February 12, 2009
Headed to the NY International Toy Fair

Packed way more stuff into the old PHD Van that we thought possible including a partially lame sales manager that just joined the team. Timothy Dowdall, who’s many years of basketball finally wore his knee down, crammed himself into the back corner of the van with his leg propped up on God only knows what. (Tim is known as Analog in our camp due to his numerous paper files. “I have a file on every rep!” “Tim, have you ever heard of Excel” Chris asks often)

Boxes of PHDs, coolers of food, and all the other fixins’ to make our booth pop at the show. Guitars? How are we gonna fit them in there? By strapping less delicate stuff to the top of the van of course. Off we go to MD to stop by the folks place. Along the way, there is much moaning and groaning from the backseat about my liberal use of the whole highway. It is settled upon; I will not be driving tomorrow. At a rest top Tim and I have a healthy spat over a misconstrued blackberry message he sent me. Funny how emails read the wrong way can ruffle feathers. Good to clear the air!

Got to MD and Mom’s smiling face and homemade pizza – best in the world but it sat like a ton of bricks in our bellies as we tried to sleep it off.

Feb 13, 2009
Away we go to NYC. I grew up outside of DC, but never in my 35 years have I been there. Silly huh? So I have a bit of anticipation to see this place.

We pass the time cutting Velcro to stick the PHDs on the felt lined display. We have to stop in Philly for more. You ever cut 500 squares of Velcro from a long spool? The scissors get quite gummy with that adhesive gunk. In the end we have some pretty sore thumb bones but our PHDs are ready.

Yeah, NY looks pretty impressive, but we’re just jazzed about the show. The Javits center is ridiculous! I feel like a small fry. There is Melissa and Doug toys with a space bigger than my house. I have those butterflies like before my first at bat against a fireball pitcher in a big game back in HS. It’s an exciting feeling but not all the way a good one.

Boxes and noise everywhere. Everyone is building their booths. We find ours and get to it. The work helps me forget my nerves and in a few hours our space is glowing with the simple beauty of our Mayan handicraft.

Our first night in the city was to be spent near the airport so we had to drive over some bridge to get there and I realized for all the beauty of the city, this is why I don’t care much to return anytime soon. I think we sat through about 8 cycles of lights to get through. Chris was driving, or mainly just sitting behind the wheel cussing. Somehow we missed a turn, and said the heck with it and decided to eat somewhere. So we ate and drank out the rush hour and headed back – much more smoothly this time, until the back hatch of the van popped open suddenly and out went half of Analog’s stuff. Chris slammed on the breaks and out into traffic we poured to recover his stuff. Thinking we had all of it we loaded it back in and heard “Eh, these yours?” God bless that kind New Yorker. How would Analog read his paper files without his glasses? Grabbing them, he hobbled back to the car and off we went.

A view of the city from the hotel rooftop made think that traffic might be worth it once in a while. Wow!

Some shenanigans in the stairwell – Hotels are great places for Practicing Hockey Defense – see the video here – one person defends the doorway at the bottom of the steps and the other one stands at the top and fires PHDs down trying to score. Toughest shot to block? The bounce shot off the ceiling. Yup, the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs just above the goalies head. Zing it off there and you’re almost guaranteed a goal as the deflection is almost impossible to save.

Feb 14, 2009
Showtime. I don’t think I sat down from 8 AM till sometime around 3. I think I had a granola bar. The same goes for the rest of our team. Well that’s not entirely true. We each sat to take orders. And orders we took! The first hour and a half was bit slow, but then did it start kickin. What nervousness I had was gone. We were chuckin D’s at whoever came by and spreading the good word about our Fair-Trade based toy.

After a very productive day, we headed over to the ASTRA event at FAO Schwartz. But we were late and couldn’t find a taxi so we jumped in a 1980’s Lincoln Limo with some hilarious driver. The fellow claims he never watched the Dukes of Hazard, but at every green light, he let rip a jolly “Yee Haw”. As we rolled out of our stylish ride, we admired the groovy Apple building in front of FAO. We checked in and having not eaten all day, I was not especially shy about hitting the food line a few times. Cajun grub and hurricanes. I was feeling good. Dancing, throwing PHDs around FAO, and mingling, we met a crazy cat that I’ll never forget named Animal. He’s a Myachi www.Myachi.com disciple and works at FAO all week awing kids and adults alike with his sick hand bag moves. His buddy, Core, added his own set of nutty tricks. Later I was inspired with some Myachi cross marketing ideas that I’ll pitch their way like Myachi Mitts and Myachi Bocce that should help both our causes. Either way, check their site out.

The ride home was your typical boisterous back of the taxi experience. How do those drivers put up with such idiots on a regular basis?

Sleep? So the room wasn’t quite what we bargained for. We had reserved 2 queen beds but they gave em all out before we could claim one, so the boys had to head down the way. I think they went off and snored in some other room in the end. One night of peaceful rest!

Feb 15, 2009
Oh the morning came way too soon. What else is new? It was our job to set up the booth, but Chris and Tim were already there! Racing down the street, I wished I could find my earpiece to my cell phone. I had no gloves and had to get the day’s instructions to our office manager out before the mayhem at the Javits. Damn it was cold! My hand about froze, luckily my thinning hair was aided by a PHD to keep the head warm – did I mention that PHDs Prevent Heat Diffusion from the extremities like heads?

We made it in time and the day turned out to be another great one for us. The rest of the show followed suit. After 4 days of broken sleep, slurping down gulps of room temperature coffee saturated with sugar whenever possible, granola bars, and lots of great fun, we finally neared the end. We had made distribution contacts in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Mexico, and more. We written enough orders to double our presence in America and met tons of fun people. PHDs will be flying all around the world before long.

We wearily broke down the booth, packed up in the rain, and had a relatively uneventful drive back to Maryland, and then to NC the next day. The next big show for us will be the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City this summer.

A friend of PHD Productions, Gisele Abrahao, is doing a very special thing in Africa. To help her cause, we gave her 40 PHDs to take to the orphans where she is volunteering. Judging by the photos, the kids are having a great time with their PHDs.

Please read more about Gisele’s adventures around the world http://www.giseleabrahao.blogspot.com/ and her inspiring volunteer work for the African Child Foundation in Uganda - www.acfuganda.org.

The first batch 4/16/08

Over a year and a half has passed since Chris picked up that dog chewed round mat that had sat on my end table for a year and tossed it to me. Why did he do that? Doesn’t really matter; he did.

Now our first shipment is in- 500 PHDs scattered on my home office floor; the enthusiasm is hard to control. A serviceman is at my house fixing something and he looks in on us. We sell him a ram’s horn design for his daughter. He is our first official phd customer.

After our first round of photos for the catalog, we’re off to Chris’s to celebrate. While packing up the PHDs to go, we heard loud breathing and pounding footsteps. I looked up to see the serviceman funning for his life with my duck in hot pursuit. You really can’t imagine what it’s like to see a grown man being chased by a duck. I almost asked him as he jumped into the safety of his truck if he’d mind recreating that so I could video it. But he was sweating hard, quite scared and had just bought a PHD. I decided to cut him some slack, but not without quite a few laughs.

A few hours later, we’re inspired with our newest round of games: Ceiling Fan Tetherball, The Sea Monster, Speed pass and 3 variations of speed shot. Of these, CF tetherball was the most captivating. With no shortage of PHDs, we were zinging them at the blades of the fan trying to gain the upper hand. (see games subpage for description). Chris gained the momentum of the ceiling fan and maintained it for a while with a diversionary tactic. He started pelting me in the head to keep me from getting a clear shot at the fanblades. The game seesawed until we were both exhausted and declared a draw.

At the evening’s end, it was Chris who wore down first and was trying to sleep on the couch. A textbook opportunity for Peaceful Hibernation Deprivation! I promptly began the Perfect Helicopter Decent by wrist flicking one after another PHDs on top of him from across the room. Worse than water torture, the Chinese reserved this technique for their most hardened criminals. After he was about 3/4s covered, he was finally revived and the fun went on. But not too much longer. Tomorrow is Shakori Hills Music Festival.

The PHD made its debut in the toy world at the 2008 ASTRA (American Specialty Toy Retailing Association) toy show. Chris couldn’t make it so his long time buddy Jimmy came up from NYC to help out. After we set up the booth there was a dinner social the night before. Right when we first sat down I had a good feeling that we had come to the right place. Everyone at the show, was so friendly and fun. I guess that’s what happens when you get around a bunch of toy producers and toy store owners.

Met up with a bunch more folks at the casino bar and laughed our way through the evening. The next morning did come earlier than desired, but we got down with a few minutes to spare and after about a half hour, the show picked up for us. Owners and buyers from toy stores from Maine to southern California and Florida to Washington State stopped by to toss Phds and chat. At the end of the two days, we had a lot of new friends, orders from 26 different stores in 18 different states. The retailers were excited about the Phd and felt sure it would sell. Now we have over 1200 Phds to package and ship in the next few weeks.

The event ended with a dinner, drinks, and salsa dancing lessons. Had a hoot, stepped on a few toes, and made some more friends. Can’t wait for the next ASTRA show. That was a blast.

Thanks for indulging your curiosity and checking out our new blog. 

Here’s the deal . . .  we’re a new company with visions of grandeur and a goal of helping the world while developing this business.  Hence our interest in fair trade. 

The intention of this blog is to share what we’re up to while we’re trying to develop this company from scratch.  For example, this week we are officially, formally, unstoppably launching our flying Phd disc at the ASTRA annual show (American Specialty Toy Retailers Association), so we will bring you updates after the show.