I'm back, like a car crash

It's been a while...

Back to the grind since the holidays, selling tons of swag and watching the beginning of Basketball season.

So what's new, everything, been painting, working on the new website, working on summer TA merch (and other Timbers promotional stuff), working on my own swag and moar sports.

New painting below... Making a series through the year, all of which will be for sale on the NoHopeDesigner website when I finally finish the new look.

Summer TA merch is going to be so sweet, we are expanding our traditional stuff and going beyond t-shirts. We are bringing in more designers (mostly to take it easier on me and I want everyone that wants to, to have a crack at having their product made). I moving to more of a creative director position. The gear is already looking great and we have some great promotions too.

Also from all the TA merch meetings I came up with a hilarious idea to do a blog (probably next week) of all the shirts I've come up with that never got made... Some are awesome, some are armature and some you can tell were only half finished. Should be pretty great, or maybe a touch embarrassing.

The lifestyle line I'm working on myself is coming along pretty good. Actually too good, I have way to many designs to put out and not enough money to do it. So I think what we are going to do I call some favors and get a whole bunch of different sticker packs with our logos, funny phrases and just stuff that represents us and sell them in packs for 5 bucks to raise the extra money to get the line off the ground. I'm excited, I love stickers and I expect them to cover all the local dive bathrooms all over Portland, Cleveland, and where ever else we can convince our friends to buy and stick them all over. I'll post up a link to get them soon.

Oh basketball is back... I hate the NBA sometimes, a lockout with millionaires fighting with billionaires... Mr. Stern blocking trades, kids pretending to go to college only to be busts in drafts, and just a bunch terrible marketing and fan experiences. Though in the end I love the game, when it's running at full speed it reminds me of soccer and the player personalities (complicated handshakes, ridiculous rituals and tattoos, and drama on the court).
I originally fell in love with Basketball as a little kid when the Indians sucked, and the Browns games were too rowdy to take a kid under 11. My dad wanted to take me to sporting events (share his love of sports with his first born son) and the Cavs were good and played near our suburb of Cleveland. So my pops and I went to a ton of Cavs games... I got to meet Brad "Big Dookie" Daugherty, Mark Price, Larry Nance and Hot Rod Williams. Except for my burning hatred of Micheal Jordon, it was a glorious time in my life. Lebron kinda ruined basketball for me in Cleveland, just so much promise and chances at titles wasted, that I kinda stopped watching for a while... Until I moved to PDX and this only child city forced basketball back down my throat.
I've been high on the Blazers... They look good right now and despite the injuries that will obviously pile up, but the compact schedule is gonna give every team about 5 more losses than they would normally. Though I've been high on the Blazers I'm loving my Cavs... Kyrie Irvings killing it, they're playing competitive 500 basketball (which in the eastern conference is good enough for a playoff spot), and they're pretty fun to watch... They're bench is so shallow they have to scrap for everything. It's fun basketball to watch.

Like every year since I moved to PDX I went to the Blazers v. Cavs game, the series is now 2 and 2 next year will be the Dan McNinny tie breaker. Here's a picture of me and my buddy Kyle who went with me (below). Also it was not nearly as bad as last year when the Blazers beat the Cavs by over 40 pts (picture from January last year blog)

Anyways, gotta bail, look for the T-shirts that never were post soon.

Listening to:
The Basketball Jones podcast
Eagles of Death Metal, album Peace Love Death Metal