Jessica: Kathryn, what's a random fact about you?
Kathryn: I like cereal and milk, but not together--will have them separately.

Jessica: Where was your first job?
Kathryn: Lifeguarding at a country club--first job was saving lives at 15.

Katie: Have you ever worked for Subway?
Kathryn: Ughh nope unfortunately, but I do love the sandwiches.

Jessica: What do you like to do when you're not at work?
Kathryn: Eat. Cook. I love cooking a lot. I'm have a great Greek scramble-- its my staple dish that I get requested to make at functions.

Jessica: What is your least favorite thing to do?
Kathryn: Wait at an airport--similar to what I had to do in Denver on my way to Outdoor Retailer. Getting there early and then having to wait is soooo annoying.

Jessica: What's your favorite outdoor activity?
Kathryn: Love anything beach related...

Jessica: Where's your favorite place to go in San Francisco?
Kathryn: I love Burbon and Branch--- it's a speak easy and you have to have a password to get in. It's amazing and every drink is made from scratch. It's awesome and a kind of like a secret society in San Francisco.

Unless you've been under a rock for the last five days you are probably aware the 2008 Summer Olympics are going on in Beijing. And you're probably aware that US Swimmer, Michael Phelps, is absolutely killing it! He's currently 5 for 5 in his gold medal pursuit and has set World Records in each of his wins....not to mention that he now has more gold medals than any other athlete in Olympic history with 11.

If you are interested in seeing history in the making I suggest you tune in and keep watching Michael Phelps as he's looking unstoppable!

I want to take a minute to give a shout out to Ms. Evan Hosie, POPgadget's clever gear reviewer. Not only did she survive the earthquake that shook L.A. on Tuesday, July 29, but she used the experience to alert her readers to the necessity of being prepared for natural disasters (after all in between earthquakes, California is constantly burning).

They say we can expect "the big one" in the next 30 years. Scary! Evan's article highlights some products worthy of stocking near your home's staple First Aid kit; including Coghlan's Survival Kit in a Can. I have one heading her way as we speak and threw in an Emergency Kit in a Bottle for good measure.

Here's why I love working with talented writers like Evan- not only does her work get picked up all over the world, even as far away as Australia and Japan, she actually goes out of her way to provide me the links to sites that pick up her review! No wonder I want to hook her up as much as possible.

Thanks, Evan and POPgadget, for making my job that much easier!

But everyone needs a break once in awhile and in the spirit of OR, Katie and I are heading out to the great wilderness of Cache Creek, CA for a little touch of nature. Busting out of the city on Friday, we'll be taking a two our car ride up to the campsite wearing our latest shades from Dragon's new line and Skullcandy bandanas on our heads (picture it). Then we'll proceed to set up camp using our Coghlan's Cooler Lamp and Micro Lanterns as we sit and roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories.

Picture us....

Basking in the sun the rest of the weekend, we'll be loaded up with our favorite sun products from Smartshield. And lastly, we'll be hitting the water as we raft all day on Sunday down the treacherous river.

Until Monday, we're outta here....See all you OR industry folks next week!

Here at BLASToutdoors we are busy gearing up for Summer OR, hence the usual whirlwind of booking, then rebooking travel, hammering down media appointments, submitting clients and their products for editorial and reward opportunities in the Show Daily, planning booth-side happy hours and all the while trying to keep this information organized- especially important for those of us with 2+ clients attending.

All of the above is great. However it is necessary and simply average. Luckily Coghlan's has BLAST (ahem, me) not only attending to charm the media and retailers/buyers stopping by their booth but also working on really getting them the bang for their not-so-proverbial buck.

Not only was Coghlan's submitted for all trade publications that would be distributed at OR (think: Inside Outdoor) and national publications' August issues that will also have presence, I also set up pre-interviews with the business press. That said, look for Coghlan's referenced as a camping industry expert in the OR edition of Sports Insight!

No, just setting up meetings and pitching the Show Daily isn't enough, and with the economy how it is, businesses can't afford to settle for subpar PR. Cheers!

Check out our new rockin' mural by the FAB CREW out of Indy, graffiti artists extraordinare. Crazy, huh?

What a night! Matt, Mendy and I ventured to see Point Break LIVE!, the absurdist stage adaptation of the 1992 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze extreme-sports blockbuster... and low and behold we wound up running into one of our clients... Coghlan's!

The show featured an audience-selected Keanu, armed robberies, big-wave surfing, car chases, explosions, and two extended skydiving sequences. This crazy LIVE show incorporated water, kool-aid, mayonnaise, flour, and other crazy substances, all of which made our action packed parts that much more enjoyable - hence the ponchos. One word can describe this madness ... AWESOME!

If it comes to a city near you... you have to check it out!

To top off the news, Dragon's break from Oakley was featured on the cover of the July issue of Transworld Business-- Be sure to check it out!

Welcome aboard Dragon!

Wow, anyone notice how many trade shows there are in August and September? Here at the BLASToutdoors' office we are currently working on the following shows: iCast, Project NYC, Summer Outdoor Retailer, KnowShow Vancouver, Magic, ASR, Surf Expo and Interbike! Our clients spend a lot of money to exhibit at tradeshows and we want to make sure they are getting the biggest bang for their buck so we make sure to help them out with press opportunities at the shows.

As we are about a month away from most of the shows we are working to secure press coverage in the 'Show Dailies' handed out every day at the shows that cover the newest product launches on the show floor, we're nominating our clients for show awards, we're compiling press kits, we're setting up face-to-face meetings with members of the press at our clients' booths and last but not least we're mentally preparing for sore feet as we spend many hours of standing while working our clients' booths at the shows.

Tradeshows are a lot of work, but also a ton of fun as we get to hang with our clients and our friends in the press! Let us know if you'll be at any upcoming shows and we'll plan to catch up for a drink...

What a week! BLASTmedia, our sister company, made a splash in a NY Times article. Check it out!

As we head into a Holiday weekend, I would like to take a moment to say thanks to all of the BLAST employees....yes, I know it is the 4th of July and not Thanksgiving, but our employees ROCK!

-Thanks for making this such a fun place to work!
-Thanks for challenging each other to be better day after day!
-Thanks for producing great media coverage on a daily basis!
-Thanks for all of your hard work and dedication to BLAST and our clients!

To everyone at BLASTmedia / BLASToutdoors and readers of our blog, we would like to wish everyone a happy and safe 4th of July weekend!

Lucky enough to have had the chance to make a crazy 48 hour trip down to Southern California late in May, we hit I-5 with Skullcandy, as we jam-packed press meetings with Snow/Skate/Surf press into two days, offering great gear and all the highlights on the new line set to launch by September. But, the payoff came quickly, as Skullcandy had its new Double Agent spotlighted in the June issue of BL!SSS with a special bonus...

For those of you who aren't familiar with BL!SSS Magazine, they are the epitome of street, urban, fashion and music culture thrown into a blender and poured out as a masterpiece. A great publication, and one that is highly respected by many BLASToutdoors clients, I have to sound off today to the fact that our client Skullcandy and myself :) got a nice little shout out in the June issue.

Modest I am not....

We understand that it's important to see a return on the investment of a campaign and prospective clients often ask us about how a PR campaign's effectiveness can be measured. We're always working with our clients to help them connect the dots - correlating media placements to web traffic and, ultimately, sales.

Today, we proved the power of PR to ourselves. Our friend Wayne with Gear Diary, who recently posted about Tanita's KD-400, brought another cool product to our attention today. When my colleague Katie at BLASToutdoors in San Francisco passed on a recent post of Wayne's about a "unique" desk organizer, I knew it would be the perfect complement to her San Fran desk. As soon as I completed my order to have one shipped to her, Katie let me know that she just ordered two! Ah, the power of PR! Who says you can't link media coverage to sales?

If you'd like one of these desk organizers for yourself, head on over to Stupid.com.

Posted by Carey Hart at BLASTmedia

BLASTmedia and BLAST Outdoors' clients run the gamut when it comes to the latest and greatest tech products. It seems like every time I turn around, we're bringing on a new and exciting client. One of the best perks of working at Blast is getting to try out the cool stuff around the office! So when word spread that I would be leaving this week to be a camp counselor down in Bedford, IN, the girls in the San Fran office hooked me up with some great camping gear! Now I'm ready to head to camp with my Coghlan's Headlight, Cliplight and Micro Lantern and SmartShield eco-friendly combo sunscreen and insect repellent. Check me out with all my cool gear in the great outdoors!

Via Chantal at BLASTmedia! Oh, almost forgot to include the official "Chantal Stamp of Approval"

For those of you looking for a job, or wandering what we do here or simply stalking me, I decided it would be fun to give everyone a glimpse into a typical day at BLASToutdoors (and for our midwestern readers, a little taste of San Francisco).

One of the first emails I opened was from the Fox & Friends morning show requesting every product highlighted in a "Camping Essentials" pitch I sent out. My hook was "gear that won't break your back- or the bank" and boy did those news stations eat it up! Aside from Fox & Friends, I got product and information requests from six other stations interested in putting together a camping feature. Not bad for a mornings work!

We are currently hiring another account representative and it's always nice to get the surge of resumes and cover letters that never fail to follow our Craigslist postings. Sometimes it's funny too. Yesterday was no exception, in fact we got two exceptionally funny coverletters. I'm not sure if statements about making yourself stand out are urgently drilled into college kids' heads at PRSA or during meetings with advisors, or if kids in San Francisco are just uber creative (read: too creative), but we received two cover letters worth noting. One began by stating how lazy he was and went on to mention his meth addiction (?). Yup, got our attention and we laughed all the way to the trashcan. My personal favorite was a letter from a man relating all his travel experiences including his search for Nessie in Ireland. I'm all for bringing him in but sadly, Mendy isn't.

As Jess was busy splashing SkullCandy news all over Transworld Business and Surf, the rest of us got wind of a David Beckham appearance in Union Square- to meet him all we had to do was buy $200 worth of underwear from Macy's! Not sure why, but in the end we were too late to squander our money and had to settle for battling the crowd with the rest of his screaming fans.

Where's David?

Sarah is crazy about an asian-fusion restaurant in the Marina called Betelnut, and after a long, productive day of securing media coverage, Jess, Sarah, Mendy and I rallied for dinner and drinks. It's worth mentioning that Betelnut was awesome! It's small plates so the four of us ordered about eight or nine entrees including scallops resting on coconut rice patties, lettuce wraps (they blew P.F. Chang's out of the water), Malayasian curry, spicy prawns...I'll definitely be going back!

Next we headed to The Bus Stop for a little pool playin'. The Bus Stop, a great little dive bar on Union Street set the scene for a random night. As I was picking out my favorite Heart song on the jukebox (why is it that some songs we only play on jukeboxes?), I noticed my new Ohio State friends that I met Saturday night with Mendy after the North Beach festival. These ladies are crazy and have a knack for playing the worst music on said jukebox- that I recall from Sat.

We even met a tech editor at CIO; a dead giveaway in a blue button down shirt. Anyone else read Valleywag? He was nice enough to give us the scoop on the worst SF tech PR firms! He is looking forward to hearing from our tech PR counterpart, BLASTmedia thus ending his string of bad encounters. What are new friends for?

That's us in a nutshell, meeting people where ever we go, mixing business with pleasure and generally enjoying each other's company. The only thing that could have made Wednesday even better was if I got to touch David Beckham...

The ladies of BLAST- Sarah, Jessica, Katie and Mendy.

Me and the tech editor at CIO (note the blue polo)

Jess and Sarah... couldn't hang with the pool pros!