Ok, so it isn’t officially Friday yet (unless you are reading this east of Greenland). But happy Friday, anyway. For me, it couldn’t come fast enough. This week’s giveaway is a tote. It was some swag from the Project NYC fashion trade show. Made by Ecobags, it is built from recycled cotton and it folds up small enough to fit in a handbag for spontaneous trips to the bodega. This is probably the most boring/utilitarian giveaway on JNB, so far. And to be perfectly honest, I have a hard time imagining someone being in short supply of tote bags. But, hey it is from Project, which is kinda cool. Maybe someone’s tote has recently sprung a hole and they need a new one. If you know someone in that situation, make sure to send them a link to this post. Anyway, if you are interested in scoring the Project tote in the photo above, please leave a comment about what you might use the tote for. I have a favorite tote that I use all of the time for carrying around reading material and blackberry #2 during the commute, in the summer when it is too hot and sticky to wear a backpack or shoulder slung briefcase. I could really go for some of that weather right now. Instead, there is snow in the forecast for tomorrow. I’m so ready for winter to be over.

I will choose a winner some time next week. Get some.

Last night was the Fall 2011 Levi’s preview in NYC. Go here if you want to see a few images from the presentation. Or, stay here if you feel like playing a little photohunt. There are 4 differences. Go!

Yesterday evening, J Crew held their Fall 11 preview in the MPD. It was awesome late afternoon sun, and one side of the showroom was letting a lot of it in. Even though there isn’t much J Crew product visible in the shot above, I couldn’t help but snap it, because of the light and the awesome flares it was making in the lens. Here is the color version.

I really liked the hair color/sweater color combo in the shot above.

And this guy came too:

And the big winner of giveaway No. 4 is…. Actually let me preface this by saying, thank you-thank you for all of the comments. I love reading about what people are listening to.  I really did like them all. I could tell that each person had put some thought into what they were sharing. So, I had to resort to good old random.org. Even though it doesn’t seem very random,  random.org chose the number 1. So– congratulations, Foodie!

I’m pretty sure that Reagan has your address. But if you wouldn’t mind forwarding it in an email, the buds are yours.

A few things that I love: pianos, pleasant voices, and good points. This song has all three. When it comes on the radio, I tell whoever I am with that it is my jam, turn it up, and sing along… even though I am not a chick… dudes can like it too… I don’t care what you say.

Sara Bareilles – King Of Anything

[image: pilfered from Google images]

Peter Breinholt is a guest contributor for La Musica Coolica, and Jake’s brother. All of Peter’s contributions can be found here | Peter’s personal blog can be found here

Check out this awesome video that my sister sent me of my little niece Maya singing (Beastie Boys’) Paul Revere during breakfast. Apparently when she isn’t skating, she is spitting hip hop. This girl know the formula for awesome.

Ok, dudes, literally as I was clicking publish on the last post, I got a call from PJ’s social worker. The place that she and I left off from our conversation last week, was that I did not feel ok about Piper going to Albany, and that I would probably withhold consent, appeal it, etc.. Which really sucked because it is so important for me to maintain a good relationship with Blythedale after how amazing they have been to Piper and to us. After stating my position, I told the SW that I didn’t know what to do, and asked her if there was anything further she could do. She said that she would speak to the director and get back to me.

Apparently the discussion went very well. Blythedale has agreed to keep Piper until Seton’s new facility opens (in Yonkers, accessible by metro north), but that Piper’s name will remain on the list at St. Margaret’s (in Albany), as a contingency. All I can say is, miracles happen. Seriously, thank you so much everyone who was brainstorming with us about how to resolve this situation. We are elated that Blythedale has been gracious enough to compromise this way. Now we will just keep our fingers crossed and pray that she can slide right into Seton when the new place opens early next year.

I seriously feel like I just lost 90000 pounds.

Who else is that smiley with an earful of suds? The previous sentence is as far as I got, Sunday afternoon, when I tried for like 3 hours to initially draft this thing. We have had some sort of crazy stuff happen with Piper, over the last week. She is doing fine. But, because of the lack of long term facilities in the NYC area who care for vent dependent children, Piper may have to move to Albany. Reagan explained it pretty well over here. It was a great post. We have had such an overwhelming response that the traffic spike caused the server to fail. So, that coupled with an inept hosting reseller caused her page to be down for most of the day yesterday (and mine, actually).

For those who are interested in the details of what is happening, and why, here is a letter* that I wrote to our state senator on Friday:

Dear Senator,

I am writing you today to ask for your help in keeping my family together. We are about to be separated because of inadequacies in the NYS long term health care policy.

My daughter Piper was born to my wife Reagan and I in 2007 at Columbia Hospital. She has a rare congenital health problem which requires her to be on a ventilator. After a miraculous birth and spending several months in the NICU and PICU, she was discharged to a rehabilitation facility in Westchester County. She has been declared disabled and is currently covered by SSI. Although she has fought an uphill battle her entire life, Piper has made great improvements at the facility where she is now. But, every time she makes enough progress that she is considered stable, she must be referred to a long term care facility. The fact that she must go to a long term care facility is the problem per se. The problem is that the closest facility licensed to care for children on vents is over two hours away from where we live.

Our daughter could also be discharged to our home, but the current financial situation of my wife and I doesn’t allow for it. We currently live in a 5^th floor walk up in Washington Heights. In order for her to be discharged to our care at home, we would have to live in a more modern building with backup power and an elevator. Unfortunately, that type of move is not fiscally possible right now.

The only long term care facilities that are currently licensed to care for vent patients (according to our daughter’s social worker), are far from New York City. One is in Albany, and the other is in Smithtown. There is currently one facility in the City which has 4 long term beds, but they are moving to Yonkers and will not be accepting any new patients until early next year. Even when their new facility does open (scheduled for next January), it will only have a few additional vent beds, and there is no guaranty that Piper will be admitted there.

We recently found out that the place in Smithtown is also now out. Since our daughter is beginning to learn to walk, she would need one-to-one care, which they are not set up to provide. This makes the only long term care option for our daughter, a facility in Albany. We have been told that our daughter will have to move there next week. As I’m sure you are aware, Albany is not a short distance from NYC, not even Washington Heights. We will now have to travel over two hours to see our daughter.

It seems very counter intuitive to me that the facilities licensed for vent children are so far away from the most highly populated area in New York. Despite having our daughter live at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Westchester for most of her life, my wife and I have been able to maintain a meaningful relationship with her. My wife has been able to arrange her work schedule so that she can travel to visit 4 times per week. I visit her on the weekends. Although not ideal, the 40 minute drive to Blythedale (which is not accessible by public transportation from NYC) is manageable.

Blythedale is currently being remodeled and will be much larger in the short future, but is not licensed to receive SSI funds from the State for long term care. From what I have been told, Blythedale applied to the State for the license, but was denied. Apparently the reason that NYS gave was that there was not a need for more of such facilities. I can say from my own experience that this is not the case.

On two prior occasions, our daughter was sent to a facility in New Jersey called Wanaque. This is the only facility in NJ (from what I’m told) that NY State will allow SSI funds to go to, for NYS disabled kids. There are at least 3 other families that we know personally, who live in NYC, but have also had children discharged to Wanaque. Both times that our daughter was admitted there, the level of care was so low, that she developed pneumonia and almost died. Luckily she was close enough to Columbia that she was able to be transported and cared for by her pediatric doctors that have known her since birth.

If a similar situation were to occur in Albany, she could be dead before we are even able to arrive at the hospital.

I understand that in most cases, vent dependent children who are in long term care have very low cognitive function and as such, do not normally have meaningful relationships with their families. But in our case, we have a very meaningful relationship with our daughter. She is our only family for 2000 miles. And now she is going to be shipped off to rot in a facility upstate because of a systemic inadequacy.

I don’t know if there is anything that you can do, but any efforts in our behalf would be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Jacob Breinholt (on behalf of myself, my wife Reagan and our daughter Piper)

*I have since regretted publicly posting this letter because of one Joy MacMillan. Apparently it isn’t completely obvious that this letter is a very brief overview of the situation. When I wrote the reference to the “fiscal” impediments of moving, it was an easy was to sum up a lot of very complicated factors. I applaud Joy, that she was able to find a living situation that worked for the her and her family. I apologize if my letter gave  the wrong impression about our priorities and family values. I know how easy it is get get judgy, especially when I don’t have all of the information.

Lesson learned. I’ll stick to the less personal stuff from now on.

So, yeah. There are still some things up in the air. There is also an appeal process. Reagan and I are still trying to figure out the best way to handle this situation. All of the support and kind words have been sincerely appreciated. Here are a few more shots from the weekend:

We have had a tough couple of days around the B-holt residence. I’m sure that I’ll eventually get to that in a later post. But we have definitely been staying busy. I shot some pretty interesting stuff (to me) on Friday and Saturday. I come from a family with a strong quilting heritage. I don’t know to what extent is has carried over to my generation. But, it seems like there was always some quilt that my mom (and usually at least one of her sisters) was working on, when I was growing up. My grandmother on my father’s side (who just turned 90 on Saturday), still makes a quilt for every new great-grandkid in the family (FYI, there are more than I can count on 50 fingers). If that’s not enough, we get it from Reagan’s side too. Both of our mom’s always run into each other at state quilt guild conventions. Yes, both of our mom’s are active members of the Utah State Quilt Guild. I personally think that is pure awesome. So, it is safe to say that I was raised to appreciate the art of quilting and the significance in American heritage and Culture. I’ll be honest though, I never thought I would be shooting or blogging about quilts. Buuuuuttttt, it just so happens that the American Folk Art Museum is currently holding an exhibition of American red and white quilts at the Park Avenue Armory. I ended up shooting it for Curated Mag. I was blown away. Not saying that these photos do it any justice, but scroll down for a couple of more looks.

Ok, if you made it this far down the post, then maybe you will be interested in what I shot on Saturday morning. HS teamed up with Nike for an editorial story featuring the new Kobe collection, at a little league soccer game in the Bronx. The game was at 11:30 and I was worried that everything would be washed out with the sun that high in the sky. I guess it is lucky (for me) that we are still in early spring, because I don’t feel like the images came out that bad. I just hope that the people whose opinion matters, feel the same. Here are a few–

This last one had nothing to do with the product, but I just like the wide shot with the green turf and blue sky.

Up for grabs this round, is a pair of Skullcandy “Smokin’ Buds.” Although I think the name of this model is a bit kitschy, I think that Skullcandy makes some quality products. Whether audiophile or not, I feel like everyone can appreciate a quality sounding headphone. Although, I could be wrong.

Speaking of audiophiles– This giveaway just happens to coincide with the nascent beginnings of a new project that I’m pretty excited about (I can imagine Reagan groaning as she reads this). For those who might have had the occasion to read my little weekly LMC feature, it is no surprise that I’m pretty keen on music. I have a few friends who share this passion with me. One of them just happens to be Mr. Joe Varca. As it turns out, Wednesday night Joe and I were not only admiring the view of the City, we were also hatching a plan to take over the world via (yet another) music blog.  “What is this blog you speak of?”, inquiring minds probably won’t ask. I just registered the domain yesterday. It is called “Ear full of gold.” There is yet much to do before any content will appear on the site. But, get amped. Joe’s brain is like IMDB and ASCAP all rolled into one.

Back to the buds: If you want ‘em, write a comment about some music that you like. It doesn’t have to be your favorite. Heaven knows I have a hard time drilling down a favorite anything. So, maybe it is just something that you have been digging on lately. There aren’t really rules. I will try to choose a winner on Monday or Tuesday of next week. Bueno suerte.

This video has been going around since the beginning of the week. I think it is freaking amazing. I have talked about it with a few people, and apparently a lot of people still haven’t seen it. So, I’m re-posting. It was shot with a 5D MkII in 1080. So, feel free to check it out in full screen view for maximum amazement. I remember once when I was young I saw the northern lights one time when I was camping with my dad. It was amazing. We could hear them too, which was really weird. The ones that we saw were red. And although they were pretty amazing (I still remember it 20ish years later), they were nothing compared to what Terje Sorgjerd shot in this video.