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After a weekend hangin’ on the water, dinghy cruising around the Bay, cold ones at a tiki bar and the beach with absolutely “nowhere to go and nowhere to be”, it’s time to get back in the saddle. Although I gotta admit, doing nothing is tiring! I feel like I should do nothing in order to recover from doing nothing. What a vicious circle that could be.

The new store should be launching this week. And to put some added pressure on ourselves (and to have some fun with all this stress), I thought a little website promo was in order. So….here’s the deal:

For each day that passes (starting today) and the new store is not finished, 5% off will be added to ALL Snoloha gear. Confused? Don’t be. If we launched tomorrow (Tuesday) everything would be 5% off. If it launches on Wednesday, 10% off. Thursday, 15% off. Friday, 20% off. You get the idea.

Oh, and I reserve the right to make up the rules as I go. I mean what if something crazy happened and we couldn’t launch for 20 days…that would be 100% off. That would be silly. So I guess there should be some sort of legal mumbo jumbo that says something about ‘under normal circumstances’ blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. You know what I’m mean.

Once the new store goes live the sale will run for 2 days. So stand by…

(Why do I get the feeling all the great support I’ve had is suddenly going to root against a speedy launch this week?)

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You know that roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship that I always talk about? It’s filled with ups…and downs. When your up, man is it fun. When you’re down…let’s just say it gets a bit stressful.

Those that have been following know that we ran into some serious technical issues just over a week ago. The shopping cart pretty much blew up on us and started smoking with alarms going off and people running around in a state of shock, panic and confusion. Okay, so it basically became extremely slow, experienced some server and scaling issues and I yelled out some curse words at which point the dogs looked at me a bit funny. So, we took it down and have been working on launching a brand new store.

Well….as with most things, it’s taken more time than we had planned. This should come as no surprise, but as an impatient entrepreneur, it still does. I mean, to build a new shopping cart is an extremely large project. It originally took months to do and we wanted to do the same amount of work in a week or so. That hasn’t happened. But, we are making progress and this thing will be launching soon. It has to…or else I’m going to pull out all my hair, jump in the dinghy and go as far as I can on a single tank of gas and throw my iPhone and laptop in the Bay. Okay. so I won’t pull out my hair.

Thanks for the continued support and the great emails. Also, please feel free to send me more photos or post them on the Snoloha Facebook page. It helps my stress level go down.

After reading this back…it sounds like I need a bit of my own Snoloha escapism medicine! Luckily….it’s my anniversary weekend, so the wife and I are going to do some dinghy cruising around the bay, hit some beachside tiki bars, soak up the sun, enjoy having “nowhere to go and nowhere to be” and end the weekend sailing on the Nauti-Cat (where we were married one year ago).

I need it.

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It’s been one week since the shopping cart blew up on us and we decided to take it down. So…we’ve spent the last seven days working on launching a new store. This same project originally took months to build and launch…so it’s been a long week (huge learning curve with a new store admin). However, we are very close to launching! Product is loaded, inventory is updated, new photos have been taken and descriptions written. All that’s left is moving to the secure server for testing and all the graphical elements.

I have quite a few emails to draw from for the free shirts. And I’ve also been very happy to see all the great photos coming in…they help the stress level go down a bit, so keep ‘em coming!

Here we have Tommie from Homemade Wine sporting Snoloha gear at a recent show, and below is Seattle Dave doing some winter grillin’ with a Corona within arms reach. Thanks fellas!

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It was a relaxing, busy weekend. What?

Saturday was the 12th annual Hound Regatta at the Grand Traverse Yacht Club. Snoloha was a participating sponsor…which meant taking the dinghy to the club, enjoying a pig roast & some cold ones, and listening to some Trop Rock music from the Eric Stone band. We also escaped for a sunset sail with Capt Dave & Kristen from Bay Breeze Yacht Charters that evening.

Sunday we had a difficult decision to make…beach or boat? We opted for the boat and spent the afternoon anchored and enjoying summer. However, just as the Hound Dog event was work related…a day on the boat was as well. I took the opportunity to grab new photos of Snoloha gear for the new store that is almost complete. As I was on the bow snapping pics, I noticed a kayaker wearing a shirt from a distance that looked very familiar. As he got closer I realized he was wearing the Snoloha Flatbed design. Pretty cool. And of course when Kristen struck this pose with her Snoloha coozie someone quickly yelled “you gotta get a picture of this for the website”. Who am I to argue.

The store will have new photos loaded today and then we will be ready to test…which means launching this thing asap! I can’t wait. I’m tired of staring at this screen…though this past busy, relaxing weekend was a nice break.

That’s what I like about this brand…the lifestyle allows me to work at the same time. A friend of mine put it best, “a working lifestyle”. I like that. And to quote the Life is good brand, “Do what you like. Like what you do.”

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Thanks for the great response the past few days while we try to get the new store launched. And remember, shoot me an email, rod@snoloha.com, as I’m going to randomly pull names and send FREE shirts once we get this new storefont launched.

Things are coming along and I hope to have a better idea of a launch day soon.

In the meantime, if you’d like to help lower my stress level…you can do so my sending in more photos and emails, they really make my day to see folks enjoying their Snoloha gear and / or the lifestyle. Remember, you can join the Community and quickly create a profile to upload photos as well.

Here’s some of the great photos that have come in:

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It’s been a heckuva week. The roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship continues.

We have been experiencing some technical issues with the website. It has been VERY slow as of late due to the server not being able to keep up with demand. I could try and explain it, as my web guy would say, in “nerd speak”…but frankly I don’t completely understand it either.

We have determined that the major element of the site that seemed to be making things unhappy was the shopping cart. So…we took it down! Now that’s not something that I necessarily wanted to have to do…but something had to be done. “People who think too much before they act don’t act too much”…that’s a great Jimmy Buffett quote. So rather than thinking and strategizing and thinking and strategizing…we made a swift decision and are rolling with it.

Now we are revamping, retooling, and relaunching a new storefront soon! This is great news. It’ll be easier to shop, to navigate and to checkout. Not necessarily how we would of preferred things to happen, but a new shopping cart was in order.

Then, we will be launching a new and improved homepage…probably next week sometime. And lastly the blog will go through an upgrade as well.

While the new shopping cart is getting ready to launch, you can shoot me an email, rod@snoloha.com, as I’m going to randomly pull names to send out some FREE shirts once we relaunch…send me your name and size.

Now would be a good time to send in photos of your Snoloha lifestyle or your Snoloha gear as well…it’ll make me feel good. I need it. This has been a bit stressful.

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When you think about Snoloha, what do you think about?

If you need a refresher…here’s the Snoloha story and here’s the Snoloha skinny.

I’m working on a series of new shirts with one simple word or phrase that encompasses the Snoloha brand and lifestyle.

If you’d like to join the brainstorm session, please feel free to shoot me an email (rod [at] snoloha [dot] com), comment on Facebook or reply on Twitter with your thoughts, ideas, suggestions. Here’s all the contact info should you prefer to send a letter or page me (there’s really no pager number, but might as well be with the number of ways you can contact me).

So, in one word or one phrase, when you think about Snoloha, what do you think about?

T’anks mon.

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For those of you out there who have read the story behind the Snoloha brand you already know this…those of you that don’t, well a long story short…St. Thomas (US Virgin Islands) was part of the inspiration behind the Snoloha concept.

Nicci & her husband The Big Kahuna, aka “Scott”, who live on St. Thomas most of the year and back in Boston for a few summer months, started the St. Thomas Blog to share their experience and knowledge of St. Thomas.

On recent outing to Megans Bay, they brought along their Snoloha gear and grabbed some great photos on the very same beach I spent a full day doing absolutely nothing. They also posted a very nice article on their blog about Snoloha and my story that you can read here.

If you are one of those that have visited St. Thomas and the Virgin Islands and can’t wait to go back….so much so that if you don’t take that sailing trip in spring of 2010 you might go crazy…oh, sorry about that. What I’m trying to say is that if you want to know what’s happening in the Virgin Islands and don’t mind reading about and seeing great pics of Nicci and Scott having way to much fun, then check out their blog, follow ‘em on Twitter, or become a Fan on Facebook.

Thanks again Nicci and The Big Kahuna!

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The new fitted hats are finally available.

Fitted hats are cool. They look good backwards.

These are comfortable and already have that broken in look & feel to them…without the sweat stains.

Sizing to fit your melon:

If you already wear fitted hats, you probably know your size. If not, to figure out your hat size, measure your melon with a tape measure about a half-inch above your eyebrows where your hat will rest. If you don’t have a tape measure, use a string and measure it against a ruler.

Small : 6 7/8 - 7 (Approximate circumference 21.5)
Medium : 7 1/8 - 7 1/4 (Approximate circumference 22.5)
Large : 7 3/8 - 7 1/2 (Approximate circumference 23)
XL : 7 5/8 - 7 3/4 (Approximate circumference 23.5)

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No. Not the kind you drink…this is the kind you listen to.

Homemade Wine has been a long time in the making. It’s the culmination of two brother’s passion for the beach, it’s music, and all that the “beachlife” incorporates. Now, it is a 6-piece Trop Rock band currently in the studio recording an album and touring this summer.

Tod Sheley, one of the founding brothers of Homemade Wine, who contacted me originally, was a founding member of the band St. Somewhere and played percussion on their CD, “Postcard”. During his time with St. Somewhere he was privileged to record and play live with Greg “Fingers” Taylor of Jimmy Buffett fame. There’s even a photo of Tod on the Homemade Wine website next to Mr. Buffett himself.

After checking out their site and listening to some sample tracks I quickly realized these guys and their vibe are a great Snoloha fit. I’m excited to work with the boys from Homemade Wine. They’ll be sportin’ Snoloha gear on stage and we will be promoting both our brands / bands in the weeks and months to come.

One of the first gigs they are playing as Snoloha Trop Rockers is at Lulu’s at Homeport Marina in Gulf Shores, Alabama. This place is owned by Lucy “LuLu” Buffett, Jimmy Buffett’s sister.

Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when the CD is available. And I’ll post pics as they become available.

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