charity on television. The big winner also gets a new iPad! Also, the team that gets the most players will give another, special prize to a random player from their team. They’ll get a shopping spree of any five items at the xkcd/breadpig.com store!

For the record, I’ve played the quiz, and I only got half of them right.

DONATE TO HAITI RELIEF THROUGH THE GEEKDAD GIVING PAGE!

We all know what has happened, and how desperate the need for medical resources is right now in Haiti. There are plenty of good avenues for charitable donations out there, and by no means to we mean to replace any of them, but all of us at GeekDad want to do our part as well. To that end, we have set up a donation page at First Giving in support of the medical relief organization MerlinUSA.

Merlin specializes in health, saving lives in times of crisis and helping to rebuild shattered health services. Merlin works within existing health systems to realize everyone’s right to accessible, appropriate, affordable health care. We are committed to helping build lasting health services which are used and championed by everyone. We are specialists in rapid medical response and rebuilding health systems, effectively taking countries from emergency to recovery. We are undaunted by the challenges of providing health care to vulnerable people living in the most difficult, forgotten and remote corners of the world.

We are determined to make health a global priority; giving people caught up in conflict, disaster and health system collapse the chance to lead healthy lives. We care or people at risk, for the lives of the people we work to save, and for the safety of our staff. We are accountable to our patients, partners, supporters and donors. And we keep our promise: to stay on, beyond the crisis, for as long as we are needed.

They were on the ground in Haiti in hours to help:

Merlin’s eight strong Emergency Response Team left on the first available flight to Haiti. Their initial task is to assess the most urgent needs, which are likely to be water, sanitation, shelter, disease prevention and restoration of basic health services. Our team is likely to concentrate immediately on distributing essential shelter kits, as well as medical equipment such as hygiene kits and blankets, supporting local health staff and mobilizing communities to ensure disease outbreaks are prevented. We are mobilizing all necessary resources now.

Now is your chance to donate to the relief effort (or donate again). Through our First Giving page, we hope to raise $15,000 in support of the relief efforts on the ground in Haiti. And as an incentive (not that we need any more than the desire to help people in a time of great need), for every $15 you donate, you’ll earn one change to win a geeky giveaway item. We’re still compiling the prizes, but to start we have a batch of seriously cool stuff from John Kovalic, and some rather significant gift cards from our good friends at ThinkGeek. This means we just need a thousand GeekDad readers to donate $15 each (but you’re welcome to donate more if you can).

UPDATE: The amazing John Kovalic has pledged that for every donation of $100 or more, he will send the donor an autographed and specially-doodled copy of the first Dork Tower compendium. How cool is that?!?!

DONATE TO HAITI RELIEF THROUGH THE GEEKDAD GIVING PAGE!

United Nations Development Programme

As some of you may already know the OneBookShelf websites are raising money to help support the relief effort in Haiti and whilst GeekDad is doing it’s on drive for donations you can also head on over there and they will match every penny donated there by you.

For one day only what they have also done to encourage donations is to bring together publishers who have donated pdf’s that normally sell for over $1,000 and these will we given to anyone who donates $20. Again all money raised in this way will be matched by the folks at OneBookShelf and given to Doctors Without Borders. For those interested in what is in this package I’m informed that you can almost pick an RPG publisher and you’ll find something from them in there. Some of the bigger draws are MARS: Savage Worlds Edition, Thrilling Tales (SW), Apocalypse Prevention, Inc., Open Game Table, and Kobold Quarterly, among others.

I’m sure any GM will find something in the bundle that they will be able to use and it’s all for a good cause. And remember it’s only available until the end of the month so get in early.