good sports

Sports and bad design usually go hand in hand. I don't know if its an American thing of dumbing down for the masses, but finding good design in sports logos or merchandise is pretty difficult. It can get pretty annoying for a sports fan. So I was thrilled the other day when I stumbled across the website for the Art of Sport store. Its a project by two designers, John Paul Stallard, and Rob Duncan (of Dowling Duncan, whose work I've always been a huge fan of.) Their goal is to, as they put it, "bring a modern design aesthetic to your favorite team, while subtly incorporating team history, colours, names, and mythology." As a supporter of American Soccer, the only disappointing thing (for me) is that right now all but one of their limited edition prints are for EPL teams. The two are rival fans of Arsenal and Liverpool, but since they're in San Francisco, I asked if they had any plans to do MLS teams. They said, "They're on the list, but no plans yet." We can only hope.

Art of Sport store

start in low gear

Over the holidays, I drove up to Pittsburgh from my folks' place in Virginia to hang out with my friend Curt for New Years. It snowed. A lot. Luckily I was able to flex my plans enough that I drove up earlier than originally planned and got to town just as the snow was starting. The next morning, it was piled pretty high and just kept coming. Curt lives at the top of a hill overlooking the river with a driveway I wouldn't dare in those conditions, but for him it was no big deal. The morning of New Years Eve, he woke up with a flu or something, so we ended up camping out with a bunch of movies instead of going out and about. I was a little bummed about missing the fireworks at Midnight, especially since it was snowing again and it seemed like that would be pretty cool. He felt really bad about it, but I didn't blame him one bit (its not like he chose to get sick. Besides, he's the one who had to deal with being sick!) A friend of his even offered to come get me and take me out with them, which was really nice, but by then I was enjoying the low key day on the couch. We still got to see a few small fireworks that neighbors launched at Midnight. Luckily, I didn't catch whatever he had, since I had to drive back to Virginia the next day and fly back to California the day after. And he was well enough for us to go out for some pierogies (a key goal of the trip!) before I left. It seems that nice, low key beginning has set the pace for the year so far. Works for me.

girlfriend in a coma

73. Seventy-three. Thats how many blog posts I managed last year. That's not very good. Though its not much worse than the 100 from the year before. When I first started the blog in 2005, I never expected it to become and almost-daily thing, but it evolved into that and much more of a personal journal with work updates mixed in. Then came Facebook and Twitter and all kinds of other ways to instantly share thoughts or cool stuff or whatever - in much faster, easier and connected ways. And the poor blog became a neglected girlfriend (in a coma). I keep trying to bring it back to life and then I neglect it again. "I wish I knew how to quit you." But there's too much history buried in these posts. So time to give it some attention again. A big reason for that is that for the last several weeks, I've been spending a lot of time building a new website which (fingers crossed) should be ready within a few weeks. (that's also why you may have noticed the new facebook business page pop up.) The blog was always intended to be an extension of my site - though I never could merge the two into one site. If all goes well, the new site will do that. (Thats one of the big questionable last remaining pieces. There are over 1600 posts to deal with. Hold me.) And even if not, it will remain linked the way it is now, with an updated look. I said a long time ago I'd stop apologizing for the breaks that would happen between posts, so no apologies. But let's see if we can bring it back. I know, its serious.