A favorite Holiday tradition of mine is to drag my friends and family behind a moving vehicle dangerously fast, preferrably through the busiest streets. This is facillitated, of course, by copius ammounts of snow, and therefore is not always convenient or planned on. This year that opportunity came on Christmas Day night! Tiffany and I had both fallen asleep watching The Zohan when my cousin Richard White called. What he didn't know is that earlier that night, on our perilous whited-out drive home from Grandma's house, I was just trying to convince Tiff to come out with me later to wreak havoc in the snow, and when we brainstormed on who might actually have the guts to come out, we drew blanks. That's why I love my cousin Richard.
As I backed out of the driveway I thought to myself: This is stupid, repeated multiple times. I pushed on. I made the 30 minute (normally 10 minute) drive from Bountiful to Salt Lake City on completely snow-packed freeways - no pavement visible whatsoever. Too much fun. The only other person with cajones big enough to come out on a night like that finally texted me back from inside a movie, Ryan Money. He was on a date, but still down to tear it up. It was about midnight that I finally got suited up at Richards house in borrowed clothes. Richard's car covered in snow. Richard and his wife Emily and I killed an hour just doing 50 mph donuts in parking lots and residential streets. But on with the body dragging.....
HERE'S RYAN DRAGGING BARE-FOOT SKI STYLE BEHIND THE DURANGO...RIGHT THRU THE 7-11 PARKING LOT. HE'S A CRAZY MO-FO.
MAKING THE PREPARATIONS FOR PROPER HOOKEY-BOBBING.
SHAWNY D'S TURN TO NEARLY KILL MYSELF ON A PARKING LOT LIGHT POST. MERRY CHRISTMAS.
WE ACTUALLY RIDE THESE GIANT GARBAGE CANS DOWN RAW PAVEMENT IN THE SUMMER - GOTTA HAVE A STEEP HILL....OR, IN THIS CASE, SNOW AND A ROPE.
I LOVE YANKING MY COUSINS AT FREEWAY SPEEDS DOWN A 4 LANE ROAD...THEN WE CROSSED THE SOCCER FIELD - NOT SHOWING THAT ONE, DAMAGING EVIDENCE.
DID I MENTION RYAN MONEY IS NUTS?....
YEAH, HE'S ON THE ROOF OF THE CAR.
GOTTA LOVE GOING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS....NEVER GROW UP, ALL THE WAY.
YES, some day MY dream is to drive Rally Car, professionally....and once I said I was going to turn this oversized foam bag-thing into a company. You may doubt it now, but someday... You only live once...NEVER stop rockin' the Sac.
My 2008 coast to coast drive in the LoveSac Bus ends in sunny California, at the California LoveSac Stores. I've met every Sac'r in the country, and, gotta say, I love em all. That really is my favorite part of operation Front Line. It's not the training; it most certainly isn't the remodeling and merchandising; it's got to be the Sac'rs--those that work for us and those who are just fans of the Sac. CHECK OUT SOME OF THESE WACK JOBS, from my visits to LoveSac Tyler Galleria in Riverside CA and Northridge CA...
No store visit without someone ridin' a Sac full speed down the main hallway of the mall. (wait till you see the video, coming soon to the in-store DVD) After 3 grueling days and a nearly full remodel of the LoveSac Tyler Galleria Store, the Manager, James, wasn't the only loopy one. But thanks to a hard working staff, the store turned out great, and we had some crazy Mexican Food getting adventures that last night on the LoveSac Bus.
Besides the typical store visit I had a little visitor of my own. Bud and Keenan, from Home Break Surfboards, brought me my long awaited custom LoveSac surfboard. A "fish," just as requested, facilitated by their new partner (and my partner of 7 years), Mr. Jon Coltharp--manager of the LoveSac factory since 2001. Check this bad boy out...
We'll come back to the surfboard later--I promise. First, we had some serious training to do with the Tyler Galleria Staff...
In search of the best Mexican Food of the Inland Empire, we headed up Magnolia, further into Riverside. We found the natty natty Mexican food, and some other wierdos along with it...
All in all, the Tyler Galleria Crew were definately keepin the vibe alive, and it was a laugh a minute to be with em. It's good to see that LoveSac is still alive and kickin' in California, even if it a shadow of what we once were....LoveSac is back in black and we are about to blow it up again. So on to the Northridge store--just above L.A., for my final Front Line visit.
The Northridge LoveSac Crew (right) were definately, once again, a unique crew of Sac'rs. I like it! They all pitched in as we tore their store up from the floor up, and in just a few short hours, it was like a new place. We replaced every light bulb, killed those life-sucking flourescents, moved the behemoth fixtures, and makd the place look like new. Then we busted out some wicked sales training on the LoveSac ice-queen (this woman just wanted nothing to do with the Sac), and we met a nice little LoveSac family too. Check out these two videos of Chris, Sue, and their cute daughters--who ultimately get their way...
With some lousy Pizza Hut Pizza on the Bus, and one final Guitar Hero throw-down in the parking lot of the Northridge mall, my Operation Front Line, 2008, was finished. Yes--that west-coast Pizza was making me miss home and the good old Colony Grill, in Stamford, Connecticut, with the bombest thinnest, spiciest, best pizza in the United States of America, and I knew it was time to be on my way. So THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU, Staffers, fans of the Sac, customers, to everyone who made my 2008 tour as wierd as it was...thank you so much. YOU make LoveSac what it is. YOU keep us weird, and we like it. YOU deserve a MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, HANUKKAH, KWANZA, or whatever it is you're into. So have one.
I, on the other hand, was not about to leave California without trying that surfboard. So I have have reached the end of the line. From Boston to So Cal, LoveSac is still spreadin' the Love coast to coast, and the vibe lives on into 2009. Signing off from Huntington Beach, California.....watch this....
src="http://lovesac.typepad.com/.a/6a00e5501c846a883301053687ee01970b-250wi"> Ride the Love. Happy Holidays.
My 2008 LoveSac Front Line store tour has brought me to Las Vegas, Nevada. Tiffany and Lucky (my wife and new baby) were able to come on this leg, thank goodness. I love it when they can come with. It make it all better. I have to say, sin city has some of the biggest LoveSac fans I've seen in the country. Check out all this great footage...
So finally, it is time to move on to the last leg of the tour! California, here I come. I can't wait to get out to the Tyler store and Northridge store. Best part: I am meeting Bud, the one-legged surfer, to get a hold of my LoveSac custom surf board. Cannot wait. Me and EZ hit the road...
My cross-country store tour brought me back to Salt Lake City, Utah for Thanksgiving! I can't complain. Home for the Holidays is always a good thing, especially with an extended family as huge as mine (and my wife's). We kicked it off on Thanksgiving NIGHT with a LoveSac Bus appearance at the Fashion Place Mall midnight opening for Black Friday. Thousands of people lined up outside of the mall entrance as we circled the parking lot in the bus throwing our balls at people, trading LoveSac schwag for stupid human tricks, and an ongoing Guitar Hero battle on the LoveSac Bus. It's as close to Girls Gone Wild as we get on the LoveSac Bus. Check out the chaos in this video...
I began the real work with a visit to Layton Hills LoveSac. It looked great! Best staff I've ever seen there. Thankfully, the Layton Hills Crew has been running a pretty tight ship. Good merchandising, and a growing business. I had a couple of fans of the Sac waiting there for me on arrival. Check out the green tea girls of Layton...
In each store we make a video which will be used inside of the in-store video. Layton did the wannabe Sac immitator race. Not bad. It was the best human Sac costume I've ever seen.
I then tore up Fashion Place Mall for a couple of days, completely re-arranging their floor and lighting...a change needed for years now. The staff there is a VERY cool group of young Sac'rs who later showed up for a late night ride on the bus to the infamous "PIE" pizza place near the U of U. Crazy times.
We had some REAL fun at the Gateway. One of those never-ending all-nighters that got really ugly, but ended up pretty...a completely new concept store now. We had all kinds of adventures in remodelling (and trying to keep the store running with happy customers thru all of the chaos), as you can see below in the numerous strange videos. Good stuff. The Gateway Store turned out amazing, I must say, thanks to the hard work of everybody on their staff, as well as Davey, Charlie, and Spencer from HQ, and even Andres, who flew up from New Mexico LoveSac to help out. Check this mess out...
FIRST, A RUG MUNCHER!? AT LOVESAC!?
THEN, A CUSTOMER WHO TAKES HIS SACTIONALS A PIECE AT A TIME...
NEXT, A WINDOW TINTING EXPERT WHO DOES THE FIRST EVER TOTALLY BLIND WINDOW TINTING JOB...ONLY LOST THE TIP OF A FINGER...ONLY AT LOVESAC...
Here is the itinerary for a day in the life of the glamorous Shawny D. on Frontline!? LONGEST DAY IN DECEMBER (so far):
11am THURSDAY: Arrive at the newly carpeted Gateway. Proceed to deal with brand new fixtures, arrived broken on delivery. Fix & set up.
2pm: Tear the entire store apart one half at a time, operating a functional Holdiay Season LoveSac store on the other side.
3pm: Discover yet more supplies (Velcro, staples, nail gun) needed to finish the store. Run to Lowes & Industrial Supply store.
5pm: Pick up LoveSac Bus having had minor work done to prep it for west coast front line visits.
6pm: Arrive back at the Gateway, BEGIN to re-set store layout after total upheaval.
7pm: Window tinter arrives and demonstrates his skills.
9pm: Electricians arrive to climb over the top of us, hanging lights where they can.
10pm: BEGIN to hang the artwork...a 12 hour process for 1 person (yours truly, plus one assistant)
1am: Midnight run for greasy Mexican food to keep us going.
2am: Large Artwork finally in place...goin' all night now...
7am: 75% of small artwork (300 frames!) hung on the walls. Beg Tiffany to wake up, bring me clothes, and deoderant so I can get to my next appointment...
8am FRIDAY: Give speech to room full of 100 entrepreneurs at the Larry H. Miller Shool for Free Enterprise in Sandy on zero sleep. At least 4 of them commit to buying Sactionals. LoveSac is back!
10am: Return to Gateway Mall, finish hanging ALL of the artwork and re-setting store layout for big weekend in sales.
1pm: Rush out to Bountiful, home of my in-laws to shower.
1:20pm: Rush back to Holladay to pick up my nephew Matthew and 8 of his friends for his 10th birthday party (something I hate to miss).
1:45 pm: A bus full of screaming kids playing Guitar Hero, on our way to the Ice-Skating Rink where they expect me to entertain them.
2:30pm: Pull 8 10-year-olds around the Ice-Skating Rink in Murray Utah in the famous "Uncle Shawn Train."
4:00pm: Eat Cupcakes.
5:00pm: Back on the bus for an hour of Guitar Hero in the Best Buy Parking Lot next door.
6:00pm: Back to the Gateway Mall for their Merch Walk-Thru with the Managers.
7:00pm: Sales Training with the entire Gateway Staff, where I work the store floor for 3 hours until closing. They watch, take notes, and we debrief after every group of customers leave. I put the hard-sale on two couples from Idaho, in town, shopping for Christmas. Sold two SuperSac packages right there. Charlie drove to Fashion Place Mall to pick up their SquattoMans!
10:00pm: Mall closes. Back to the LoveSac Bus for Brand Training ON the bus, where the entire staff stares at me while I try to remain coherent for a 90 minute training session. Ahhhhhh! In my sleep deprivation, I forgot to take the Gateway Staff Pic. Bummer.
11:30pm: Part of Gateway Staff hangs out on Bus for some Guitar Hero Action. The FASHION PLACE staff show up with their fiends/boyfriends/girlfriends, having not had the chance to be on the bus because it was in the shop. I take them all to the Pie Pizzeria for some late night pizza action, running the bus' sirens and PA all the way up town.
2am SATURDAY: Leave the Pie. Head back to Bountiful for my first sleep in about 42 hours.
So I JUST got to Vegas on the home stretch of my annual "Front Line" store tour, where I travel coast to coast working with every Sac'r on the front lines, training, and working it myself. (I'll post about my SLC visit next) Got bless Hotwire.com, which allows me to stay in the best hotels for (most of the time) amazing prices. Booking the hotel is one thing, but parking the LoveSac Bus is another. As a general rule, the nicer the estabishment (mall, hotel, etc.), the harder it is to park...even in Vegas. Good thing for me, as it turns out, the head of security for the brand new 5 star Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, Robert, is a fan of the Sac. It's amazing how a giant Sac of foam loosens people up. He helped me get the bus parked, and then proceeded to open up to me about how much he loves LoveSac. It was only then that I introduced myself as the inventor, and grabbed this little video. Gotta love it....
...but there's more...
Is it just me, or does Robert remind you of Stan (of the infamous "Jim & Stan). [If you're a Sac'r, you'll know what I'm talking about. Comment and let me know if I'm off base here...]
On my travels to the Front Lines of LoveSac each winter I get the pleasure of meeting many loyal LoveSac customers who know and love our product. It really is a pretty cool feeling to meet people who have chosen to spend their hard-earned money on products I've invented who not only have the product, but who really "get" the product. That is to say, there is truly so much more to LoveSac than just what meets the eye. Just today, in fact at Fashion Place Mall, I was crawling around on the ground re-wiring their cash & wrap when I overheard a customer who was working on picking out a new Cover for her Sac.
It turns out that she has had her Sac for years and years. It was originally purchased to help her handicapped child get comfortable. We find that there are numerous maladies which the Sac can literally be theraputic for. Now, the woman finds herself sleeping in the SuperSac every single night for at least half of the night because her hips bother her so much...but in the warm durafoam cradle that the Sac provides, there is no pain. As she said, "it is more than just furniture," to her.
That said, there were two women who came in to LoveSac at Flatiron Crossing (Colorado) while I was there last week. Check out what they had to say about their LoveSac furniture....
The road from Teas to anywhere is a long road. Kai jumped on board and we made the long trek to LoveSac at Cottonwood Mall in Albuquerque New Mexico where Alex joined up with us for our Front Line visits to Andy & Crew. I must say, this is the best I've ever seen our New Mexico store look, and I'm pretty sure it is the best New Mexico staff we've ever had. I think these guys are actually in the running to win the white glove merchandising contest we're running amongst the stores right now.
For those of you who haven't followed, I am currently on my "Front Line" tour of all of the LoveSac stores, where I work in each store, personally, do some merchandising, some training, and get to know everyone on the staff. It is one of the hightlights of my year. One of the things we do at each stop is to make some silly video, which we then splice into the in-store video that plays in every store nationwide. If you were not able to decipher what was happening in the above photo on the left, you will just have to get to a LoveSac store in 2009 to see the full video. Basically, though, the staff all became Sactionals Sides and had a game of dodge ball. Not so funny until you see them try to pick up their balls off the floor wearing these costumes. Good entertainment.
Shortly after making the in-store video, we adjourned to the LoveSac bus for a little brand-training session and some mayhem. We drove the bus to the nearest Sonic and ordered food at midnight. The Sonic workers were obviously a bit surprised to see the party they walked into on the bus, as evidenced by the videos below. Let's just say that the New Mexico crew knows how to get their freak on.
The crew at Cottonwood is truly cool. It is so good to have Jules back...yet another old-school Sac'r who has found her way back to the Sac this year. That seems to be an ongoing theme this year.
Luckily, Alex was not afraid of the bus, so he drove most of the way up to Colorado. I actually got some "normal" work done. It seems like every one of these drives is just a bit longer than you think it is going to be. Of course, it does take like 30 minutes just to fill up the bus with gas. Never an easy feat.
Upon arrival at Flatiron Crossing LoveSac (Denver), we had to hit sales training immediately. We worked into the night. The legendary Wayne Vaughn, LoveSac's #1 Fan was there as well (shown with me, left). This year he brought his girlfriend, and he stayed for the entire staff training. Man, even the Flatiron staff is cool. We have Brook and Rich who have both been with LoveSac for more than 4 years now, and we just had Kelly come back after taking a year off. Once again, people just can't seem to stay away. This is a great thing.
After a late night of training on the bus, I returned the next day, the day before Thanksgiving, to completely re-work the store layout, re-hang some of the art, replace every single lightbulb, and generally get the place looking "right." It went well, but unfortunately I was not able to wrap it up until 2am on Thanksgiving Day! I had a couple of our best, most loyal Sac'rs hang with me to the bitter end. Thanks fellas. This only meant that I was (once again) going to get little or no sleep, and drive straight through to try to make it back to Salt Lake City for a littlle in-law Thanksgiving dinner....literally, just made it in time for the opening prayer.
A Happy Holidays to all of you, from the Front Lines of LoveSac. Thanks for reading.
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