Hello and THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH for your help with the Pepsi Grant competition. Regarding the "4" you're seeing in the text message response, it is actually "Thx 4 voting" which is Pepsi's hip text talk for Thanks for voting. We don't have anyone working on strategic alliances and we need that! Some folks have been looking for LABS FOR LIFE but they have already won and so don't need reciprocal votes (though I'm sure they appreciate the thank you comments). Regarding setting up multiple email accounts to "proxy vote", I'm touched by the willingness but please don't. It is against the rules (somewhere in there) and could disqualify us is if we did. Here is info from a recent near-winner and fellow bird rescuer: Julie Burge Dvm http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1312833659 6:57pm Jun 4 I came in #17 in the $25,000 category in May, but was in the top 15 until the last few hours of the last day. I received advice from somebody who had won last year, and they also won in 2 categories in May, but they did it by cheating. Here is how to win without cheating: 1. Establish a mailing list of people who are willing to receive daily reminders, and try to get them all to vote by email address, facebook, and text so you get 3 votes a day from each of them. 2. Encourage them to either buy Pepsi to get codes themselves, or provide codes for them to enter by buying them yourself and emailing them a list of codes. You might also let your regulars know where the Pepsi is on sale each week. 3. Buy the 2 liter bottles when they are on sale so you can enter 20 or 30 codes per day for most of the month. The 2 liters are the cheapest way to get codes, which average between 15 and 20 votes each. 4. Post a link to your voting page on various bird and other animal rescue facebook pages each day. Do just enough to get the word out, but not enough to be in trouble for spam! I tried to post once weekly on pages for my local dog/cat rescues, every other bird rescue and club I could find, and even national rescue groups. I had over 2000 facebook likes for my idea by the time the contest ended, more than double any other idea in the top 15. 5. During the last few days, you may have to enter 50 to 100 codes per day to maintain your standing in the top 15. My total investment was between $500 and $1000, and I lost by a slim margin right at the end. I did not enter more than 10 codes on any one computer. I emailed them to friends because I did not want to have votes eliminated because of breaking the rules. How to cheat: One of the winners (who talked to me by phone several times to give me advice on how to win) bought 400 bottles on the last day and entered them all from a single computer by setting up multiple email accounts. This is a clear violation of the rules (proxy voting), and they did it thru the entire month. This was also how they won last year. They also submitted multiple applications under different names, ended up getting two ideas selected, and won in both categories because they were using their single computer and multiple email addresses to vote for themselves many many times a day. I am hopeful that they are going to get kicked off the list for this, which would move me up one spot to #16, and if someone else gets caught, maybe I can actually move into the winner's circle! So I would encourage you to try to win using the honest means I have outlined because the company had such a huge problem with cheating last year that they shut the contest down for 6 months, came out with much stricter rules, and are supposedly going to crack down on proxy voting and other types of cheating. Best of luck, and I will be promoting your cause to my followers. Hopefully you will see me back in the running in July. Julie Burge Dvmhttp://www.facebook.com/n/?profile.php&id=1312833659&mid=455b2caG6150e171G223e132G0&bcode=6x0hV6oi&n_m=adoptkings%40gmail.com If you want to see my idea page to confirm that we came in #17 and that I had over 2K facebook likes go to http://www.facebook.com/l/bb55e7qCGVpk3soMCfR5slbx7fg/www.refresheverything.... We were at #18 on day 3 and dropped very slowly to #26 before going back up as high as #5, then slowly dropped again. I don't know if it is possible for a small group to win without buying a lot of Power Votes because those single little votes just don't add up to much compared to the 5 to 100 votes from every code. I doubt that anyone won without doing a lot of Power Voting unless it was a big group like a school that had hundreds or thousands of committed voters every single day. Please feel free to check me out or call me. I am an avian veterinarian and want to see your birds win! http://www.facebook.com/l/bb55ekv_eZ9hWIF8ZAH9QyB0mRA/www.refresheverything.... Build an animal shelter to rescue homeless pet birds & parrots in KC - Pepsi Refresh Projecthttp://www.facebook.com/l/bb55eE1KDM_Xj8FkxE8iyrud7Fg/www.refresheverything.... www.refresheverything.comhttp://www.facebook.com/l/bb55e7qre7daFufujcv1gLoal8A/www.refresheverything....Another refreshing idea to support the community & make a difference - Pepsi Refresh Project Conversation History [image: Julie Burge Dvm]http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1312833659 Julie Burge Dvm http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1312833659 8:58am Jun 5 Other tips I forgot to mention: 1. Post on this facebook page http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_126380044108480&ap=1 2. Join in on the discussion group "We Heart Animals" on the Refresh Everything website and ask for support of other animal groups On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 8:25 PM, Vincent J. Hrovat <1217@vhrovat.org> wrote:

It appears that Mickacoo is in 26th place now (or, as someone called it a few days ago, octothorpe 26). I am in the groove of voting via different means and will publicize it more later today. It’s weird, though: when I vote via text message, I get an auto-response telling me that I voted four times, which is the same as it did last time. I guess that’s a good thing. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Has anyone been working on strategic partnerships with other contestants in different brackets? I see Life is Labs Rescue and Fulton County Humane Society are voting for Mickacoo and announcing their support in Mickacoo’s comments section, so I assume that it would be a good idea to reciprocate, correct? Are there any others?

Also, I see a little “Mission Impossible” style countdown clock on bottom of Mickacoo’s web page that is down to 1 day, 0 hours, 43 minutes. I thought that the voting went on throughout June, no? because if Mickacoo needs to climb 11 places by tomorrow night, we need to get into mission-impossible mode!

--VH