Top Five things that should NOT go down the slide off the pirate ship

In the six months we've been open, we've seen all sorts of things descend the slide off the pirate ship at YoYo Joe's. Most of the time, happily, it's just people. Mostly kids, with an occasional 'grown-up' reliving their youth.

We've also seen all sorts of things that probably should not be going down the slide at YoYo Joe's. Bear in mind that no one should be sending anything down the slide on the pirate ship other than their own fannies.

5 - Lunastix. Lunastix are juggling sticks that are planted right next to the slides, so it's an easy grab-n-go thing. Actually, I only saw one little girl take the Lunastix down the slide, but she cradled it lovingly in her arms, which struck me as weird as we have dolls for the whole 'cradled lovingly' thing.

4- Corolle dolls. A while back, a little girl stood at the top of the slide and launched a Corolle doll down the slide. And when I say 'down the slide,' what I really mean is tossed above the slide. I don't think it actually even hit the slide, now to think of it. So, I guess this was just more or less a man (or doll) overboard situation. Either way, the Corolle doll wasn't the best flyer, so she landed a perfect faceplant beyond the slide. Luckily, these are some darn durable dolls, so she escaped the flight with nary a mark.

3 - Pirate rubber duckies. These guys are pretty innocent - not much chance of damage or injury here. We've seen lots of pirate rubber duckies descend the slide. Sometimes in bunches, sometimes alone. Sometimes with a kid, sometimes before a kid, sometimes trailing after a kid. They're stocked right next to the slides, so I guess it's a natural reaction to send them down to test the waters before plunging in yourself.

2 - Shopping baskets. We have these wicked cool rolling shopping baskets. They holds lots of stuff and can be either carried or rolled on the ground. We had one group come in and use the shopping basket to roll around their doll in. Then they sent it careening down the slide.

1 - Plasmacars. I've seen three of these go down the slide and each time, I just count mentally to ten before approaching the offender. Sure, it might seem it's a good thing, the Plasmacars have wheels, fit down the slide and look like they'd be fun. After the first couple, I tried it myself late at night and was surprised at how quickly the car goes down the slide. And since it isn't exactly made for speed, it didn't handle the slide too well. It seemed like it would be very easy for the car to capsize or slam into the side of the store, which would be bad for all around. Luckily, most offenders get chastised by their parents before I can reach them, but one of these days "To the moon, Alice!"

Graham down the slide

Here's a good shot of my brother Tom with his son Graham - Graham is going down the slide on the pirate ship.

Party pics - view from the ship

Here's a pic shot from the deck of the pirate ship - it gives you a good idea of the view from the ship out onto the store.

Party Pics - James at the wheel

Here's a shot of James - my future brother-in-law - at the wheel on the pirate ship. The ship's wheel is one of the details that Nate brought down this past week. He mounted it on the forward mast - it really turns!

Party Pics - Pirate Ric!

Here's a great view of the pirate ship with my brother-in-law Ric - who got into the mood and dressed as a pirate. He even climbed upon the rail of the ship, until he realized he probably shouldn't give kids any ideas. So, don't do this when you come to YoYo Joe's! Ric, by the way, owns The Frame Shoppe & Gallery in Talleyville along with my sister Wendy. That's our friend Ann Lake's nephew Dominic on the right.

T-minus 4 days...

It's 4 am, and Emily and I are both at YoYo Joe's. Emily's stocking shelves, and I'm adding stuff to the infernal POS system. Things are moving fast now. Kris and Nate arrived yesterday morning at 11 and worked on the pirate ship all day, adding details like a handrail up the steps, a yardarm, a sail and more. Also, the palm trees arrived tonight - thanks to Andre Kerr, our artist. They look awesome, and are HUGE. Seriously now, come on, we've put in custom made palm trees, a cannon and a pirate ship. Are we nuts?

Probably.

T-Minus five days...

...and counting to our 'unofficial' opening. Our 'official' opening remains November 1st, but we're doing everything we can to be in final shape by Monday....

Yikes! Looking around the back room, there's stacks of merchandise to get onto the sales floor. There's stacks of merchandise on the sales floor too. Gee, we've got a lot of merchandise, and more keeps arriving each day! Today, I went on a trip to Philly to get more shelving while Emily was at the store. Of course, 80 boxes showed up today between UPS and Fedex...plus, the balance of the metal shelving arrived from the powder coaters...poor Emily!

Have I mentioned that my dad (YoYo Joe Sr) has marked a giant chunk of our merchandise? He's spent hours here marking stuff with official YoYo Joe's price labels. You say, "hmm...didn't you say, Joe, that you're using a Point Of Sale system?." How detail-oriented of you to remember...that's right, we're using a POS, but there's nothing I hate more than shopping somewhere and there's no label on the package and there's no price sticker near the item, so we're marking everything. (OK, there's actually sooo much stuff I hate more than that, but you know what I mean)

Kris and Nate (the shipbuilder) show up tomorrow to fit out the rest of the pirate ship. Yep, rest of the pirate ship. Including a ship's wheel, a yardarm, a sail and more...

Oh, and thanks to my ludicrously late hours here at YoYo Joe's - I missed the entire game four of the National League Championship Series last night. I only missed what many people are calling one of the greatest games in Phillies history. Oh well, thank God for internet video.

The Shoe Boat

Our friend John Lynch stopped by today while his son, Chris, was swimming at the Y - which you can see from the back door of our store. While in the store, he said the pirate ship reminded him of the Shoe Boat in the Concord Mall.

Which is kinda cool, cause that WAS the inspiration for our pirate ship. Does anyone remember the boat that was in The Shoe Boat? I remember my mom taking us up to the Concord Mall to get shoes, and we'd get excited because they had this little tug boat or something in it. It had a slide, and, if my recollections are correct, it was pretty small - only one kid or so at a time could fit on it. Remembering that a bit back was what made me think of putting a pirate ship in Mitchell's. I was thinking on a similar scale - something small - a draw to bring kids in the store. Obviously, it never happened at Mitchell's, but I kept that idea on my mind while we went through the process of getting our own store up and running. We plopped it in the business plan and pitched it to our advisors at the Delaware Small Business Development Center and when we met with the bank. Luckily, the ship stayed in the plan.

Ha...the Shoe Boat. I wonder what happened to it?

Cold Turkey!

That's it! No more pirate ship updates. I'm done, I'm outta here (just like Shane Victorino's grand salami last night).

We've decided that, instead of spoiling the surprise and posting lots of pics of the pirate ship ahead of time, we'd make everyone wait until our (shhhhh) unofficial opening day of October 20th. The official-like opening day is November 1st, but that's for the people who don't read the blog. The 'Anti-Blog-Ites.' You know the type...anyhoo, look for more updates on the status of the store, but look at those pictures long and hard, cause until October 20th, that's all you have to work with. And, in my very biased opinion, it's flippin' awesome.

And even more pirate ship stuff

You know, I've led a pretty bung-less life. Seriously, it never even crossed my mind to fill in the holes left by screws with bungs, but now it seems crazy to leave empty holes in wood. The pirate ship has, literally, hundreds of bungs filling the screw holes. They add character to the ship. They look awesome.

Today's progress includes the finalizing of the planking and the fitting of the cap on the bow of the ship. Yes, there's a boat term for this cap, but I can't recall it. I know...

Here's a couple pix - one of Nate routing this cap and one of the side profile of the ship. Meanwhile, Krissy was filling the holes and Ric was staining the ship. It's gonna be a dark brown.

More Pirate Ship stuff

The pirate ship is progressing nicely, as the planking of the sides of the boat is going on. Nate and Krissy are hard at work on the ship. Me, I'm goofing off. I'm ordering stuff. I'm quite sick of ordering stuff, yet I must strive on. Poor me. Here's a couple pix of Nate hard at work and me holding a personal message to one of our fans up in New England. Go Anaheim!

The evolution of the pirate ship

Here are some photos of the progress of the pirate ship from plywood laid on the floor of the shop of Nate Piper, our own shipwright, up in New Hampshire to the current form at YoYo Joe's. Nate and Krissy (my sister) are working on it right now. The second mast was raised an hour or so ago. Here's a photo of the plywood subfloor laid out at Nate's shop. Not too exciting, huh? But, that's the beginnings of our pirate ship. Next, here is a photo of the base of the ship - the deck of the ship. See, I wasn't kidding about how sturdy it is.

The next photo is of the two masts of the pirate ship. Each mast is nearly 16 foot in length. Yes, I mean the photo of the boards glued together. Nate constructed each mast of four planks glued together, then carved down to a round mast. According to Nate, using a single timber would be bad because the wood would dry, and split in time. (the photo shows the two masts on top of each other, each mast is four planks). This result is a square timber that is carved down to a round pole by first making an eight sided shape, then 16 sided and so on until it appears to be a round pole. If you check the masts at YoYo Joe's, you'll see that it is slightly flat on each facet, not a perfectly round shape. I think you'll also find it hard to determine that it's a laminated piece of wood and not from one solid timber.

This next photo shows the view of the ship from the front, with the sides attached. Obviously, it's not finished at this point, but you get a good idea of what it's shape will be like.






On the areas where the ship has been screwed together, there are slight recesses in the wood. These recesses have been filled by wooden 'bungs.' Each of these bungs is drilled out of wood. Here's a photo of Patty Piper, Nate's mom, drilling the bungs from a piece of wood stock. This next picture shows Krissy filling the holes with the bungs. And, yes, the hole that the bung fills, is......a bunghole. There you go, you learned something. Perhaps Beavis & Butthead dabbled in shipbuilding at some point.

And, finally, my family all gathered together last night at YoYo Joe's - all of em. My sister Wendy, her husband Ric, my brother Tom, his wife Elise and their son Graham, my father, Emily, Ethan and I all were here. My dad was kind enough to bring a pile of pirate gear to get us in the mood, and Ethan, never the shy one, was kind enough to sport it for us. Arrgggh, indeed!


Check in tomorrow for more pics as the ship evolves!

First look at the pirate ship...

It's coming together. Yesterday my sister Kris and her husband Nate carried in the four pieces of the pirate ship. Two of the pieces are the base of the unit - a two foot platform on which the pirate ship will rest. It's rock solid - it looks like it could hold a house - actually, according to Nate, it is better supported than most houses! The other two pieces are the sides of the ship. These will rise off the base and provide a railing for those on the ship itself. The ship is all wood - a combination of spruce and plywood. Check out this little detail - tacked to the bow is a spruce branch. This is a traditional ship process that provides an homage to where the wood for the ship came from. Kinda cool, eh?

Yo Ho Ho Ho, A Pirate's (ship) Life for Me.

Tomorrow is a big day at YoYo Joe's. The painters show up at 7:30 am - a little under seven hours from now. PLUS, the pirate ship shows up. Did I mention the pirate ship? No? Oh, it's just a 14 foot by 10 foot wooden pirate ship designed and handcrafted by Nate Piper of Maine.

Who's Nate? Well, besided being my brother-in-law, he's one of the people who came to Delaware to build the Kalmar Nyckel - Delaware's tall ship. He's a real wooden shipbuilder, having gone to school specifically to learn the craft of wooden ship building. He makes his living up in New England building and repairing wooden ships, so we're blessed to have him building our own pirate ship.

The ship is going to be awesome. It will be elevated two feet off the floor. Kids will be able to get up onto the ship by going up a small set of stairs, and they can get off the ship by either going back down the stairs, or taking a small slide down off the ship. Plus, it will have a real ship's wheel, two masts, a yardarm, a sail, anchor and the cannon we previously posted back on Talk Like a Pirate Day. I will be taking lots of photos, so tune in tomorrow night for photographic evidence of said pirate ship.