It's the Jersey Girl in me

I know this is kind of silly, but I had to post because I'm so excited. The Legos folks are sending me a sample kit of the Mindstorms Robot for me to review on KidsOutAndAbout.com! Woohoo!!! This kit requires a mixture of building and programming.

The way this happened is that Madison has been wanting to build a robot for AGES, as well as start programming. Well, our dear friends got one of these Mindstorms robots for their 8-year-old son, and he absolutely adores it, has spent hours learning to program it. They recommended that I get one for Madison.

So I told Madison that I would give her one as an end-of-the-year-congratulations-on-all-your-hard-work present. I told her this before I understood what the price tag was. YEEOUCH! $249.

Oh well, that's an expensive promise to make, but once I make them, I don't break promises except in extreme circumstances. First, I started thinking about clients to whom I could propose new projects. But then I started a little brainstorm about Mindstorms. How about a review for KidsOutAndAbout.com? So I spent the early part of this week tracking down the right people to talk to, and got passed to a publicity firm in San Francisco today. And it turns out that they would be DELIGHTED to send me a free Mindstorms for me to review! They're supplying press releases, and photos, and instructions, and the woman is even doing some of the research for me, to find all the stores in western New York who carry it. She just called me back. I explained how confusing it is when people visit the Mindstorms.lego.com web site, and said how my review would be guiding parents through the confusion. She asked if I were on deadline, and I explained that I am not ACTUALLY on deadline, but SPIRITUALLY I am, because I want to get this out the second week of July so that parents can use this as a summer project for them and their kids.

I felt like dancing when she said, "Sure, we'd be happy to send you the kit. I'll put it in the mail today and you should have it early next week."

It's that whole FREE thing bringing out the New Jersey in me. I was so happy that I even brought laundry downstairs and pre-treated stains and loaded the washer. Yes, THAT excited. Now I'm going to go help Madison clean her room. You know, to make a nice neat place for her new robot.