You're Never too Young to Be the Real Deal!

It's that age-old question: Are people born the Real Deal, or are they instead raised that way? In the case of young Spencer Robert Gordon here, the answer would seem to be ... BOTH!

Spencer's photo came to us in an Aug. 18 e-mail from his mom, excited new Real Deal Brazil hat owner Debi Gordon of Voorhees, N.J. Debi writes:

"My family and I were in Nags Head (N.C., on the Outer Banks) this past week and we had an amazing time! Truly the best vacation ever…..for many reasons…one of them being , we walked into (local business) Nags Head Hammocks and were looking around and all of a sudden the hat caught our eyes! It is the most perfect hat for my husband and we also bought a bag …..then I went back and bought 3 more hats for our friends back home ."

Debi says of her son, age 3, and his borrowed RDB hat:

"He looks wonderful in it (yes even with the binky) and he truly is the real deal."

We couldn't agree more!

In closing, Debi adds:

"Thanks for all of your wonderful products we will be ordering more very soon."

We do so love a story with a happy ending!

The One-Ton-o'-Real-Deal-Fun Contest: 2,000 Facebook Fans R Us!

Small company, big fanbase. Go, us!

A few days ago, our Facebook site crested the 2,000-fan mark, a big dang Real Deal to us. So it's giveaway time again, RDB brethren and sistren! And while we may not still be able to pull this type of thing off if we reach, y'know, 20,000 fans, we guess we'll just have to see what shakes out, won't we? So bring it, people! Bring it!

For now, we're happy to offer this, as a serious thank you to all of you Real Deal Brazil fans, outright RDB junkies, geocaching hatters, photo posters, world travelers, sarcasm purveyors, hunters, fishers, hikers, loungers, beer swiggers, et al., and generally just truly fun folks (Our fans are the best! All you other sites can go to hell!), for giving us your dedication, and your time:

Twenty (yes, 20!) lucky fans will each receive one classic Real Deal Brazil recycled tarp hat, plus a choice of either a Real Deal Brazil Hat Hitch Wind Strap or Real Deal Brazil Coconut Hat Band.

OR

One Real Deal Brazil Recycled-Tarp Ballcap and one Real Deal Brazil Wallet (either Bi-Fold or Tri-Fold).

Not bad, huh?

So how do you enter? Well, ya gotta play to win, folks! Ya gotta play to win!

CONTEST RULES:

It's simple: Answer a question posted on our Facebook page. Every day of the contest, we'll re-post the question, as well as a link back to here, in case you forget these outrageously complex rules.

NOTE: You only need to enter ONE time; additional postings will NOT increase your chances! Though the cleverest response, judged by, well, us, won't get you any further in this contest, we do so love us a clever response!

Anyone who becomes a Real Deal Brazil Facebook fan before the contest closes is eligible to enter.

The contest closes at 8:30 a.m. Monday, July 18, at which point we'll collect all names of fans who've posted real responses, and provide those names, as soon as we reasonably can, to the random third-party drawing service at Random.org. Then, as soon as we hear back from them, we'll post those results on Facebook, and here at this blog as well.

The question:

If the Real Deal Brazil recycled tarp hat were a celebrity (other than Woody Harrelson), who would it be, and why?

(Frank, our Site Administrator Guy, only thinks he's a star. Some people.)

Both parts of the question are required to qualify as an answer! Clean answers only; naughtiness, however much we might get a kick out of it, will get your answer yanked, and you disqualified. And remember: Go back to our Facebook site to answer. Don't answer here!

So what the H are you waiting for? Get busy answering, and get entered!

The Real Deal Brazil, THE Geocaching Hat? The Proof Is in the Picture!

The "official" GeoWoodstock IX "flashmob" photo of our growing Real Deal Brazil geocaching army, whom one day we hope to take into battle, hats on heads and GPSes in hand! OK, just kidding on that last part. Maybe.

Our great, great thanks to Jenn "Kunve" Kunze, Geoacaching Goddess, for all her efforts in coordinating this shot, and in running flak for us when people kept asking why we weren't at GWS9 ourselves.

Gosh, folks, we didn't know ya cared so! Now we're feeling a bit warm and fuzzy all over! Also,a little guilty. Warm and fuzzy and guilty. (We may need a cold shower, a shave, some therapy, and a drink. Hell, screw the therapy! Who's buyin' the drink?)

So why weren't we, in all seriousness, not there this year, with hats and bags for sale, and a little attitude to burn? We don't have a good answer, beyond this: We honestly didn't realize the degree to which our brand had become so prevalent within the geocaching community, which is a little humbling, thank you very much! (And by thank you very much, we really mean it: Thank you all. Very much.) On top of that, we are a small company with not a lot of budget, quite honestly. We have to be extremely selective in what we can do by way of travel, etc., which usually has to equal not much.

That said, this photo, and the planning that went into it, and the big group who turned out just to be a part of it, has us saying this: If it can happen that we can attend GWS10 (May 25-26, 2012, in Sellersburg, Ind.), it will!

That ain't just talk, brethren. If it can, it will. And we hope it will!

Especially since Jenn owes us a couple of beers. Just don't tell her we said that. She probably thinks we're buying!

Contest in the Rearview, Contest on the Horizon

At the Real Deal Brazil, we like giving stuff away. Obviously, as a small company, we can't just go nuts about it; yet when we can, it's our way of saying thanks to all of you for being such dedicated fans of who we are, and what we do. Which explains why we're really into contests. Giveaways, and what have you. Sometimes, we're very, very obvious about it. Other times, not so much.

And as to the latter:

Recently, we wrapped up a contest that you had to have been really paying attention to even know was going on. Many folks still doubt it happened; consider this recent fan comment from our Facebook site:

"I keep hearing about contests, secret or otherwise, but have yet to actually see one."

Ah, but one happened, good fan! One happened!

It went like this: For a couple of months, we added roughly one letter a week to the corners of our changing profile pics, thus:


(We can't not comment, by the way, about how much we love the above pic of South Dakota Real Deal Brazil fan Rafael Andrade! Raf is reacting here to the rattlesnakes he's been warned might be lurking in the scrubby brush all around him in his home state's Badlands National Park.)

Admittedly, we did intentionally skip one week of posting letters with profile pics, and we did also double up on letters at least twice, just to be, y'know, jerks. Heh, heh.

Strung together, the letters ultimately spelled out: GOHEREYOUWINAHATDOTCOM.

Even once people started to catch on as to what was being spelled out, it threw some folks for a loop, because they tried to make the whole thing a URL, as in GoHereYouWinAHat.com. Alas, that wasn't it. You had to see the "GoHere" part as a direction, as in:

Go here: YouWinAHat.com.

So if you haven't been, go there and see for yourself!

The first three folks to find their way there each won a Real Deal Brazil recycled-tarp hat, and a choice of RDB Hat Hitch Wind Strap or Coconut Hat Band. Everyone after that likely just gnashed their teeth a bit, realizing they were, as the saying doesn't quite go, a day late and a free RDB hat short.

Still, a pat on the back to any and all of you who figured it out. Because when it was all said and done, not all that many folks caught on to what was going on.

Our winners, in order of their arrival:

1. Jenn Kunze of West Barnstable, Mass., seen immediately below, giving the world a friendly hello, of sorts.


2. Mack Simpson of Richardson, Texas, appearing below in the midst of a mysterious Texas ritual involving RDB hats, cacti and tequila. And from what we can gather, a lot of tequila.


3. Eric Spence of Winthrop, Mass. Unfortunately, we have no photo of Eric to share.

Jenn and Mack have been Real Deal Brazil fans for quite some time, so we've managed to accumulate a few photos along the way. The two pics posted above are obviously among our favorites.

Our belated formal congratulations to all three smarty-pants winners!

As for all the rest of you fine folks: If you see something unusual on our site, assume we might be up to something; we often are! But one piece of advice: If you think you're on to us, don't necessarily share your suspicions on our site, as you might tip someone else off to winning something that could be yours instead (this happened more than once in the contest in question). Not that we in any way advocate greed and failing to help out your fellow fan -- that would, after all, be wrong! We're, y'know, just sayin', is all.

And as for Real Deal Brazil contests yet to come? Look no further than soon. Really, really soon.

Is it tomorrow yet?

A Real Deal Story of Real-Life Recovery

Some adventures we don’t seek. Don’t ask for. Don’t want. Yet it’s these things, of course, that often do the most to define us …

This posting from Real Deal Brazil fan Kim DeVoid Colby of Manchester, N.H., about her husband, Rob, appeared on our Facebook fan page Oct. 24, and gave us real pause:

“Today my husband did something noble,” Kim begins.

Rob, we then learn, was recently diagnosed with cancer, specifically, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Knowing what treatment he was facing, and that it would inevitably result in temporary baldness, Rob decided to do something proactive. He lopped off his hair – all two feet of it – and donated it to Locks of Love (http://www.locksoflove.org/), the wonderful nonprofit group that provides hairpieces to underprivileged kids in the U.S. and Canada living with long-term medical hair-loss.

And through it all, what was Rob’s biggest concern about himself? Not that he was going to be bald from the chemo. Not even that the chemo, in fighting the cancer, would be brutal on his body. No, Rob’s pressing worry was about his hat. His beloved Real Deal Brazil recycled-tarp hat.

“His one thought … will his Real Deal hat still fit??” Kim writes. “We love your products and while his hat will fit him again ..., he will be hatless until I can make a skull cap to keep it in place. Thanks for being his number one concern while he loses his hair that has been long for 16 years!!! LOL.”

We’ve since received several notes directly from Rob himself. In one he included a few pictures detailing the beginning of his journey with chemotherapy.

In the first photo, above, we see Rob still with his long hair. He’s contemplating, he says, “the vast journey soon ahead of me.

“As with all great adventures, one must make a sacrifice,” he muses on his decision to donate his long-held long hair. “An offering to those who look down upon us and bless or curse the path before us.”

The next two photos, which follow the text here, are post-haircut. In the first of those, Rob is on his way in to beginning chemo at Foundation Oncology and Hematology in Nashua, N.H., about a half-hour’s drive south of Manchester. (“I am still missing the hair,” Rob writes.) In the second, Rob is “all hooked up and getting the stuff pumped into me,” he notes.

Rob has unfortunately been no stranger to health concerns even before the cancer diagnosis. He’s someone who routinely lives with a lot of pain, suffering from reflex sympathetic dystrophy (or RSDS, a poorly understood syndrome associated with compromised immune-system function), fibromyalgia, bursitis and arthritis.

Any of that would be enough to turn a person’s thoughts dark and squarely inward, yet that’s hardly what comes across in Rob’s e-mails to us. Instead, what shines through is his ready good humor: "If I could offer any advice to anyone who has to get chemo," he says at one point, "get a seat near the bathroom. Man, I was peeing every 5 minutes...”

The other thing most apparent in Rob’s notes is his quickness to praise the folks taking care of him, from the oncology doctor who called him on her own time to ask if he had any questions before beginning chemo to the nurse who tried to ease his boredom by teaching him to knit – “which,” Rob notes, “I am doing pretty good at if I do say so myself.”

In fact, Rob simply can’t say enough about the nursing care he’s been receiving. The nurses at Foundation Oncology and Hematology, he says, are “the Real Deal when it comes to helping others.” (We couldn’t have ever said that any better ourselves, Rob!)

“The nurse who is in charge of my treatment went out of her way to find out a bit about my RSDS and Fibro and how my body would react to the treatments,” Rob reveals. “She didn't have to so this, (but) because (she did anyway), they made sure to give me a bit more of the anti-nausea meds to hopefully spare me the extra pain the vomiting would incur.

“It might be the Chemo and me feeling icky and sick,” he adds, “but I'm getting all sorts of emotional thinking about what I have seen (the nurses at Foundation Oncology and Hematology) do for people so far and I've only been there two days. I still have about 4 more months and can only imagine what I'll see.”

Kim is actually in nursing school herself at the moment, and Rob, she says, keeps telling her, "You better get some learning out of this; I want all this crap to amount to something."

The nurses, Kim adds, "are sooo nice there; they keep teaching me more and more."

Rob is right now going through something none of us wants to imagine could ever happen to us, and his concern for others throughout is incredibly admirable, and more than a little humbling. “Noble,” as his wife has put it.

So at the Real Deal Brazil, we’re really honored to think we’re any small part of Rob’s healing process, and wish him our heartfelt best on his path to his own revitalized Real Deal future.

The Family That Real Deal Brazils Together ...

Joe Swenson of Boulder, Colo., has been with us almost since we started in the way-cool-hats-and-bags business, the kind of fan who just doesn't quit. Once Joe had become sold on the Real Deal Brazil -- and how that happened is a story in itself, which we'll get to in a moment -- he immediately started spreading the good word, first buying Real Deal Brazil recycled-tarp hats and then, later, Real Deal Brazil bags, for family members and friends as well. And at every turn, Joe and his family were not only proudly wearing and using our products, but talking us up, to boot! We could not ask for better Real Deal Brazil ambassadors, and we're grateful to the nth degree.

A few months ago, Joe, a self-described "recovering lawyer," sent a new terrific batch of pictures of him and his family doing one of the things they love best, fishing. We kept trying to figure out the best home for these shots, since we really wanted to share them all. So at long last, after having the kind of a-ha moment that made us feel dumb, since it was so obvious -- The blog! Let's put them in the blog! -- we're including them here, in our blog.

The bulk of the photos appear at the end of this text. And in all of these pics, the Swenson family is back, you might say, at the scene of the crime. Huntington, N.Y., on Long Island's North Shore., where they vacation each year at Grandpa's house.

It was there that the family's ongoing Real Deal adventures first began more than two years ago, toward the end of their summer stay in 2008.

It goes like this: Joe and wife Cyndy, plus son Zach, then age 13, and daughter Elle Joe, then 11, were taking a midday walk on the beach. A storm the previous night had littered the water’s edge with the typical flotsam. However, Zach spotted a clump up ahead that seemed out of place. The thing was covered in sand and seaweed, rolling around in the unusually choppy surf. Maybe, he thought, it was some kind of fabric ... ?

“We expected some old, cruddy rag,” Joe wrote in an e-mail to us not long after, “but Zach found a treasure instead.”

It was a hat, the family discovered, kind of like the Indiana Jones one, but way brawnier. The logo on it said "The Real Deal Brazil." The story of how the hat was made was printed prominently inside. “It was like finding a message in a bottle, of sorts,” Joe noted.

Other than some fraying around the brim, which only added to the hat’s rugged character, the dense recycled-truck-tarp fabric appeared unmarred by its mystery seafaring adventure. So after rinsing the hat and shaking it off, everyone tried it on; fittingly, it fit Zach perfectly.

“Now he’s the envy of the entire family,” Joe said.

And soon enough, Joe had bought RDB hats for Cyndy, Elle Joe and his own brother, as well. And also, yes, one for himself. But that really was just the start, and we've long ago lost track of how many more he's picked up since!

In the note accompanying this great batch of family-at-fun photos, we received an update from Joe on how he now uses his Real Deal Brazil Iguape messenger bag: "I tried the Bag as a Briefcase in my alter-ego life as an Attorney," he wrote us, "but The Bag was too cool for the Courtroom. It works perfectly as a Surf Tackle Bag, it's original purpose set out by its designers, I am sure."

But of course, Joe! Whatever fantastic way you happen to put it into service is absolutely the way we intended it be used.

Our ongoing thanks to you and your family, for being so dang Real Deal, every step of the way.

Free Real Deal Brazil Shipping for Father's Day!

Dad's Day's 2010 is now not quite a week away! In honor of honoring the old man, and as our own Father's Day gift to our ever-growing legion of Facebook fans, we're temporarily offering free shipping on all RDB orders.