Operation Experimentation Update

Here is update numero uno on Operation Experimentation:

Got the rubber conditioner in the mail the other day. This is what it looks like:

It came with a "Material Safety Data Sheet" which is a little intimidating at first but upon closer inspection, basically you just shouldn't eat, drink or spray this stuff in your eyes or on your skin. Ummm....DUH!

I took a pair of Black Tattoo City boots and, following the directions on the bottle, cleaned the boots off with a damp cloth. I then sprayed the left boot with the rubber conditioner and let it sit for a few minutes and wiped off the excess. Boy! That boot sure was shiny!! If nothing else, it really spiffs up your boots.

Can you see how the left boot is extra shiny?? It shows up even better in person.

Then I put both boots outside on my front porch where they are exposed to the elements. This is their new home:

They get mostly morning sun at this point but as spring wanes to summer, it will get hotter and sunnier out there. This is the location of my aforementioned boots which turned to dust after a summer sitting out under the bench you see in this photo.

After a few days sitting out there, nothing much has changed of course. I'll keep checking them every few days and will take pictures if I see any changes.

Until the next Operation Experimentation update....bloggin off.

Crime Scene Clean Up

I was walking into my kitchen and saw this weird 'thing' on the rug. I thought it was something the dog harfed up (since she eats paper and who knows what else) but upon closer inspection it was....

half a rat. Or maybe a mouse. Or gopher. Only the back half was left.

BLEEEEEECH!

Although I live with three men (my husband and my two young boys) somehow no one was home during this morbid discovery.

Thus leaving me with the crime scene clean up.

The remains are in the trash barrel outside.

The rug is in the wash.

The murderer looks quite pleased with himself:

Whodunnit? Cougar (my cat--aptly named apparently) in the kitchen with fangs. (Anyone play 'Clue')?

Mud Mutt

A few months ago, we got a new puppy. We lost our previous dog, Maisy, about 2 years before and my kids both really missed having a dog. So after much discussion, debate and subtle begging on my part, I finally talked my husband into getting another dog. And not a humonga-normous dog which is what he wanted but a nice medium size dog.

This is her:

(She looks pissed... No time to primp before photoshoot.)

Her name is Holly Berry and she is a Cocka-Poo, part Cocker Spaniel, part Poodle. But she is more Cocka than Poo as you can probably tell. She is 5 months old which equals 3 in people years. Her Terrible Threes are in full effect.

Her favorite things to do are:

Eat paper...???
Steal/chew on socks, preferably dirty ones
Steal/chew on toys
Follow me ev-er-y-where. Even to the bathroom. I guess it is a girl thing that spans species.
Bark…at nothing
Dig in the yard
Run in the house with filthy, muddy paws after digging up my yard

To top it off, she is a drama queen extraordinaire. If you try to wipe the mud off her feet, she whines and cries and squeals like a Socialite whose daddy has taken away her Black AMEX card.

I am not one to dress up my animals (got over that when I was about 10—sorry all of you poor little kitty cats) but I am seriously considering getting her puppy rain boots.

Red is her color, dontcha think?

Now, if I could only find a way to get the muddy rain boots off before she comes in the pet door…. Hhmmmm. Gotta think more about that one.

Oh wait. Since she is a Drama Queen, I think she also needs a tiara.

Perfect!! I think I will change the name on her papers to be:

Drama-Tiara Holly Sock Eating Filthy Boots Berry

Unless someone has a better name???

Blogging off for now.

An Open Letter to Bill Gates

Dear Bill,

I had a very important, time-critical online purchase to make a few weeks ago. It HAD to happen at exactly 10am PDT so I could get ‘whites of the eyes’ seats for a concert I HAVE to go to this summer. Yes, HAVE to go. (Have I mentioned yet the wee crush I have on John Mayer?)

I was online and ready to roll hours before. I logged into the website that was selling the tickets….
refreshing
refreshing
refreshing
my screen until the BUY TICKETS sign finally popped up.

I clicked on BUY TICKETS and soon had some very nice seats. And just as I was about to BUY those seats I got this message:

“Microsoft Explorer has encountered an error and must close. Would you like to send an Error Report?”

NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

($#@%&&%$# &*%&^!@#$)&^%$##%) I’ll send you a fricken error report!

By the time I was able to open a new browser window, my good seats were
G-O-N-E.

Now I am in the mountain goat section. For the same price, thank you very much.

(My seatmate at the concert.)

So, can you please build something into Explorer that can make it hold off tossing its cookies until AFTER I finish my purchase?

And can you please get me some backstage passes?? I figure it is the least you can do. Oh and how about a couple sessions of therapy for my kids to help them recover from the unbridled hissy fit they saw their mom pitch?

For all of you who have ever encountered a technical glitch when shopping on DLL’s website, especially RIGHT at a critical point, I feel for you. I REALLY do. And I will be more than happy to commiserate with you. And forward your complaints to our techy guy.

Blogging off for now.

Handsome Little Yellow Devil

This is Jake. He is one of our Customer Service rep's son. How flippin cute is he anyway?? This photo goes to show that rain gear isn't just for rainy days anymore. Also I'm sure when he got home from his walkabout at the beach he responsibly washed the mud and salt water off of his boots and put them in a cool place to dry. ;-)

A Few Nice Words

Our fab-u-lous PR person, Sabrina, sent these links to me yesterday of some DLL boots that were recently reviewed by InStyle and Celebrity Baby Blog.

Just thought I would share.

Thanks, Sabrina!!

The Care & Keeping of Rain Boots

Here are some handy yet sassy tips on how to take care of your new, fashionable footwear to help ensure they provide good puddle stomping for seasons to come.

As with all things, rain boots have friends and enemies, allies and adversaries. And they are....(drum roll please)....

Enemies to the rain boot:
1. Sunlight
2. Heat
3. Salt(water)
4. Mud

Rubber and sun, heat, salt and mud just don’t mix. Can you say oil and water? Pickles and ice cream (unless you are pregnant apparently)? Democrats and Republicans? Hillary and Obama? Okay then, you get the picture.

If you want your boots to dry out, crack and crumble then by all means leave them sitting in the hot sun after wading in salt water and mucking through a muddy swamp. Then be sure to store them right next to your heater, fireplace or in your 150 degree attic. That is sure to make them dry, brittle and pretty much useless. Imagine how sad you will be come next winter when you put on those boots and they crumble right off your feet. That actually happened to me this past winter so I know from experience. Good thing I have an all-access pass to rain boots galore. (But my new boots will not succumb to their enemies this year!!)



Which leads us to:


Friends of the rain boot:
1. Cool, dry and dark places (when not being used of course)
2. A nice little 'shower' if boots are muddy or have been in salt water

A little rubber boot TLC is all that is needed to keep your Puddle Stompers in fine form. Rinse your boots off with warm water and a little mild soap if you have been in saltwater, mucking out horse stalls or visiting Shrek in his muddy swamp. Then hang upside down to dry in a cool location.


While poking about online, I also found a rubber conditioner by LaCrosse that claims to restore moisture to the rubber, keep the color from fading and minimize the damage to the rubber caused by UV rays.

I am looking into whether this can be used on the boots we carry that have the patterns layered on the surface of the boots as I want to make sure the pattern won’t peel off if this conditioner is applied to the boots. To this end, I am running a little experiment, heretofore referred to as Operation Experimentation, with the rubber conditioner and a pair of our most popular boots, Chooka's Black Tattoo City rain boots, shown above. I will keep you appraised of the process and progress of said boots. Hopefully we will be able to add yet another friend to the list above once this experiment is complete.

So, 'nuf said for now.

Check in for installment # 1 of Operation Experimentation later this week.

Bloggin off for now.

A Day in the Life at the DLL Warehouse

The below is an IM conversation between myself and a couple of other people that work at DLL Rainwear.

We use IM to communicate most of the time. Easier than picking up the phone but more immediate than email. Plus we get to create cute Avatars and change their clothes. Kinda like a Barbie for adults. Okay so maybe that is a big plus only for me.... Here is a really bad picture of my Avatar. But you get the idea.

Here is a rundown of the cast of characters in the convo.

ME: Duh…..

JOHN: Our Warehouse Manager, otherwise known as Shipping Dude

JESSICA: Customer Service God-Dess

DIANE: DLL’s owner

SABRINA: Our kick-ass PR person.

Some DLL Definitions:

SAMPLE REQUESTS: Lists of items our PR person sends us that magazine will possibly use in upcoming articles and/or photoshoots. They almost always arrive at the worst possible time and must go out ASAFP.

FEDEX: John’s arch nemesis. We use UPS and any FEDEX shipments entail lugging heavy boxes filled with boots to FEDEX to fill out (by hand) tedious paperwork. Note: their deadline for overnight shipments is 4:30pm.

So here’s what went down:

ME TO JOHN (at 1:30pm): Hey John. Just got a HOT sample request. IM me ASAP when you get back from lunch.

About 35 minutes later, so like 2pm:

JOHN TO ME: I’m back. What’s up?

ME: Sabrina just emailed me an urgent sample request. There are about 40+ items that need to go out today for A.M. delivery. FEDEX of course. :-(

JOHN: You have GOT to be kidding me?!

(This would give him about 2 hours to pull 40 things, package them up, weigh them, and haul them over to the FEDEX place. So not a lot of time really.)

ME TO JOHN: Sadly no. I am organizing the list right now and will email over everything.

DIANE TO ME: John just asked me to come in and help him with the samples. I told him I can’t. He is flipping out!!

JESSICA: Kristen! I just went downstairs and John is frantically bagging the orders.
He is fah-reekin!!

ME TO JOHN (about 15 minutes later): I just emailed you the list.

Nothing from John…..nothing from John….nothing from John.

ME TO JOHN: Did you get my email??

ME TO JOHN: Hello….?

Here is the email I sent:

TO: John, DLL Shipping
FR: Kristen, DLL Customer Service
SUBJECT: HOT SAMPLE THAT MUST SHIP TODAY

John,

Here is the sample request list. It HAS to go out today overnight. I have a FEDEX account number to use. See below for details. If you have any questions, let me know.

BTW…


APRIL FOOL’S!!!!!



This is the email John sent back to me:


TO: Kristen, DLL Customer Service
FR: John, DLL Shipping
RE: SUBJECT: HOT SAMPLE THAT MUST SHIP TODAY

Happy birthday you old bag! (April 1st is my birthday)

Needless to say…I won’t be paying a visit to the warehouse anytime soon….


Blogging off for now…

The Old Bag

DLL Rainwear’s Rain, Rain, Blog Away…….The drips and drops of the online rainwear world.

Apparently we at DLL Rainwear have been a bit behind the times in our online hipness factor. We have hundreds of rain boots, coats and umbrellas on our really cool online store but we don’t have a BLOG! Where the heck have we been?!? So consider this us pulling our heads out of the, um…rain puddle and moving into Blogsville.

Bear with me as I get into the blogging groove. I have been warned to rein in (no pun intended) my sassiness over which I appear to have little control but will do my best. It may sneak out once in awhile so I am just warning you ahead of time.

So to formally introduce myself:

Name: Kristen

How long with DLL: 2 years

Position: Customer Service, PR, little o’ this, little o’ that and now blogologist

Sign: Aries

Birthdate: April 1st (stay tuned for details on April Fool’s joke I played recently)

Shoe Size: 9

Rain Boots in my Closet: DLL Feminista (see above)and Sperry Sadies in Black. If I had a bigger closet, I’d have about 15 pairs.

Why those boots? I helped design the Fem boots so obviously I think they rock. They have lipstick, lattes and cute undies on them. And they are pink. What’s not to love? The Sadies are really comfy and have a dressier look to them. Plus they make me ominously taller than my kids. ;-)

Last time I wore my boots: The first week of April. We were in NYC for a work event and I hoofed it around midtown all day in my Fem boots. Got a lot of looks….maybe because it was not actually raining?

Okay, enough about me.

I want this blog to be fun and informative for all of us. I am planning some contests, a poll or two, the latest fashion tips, random musings that strike me throughout the day… I’d also love to post pictures of you, your kids, your neighbor, even your sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s mother’s gardener in their rain boots. So send in your ideas, your photos, your comments. Let’s get this party started!!

Bloggin off for now.