Girls Week End Survivors

Well it's for sure Monday, the place is a buzz about the home town dates tonight.  I'm excited to see how the edit comes across for Jesse.  Also excited to "meet" his parents.  Big night.  OH and we had more press on the radio this morning as Emily interviewed us about our celebrity athlete.  Wow, you just never know what is going to be going on around here.  Speaking of.......

At Hippie Sisters we decided to set up a pool.  She lives right on the lake at the golf course, and we have put up one of those 4 foot deep self contained pools.  No Jane didn't have to take turns sitting in it, but after Erika had one melt down out of the way we got the week end off to a great start.

The pool couldn't have happened with out the help of others getting us the sand, pushing it around, leveling it out, and some creativity about the water situation.  AJ's chain saw was even used!!  Who knew you could just put a hose hooked up to the washing machine and run it through the bedroom, through the kitchen, and out the window to set up a pool!  18.34 hours later and we've got ourselves a pool.

Needless to say we spent a great amount of time this week end lounging and sunning in our new "infinity pool Iowa style".  We are our own reality show.

High Cascade Summer Camp!!

Well Jesse Csincsak has made it to Mt. Hood, whew.  What a road trip from Breck up to the glacier, but he made it.

So also did our Zero sponsored rider Jeremy Applestine. Jeremy is a student who Jesse has taken under his wing to help develop into the future of snowboarding.  Jeremy and his mom Sara moved to Breckenridge from the East Coast and he has taken to the sport like a fish to water. What a cute little dude.  We are proud to have Jeremy doing some actual on hill testing of our new pro model glove we designed for him.  It's a mini version of Jesse's 08 pro glove, which was a hit from the beginning.  Jeremy is one of the youngest kids at High Cascades and is already impressing everyone he runs into even RipaRoo from Keystone.

The top photo  is of Jesse and Jeremy on Mt. Hood, and the bottom one is Jeremy working the camera!  Way to go guys, hope  you have a great camp!

Des Moines Register Front Page Business Section w/PHOTO!!

Biz Buzz: TV's competing bachelor perfect fit for gloves maker

LYNN HICKS & DAVID ELBERT • business@dmreg.com • June 17, 2008

A fourth-generation glove company in Fairfield has discovered viral marketing, thanks to blogs and "The Bachelorette."

Megan and Nicole Hunt, sisters who run Fairfield Line Inc., which makes a variety of work, gardening and other gloves, have attracted attention for their Zero brand of snowboarding gloves.

One of Zero's pitchmen is Jesse Csincsak, a professional snowboarder and one of the bachelors on the reality show "The Bachelorette," which airs Mondays on ABC. At this writing, Bachelor Jesse continues to charm Bachelorette DeAnna Pappas, so he remains on the show. (Or so June Lowenberg, Fairfield Line's marketing guru, explained to Buzz, who can smugly claim to have never seen the show.)
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Csincsak wears Zero items on each episode, which has driven up traffic to www.zerogloves.com. Lowenberg said page views have spiked to 7,500 as visitors have hit on photos of Csincsak.

"There is a whole sleuthing organization out there that blogs and speculates on this show," Lowenberg explained. "Who the heck has the time to do this sort of thing?"

These bloggers have also speculated on a romantic link between Csincsak and Zero President Megan Hunt, Lowenberg said, which has produced some nasty e-mails and calls. That inspired the Zero team to create a "Home Wrecker" T-shirt, which Csincsak has worn on the show.

"Bachelorette" fans are ordering the T-shirts, but the attention has not translated into glove sales so far. But hey, it's June.

Woah is it Wet around here

Rain, rain, and more rain.  Lots of people in our neck of the woods are in trouble.  We've been working with different organizations to do what we can to help, and our sister company Fairfield Line Inc. www.fairfieldlineinc.com has been giving donations of misprinted work gloves to people to help aid in the overwhelming clean up.  

I have to admit I did watch The Bachelorette in my office this morning, as we had a business dinner last night.  I felt a little bad about watching it in the office, but dude, he works for us, so we've got to make sure we're "in the know" with what is going down on TV.   In the preview they show part of Jesse's home town date with them snowboarding so watch for some sick Zero gloves on Jesse and DeAnna.  It's our job at the beginning of the season, (Winter Season-Not The Bachelorette Season :)  Well as sponsors we stock the closet with product so our athletes can use it all winter, and share some product with their friends.  Jesse is a great snowboarding teacher, so hopefully he gets her up and running!! 

Hippie Sister and I were on the front page of the Des Moines Register today, photo and all about the business of sponsoring athletes, and what Jesse and his exposure are giving Zero Gloves.  What next?! I mean I went to the gas station to get a soda at lunch "so I'm guessing you have seen your photo and the article in the Des Moines Register today"  You just never know with the Hunt Sisters, do you?  

New cool stuff is coming from The Branding Agency, so we're getting really close to being ready to share with peeps what is going to be the new face of Zero!! 

Scootzilla has WHEELS

The Scoots came this week while I was gone. OF COURSE! Well Desiree, Will, Johnny, and Bill spent time getting the pieces in place. Desiree put it in my office this week so I literally walked into my office and the SCOOTS WAS IN THERE!! It's so cute I can barely stand to know it's outside.

Chris made it home from the big post grad school trip. Whew.

ABI turned out to be a fantastic experience. The panels were great, and the whole experience was really good. We met lots of great peeps, and got to play the Riverside Golf Course, it was awesome. Well maybe 13 holes of the course, and I know I can be a little dramatic, but there was a little rain, and a little more rain, and we decided to go into the shelter. So we're in the shelter it's raining a little harder, the wind picks up, we're all hiding behind a post and some bigger dudes. We decide as a group to go into the building that has the bathrooms in it. Just as we do I'm not sh*tting you the tables and chairs flew 15 feet in the air and across the entire patio.

There were a few people that fell down because the dummies seal coated the patio and didn't think about soft spikes on that slick surface, combined with a few beers, and 50 mile an hour winds. Jeepers. We were all soaked, 25 of us hanging out in the bathroom on the course, we sent some sucker out to get the cooler while we waited out the storm, and he actually did it. Talk about a team building experience with some professionals around the state. It was neat.

My partner Tim Johnston from DSM was awesome, and we actually took on some guys after we weathered the storm, and WON! Ham and Egg, it was great. Scott Carpenter and Nate Weaton stayed out during the storm in a corn crib, idiots. Sid and Tom tied one on at the Leadership Iowa graduation, it was so fun to meet young professionals from Iowa that are passionate about the state, and their businesses.  I even ran into an old college buddy who deserves congrats, Stu and Sonja are expecting in five weeks!  

By the end of the week, I was wearing clothing and people knew my name and we'd all become friends. No more staring for the wrong reasons, unless we were the loudest group there having the most fun, then it was probably warrented.

ZZZOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!

IAB BAI or OH RIGHT ABI!!!

Well Hippie Sister and I decided to be the professional networkers we are and attend the ABI conference in Coralville, Iowa Wednesday and Thursday to help provide better business relationships to lean on in tough times for everyone. This crowd of networking is a LITTLE bit different than the industry and environment that I've become used to with Zero Gloves.

I just don't have the same feeling of networking with investment bankers, lawyers, and the like as rewarding as rubbing elbows with the type of people that are in the snow industry. Meeting cool people like our team of athletes is fun, and developing relationships with them (there are so many wrong punch lines here....fill in your own) is like getting a family together to rally around your brand. I'm not saying that these people don't love their jobs, etc, but it's one of those environments that is kind of like an old boys club, and you are the naked girl on the corner, just waking up realizing that you don't have cloths on.

Meanwhile, Scootz are getting delivered today, I still haven't seen them, because of course I'm out of town the day they finally come. Plus the city of Coralville is flooding like crazy, seriously I don't think they had the River Bar idea, that there could there is a serious threat that the river could end up in the bar. I mean it's seriously scary what is going on, and I didn't sleep well because when we asked the front desk lady about the plan for the lack of land between us and the river out back of the hotel she just looked at us like "what flood water". It's still raining, and now the golf course is closed down to only 13 holes. It's STILL raining too.

I did hear that a few local peeps are reading the blog. Not buying gloves, but reading the blog, thanks Amy for the shout out! Back to networking, well at least trying to Network, and I am wearing clothing I checked. AND we've sold one hippie sister t shirt, I don't think it's going to fit him, but we know the site works. Thanks Greg!!!

Sunday Funday followed by Monday of course!

Well the week end at Zero Gloves was  pretty interesting.  Very professional meeting at Hippie Sisters little cottage on the lake on Saturday.  You know it doesn't have to be so SERIOUS  to make big decisions, and have lots of good ideas, we've just got to come back to motivating, and action plans on Monday to make it happen.  Having a clear head on Mondays is a lot easier said than done if you don't play golf at Walton all day Sunday, but hey we played well enough for second place.  

I've had a house guest for a few days as an emergency situation.  It's been great since my not husband flew the coop to Europe with some buddies as soon as he graduated from Grad School at the University of Iowa.  FINALLY.  It'll be great to have him home Friday.  My life is so not exciting compared to others.

The Branding Agency has us on their radar, we're working on getting on with an organization called Shop A Tron, which will make our vendors love us I think.  They have lots of ideas for the website, and we are waiting for them to put them on the computer instead of in Mike's head.

Hippie Sister T shirts will make their debut at the party tonight.  I'm going to try and put a picture of them online (well I'll have Will do it for me).  They are so cute, I would have to say we may have out done ourselves, but why ever be surprised with anything the FDHS team comes up with?  Maybe Monday's aren't so bad after all?  Cheers, and take it easy!

Back from Breck

Well we went to Breckenridge for a meeting with the Branding Agency. A very productive meeting. Colin Tucker, Jeff Meyer, Vogel, Jesse Csincsak, June, Mike, Rose,Charlie, and I were all there for some serious biznass at Breckenridge Brewery, seriously is there a better spot for the pros to meet? We have a game plan for Zero gloves and you'll be seeing some motion around the site soon.

The Branding Agency hosted a BBQ at Jeff Meyer's house and then we watched The Bachelorette till the final rose ceremony. It was wild watching it with Jesse Csincsak, as he's seeing it for the first time with us. Emotions were high, there was a bit of teasing about the line dancing, and belt buckle. All in all Jesse's made some lasting friends, and continues impressing DeAnna Pappas, and it's fun to see it all unfold.

The time to say goodbye to Breckenridge came after sitting on the deck at Kenosha Steak house drinking wine and beer sitting in the sun brainstorming with Charlie, Lori, Bill, June, and I. Now that is some serious R and D, networking too. Met Greg the old owner of Racers Edge in Breckenridge, and it's going to be fun exploring the new friendships we made, man does anyone come back from Colorado and get back to Iowa and think "I'm so glad I'm home?"

Scoots should arrive today, but nobody around here is holding their breath, I swear we're all listening for air breaks of a delivery truck outside.

Watch for Team Hippie Sister t's available on the site!