Looking For New Distributors

Seattle - February 24, 2008

It is Sunday and Rocky George and I flew into Portalnd yesterday and have driven up to Seattle today. We will spend 3 days here talking to retailers about ToastyLiner. But that won't start until Monday.

So we are taking the opportunity to see a few of the sights around town. Queen Ann Hill overlooks the city of Settle and the Puegot Sound. So we took some time to get a feel for this area. It was quite picturesque.

One of the challenges of a new product like ToastyLiner is finding stores that will sell the product. So I've teamed up with Rocky George, a marketing guru and excellent salesman, to present our product to potential retail outlets.

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We have spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning visiting with retail stores like this one.

These are individual retailers that have been in business for a number of years and serve a fairly specific market of people in their neighborhood.

They face various struggles trying to survive in light of the competitive pressures by the larger chains and the "big box" stores.

They are a friendly lot and willing to share the details of their business and customers and how we might or might not fit into their store.
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We have also visited with some of the large discount stores. This is a different type of conversation because we are speaking with folks with years of experience in the large scale retail business.

These folks have also been very helpful and willing to discuss the pros and cons of our product and how it relates to their particular business. Their professional evaluation of the ToastyLiner and how to market it has been very instructive. Rocky and I both feel that we are gettng a million dollar education.
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So, here we are in Portland. We met with a great camping department manager today and have scheduled severl more meetings for Thursday and Friday.

Our main discovery has been that it is relatively mild weather in the Pacific coastal area. They may get two or three days of snow. But it is mainly cloudy and rainy during the winter months.

That means that they don't do much cold weather camping and don't see as strong a need for our product as do the folks in Colorado and Utah.

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February 27 - Portland

We've settled down in Portland for three days to visit with some retailers here.

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Drawing Winner

The winner of the Texas Fishing Hunting Outdoor Show drawing is ...

Kevin H. (Kevin, I'll contact you by email for your shipping address. Dave)


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Rattle Snake Adventure

Just out of the service in 1964.

I was driving from Portland and figured I'd bed down for the night beside the road. My Army mummy bag was made for this crisp fall evening. The big Montana sky glittered in the cold dry air and I had not problem dropping off to sleep.

I was dreaming of home when the light began to creep over the horizon.

Not quite ready to wake up, I shut my eyes a little harder to catch a few more mintues of rest.

Then I heard it. The click of a 30-30 being cocked.

My eyes opened to a barrel not two feet from my face and a low voice..."Don't move...Don't even blink"

The rancher standing over me meant business. I didn't flinch. What was he up to? What did he think he was doing pointing a gun right at my heart?

I could feel my heart pounding the blood through my temples as he reached down and unzipped my sleeping bag.

The gun barrel moved toward the openning as he slowly drew the bag away from me.

He sighed and lifted his rifle once the bag was open.

"Pard'ner" he said to me, "Ya got to be careful of rattlers this time of year. Sleeping on the ground like that, they like to get in bed with you. They're looking for warmth when it turns cold, but they ain't too friendly when you wake up."

I've never forgotten that advice.

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Michael M's Dad recounted this story to a few days ago and I thought I'd pass on the advice.

New Outdoor Sleeping Ideas

This weekend, I am at Texas Fishing, Hunting and Outdoor Show in Arlington.

I thought it would be interesting to poll the hundreds of folks that come by my booth about innovative outdoor sleeping ideas. So I am offering an free IPOD drawing to everyone entering a suggestion.

So, when I'm finished with the show, I will come back to this blog and post the results. Hopefully we will all learn some new ways to sleep in the out of doors comfortably.

My First Cold Weather Camping Trip - II

Finding a Site

It was dark when our troop arrived at Camp Wisdom – a Boy Scout Camping area south of Dallas.

My tent-mate and I piled out of the car and grabbed out stuff. We had spent weeks pulling together our equipment for our first camp out and we were anxious to get set up.

The darkness was not concern to us. We had flashlights.

This would be our first night ever to sleep out of doors. We had read the Boy Scout Handbook, so we took great care to find a good spot.

We walked about three minute in the dark and took another three minutes to figure out if the place was level and started setting up camp.

Starting a Fire

The temperature had already started to drop, so we pulled together some fire wood and got some good flames going. That was the first thing that went well.

Our fire was small.

That was one thing we had learned from watching the Lone Ranger. Tonto always built a small fire so it wouldn’t attract attention.

Unexperienced white men would build big fires thinking it would keep them warmer. What they didn’t realize was that it would tell the bad guys were they were. And besides, you have to gather more wood to keep a big fire going.

Pitching the Tent

Next came our Army-surplus two-man (boy) pup tent. We popped it up in no time. We had practiced with that tent several times.

That was the second thing that went well.

We had laid out the fire so that it was directly in front of the tent at a safe distance. We thought it would help us stay warm because now we could feel the chill setting it. What we failed to do was to set up reflector logs behind the fire so that the heat would radiate towards us.

As the night grew deeper and the air grew colder, the fire didn’t help much. Unless we got out of our tent and sat by the fire, we couldn’t feel the heat.

The First Great Lesson of Sleeping Outside - Use a Proper Bag

It was time to bed down, so we crawled into our bags, clothes, jackets and all. By this time it was in the lower 40’s and we were looking forward to a warm night’s sleep.

That’s when the First Great Lesson of camping came.

Be Prepared with the right sleeping solution.

We were sleeping directly on the ground. So we were loosing lots of body heat below us.

We were sleeping in bags rated for the summer i.e. 50 degrees. But the outside temperature was high 30’s.

Our pup tent did not close, so our heads were exposed to the night air.

Fortunately, we were wearing hats.

The Second Great Lesson - Don't Camp in the Road

The next surprise came at 2:00 AM. A park ranger was making his security rounds.

As he came through our camping area, he found that two scouts had pitched their tent and made their fire in the middle of the road.

Now what were they thinking?

Mike and I woke from a fitful sleep to bright headlights shining at us.

We weren’t sleeping too well anyway, so we got up and moved our tent off the thru-way so the ranger could continue his rounds.

Conviction Building Experience

We were so glad to see daylight come. As you campers know – one night like that builds great conviction to search for better solutions.

And our next trips got better.

My First Cold Weather Camping Trip - I

The Situation


It was 1952. I was a newly minted Boy Scout at 11 years old and I was in for my first cold weather camping experience.

Fall in Texas can bring unpredictable changes in weather, but my best friend, Mike Starnes and I were committed to "Be Prepared".

We had been playing Army for several years, but had never been allowed to actually sleep under the stars. So we were excited.

Having never slept in the outdoors before, we didn’t know what to expect, so we did the best we could.


My First Sleeping Bag


My first cold weather sleeping solution was an old sleeping bag that had been my brother’s many years before. My Cocker Spaniel – Cinnamon Golden Cloud – had inherited it after my brother graduated to a better bag. The dog dragged it into the garage where she had staked out her sleeping area and basked in its warmth.

I was delighted when I discovered it. I had scoured the house for a sleeping solution to no avail. For me, the bag was a hidden treasure. I sneaked down to the garage where Cinnamon hung out and snatched her bedding while she was out stalking sparrows.


My Pet Bird Dog


The dog was actually a good hunter and would catch birds on the ground before they could take off. She would crouch like a lion and sneak up on the birds while they were feeding. She would move in slow motion through bushes to hide her presence and then pounce at the last moment to capture her prey. She was a smart dog.

At one point, my father even decided to teach Cinnamon some circus tricks. He thought it would be funny to have my pet parakeet, Ricky Hicky, ride on top of Cinnamon’s head.

Like many inspirations, it seemed like a good idea at the time to have the dog parading around the living room with a bird on its head.

Neither the parakeet nor the dog thought this was such a great idea, but succumbed to the alpha male’s insistence.

Of course, Ricky Hicky’s feet would tickle Cinnamon’s head. So Cinnamon would wiggle and act nervous.

The training session ended abruptly when Cinnamon got the bright idea to eat Ricky Hicky. There were feathers flying and squawks of objection to that idea.

I realized that Dad’s plan was fatally flawed when I say green feathers sticking out of Cinnamon’s jaws.

By the time my Dad pried the dog’s chops open and extracted a wet and traumatized parakeet, we all agreed that the circus would have to wait for a more talented crew.


To Be Continued...


Well, I’ll have to continue the story of the “First Camping Trip” next time when two eleven-year-olds face dropping temperatures in a Texas Fall evening.

History of a triple bottom line business

This all started about a year and a half ago. I had turned 60 and was asking myself those "60" type questions. They go something like this...

If I live to 80, that's another 20 years. I've already lived 20 years three times and I know how fast it goes.

So how do I want to invest my last 20 years?

This leads to an interesting perspective. If I don't do things because I'm afraid of the risk, then I lose the opportunity. So, I might as well do stuff that I feel is risky because in one sense I don't have much to lose. In 30 years it won't matter.

For me life is all about a mission - a purpose that will make a difference in someone's life. After a trip to Asia I was challenged to think about how to use business to help some of my new friends there imporve their families and future.

So, I set out to see what I could come up with that would be sustainable economically and create jobs for my friends.

This led me into the camping industry and sleeping bag liners.

But for me, this is only the entry point. I would love to create a lot more jobs with several new products. But how? That's my current challenge.