Gettin' Creative

Good Morning. Man, I tell you it's SO nice to have daylight at 5:35am when I get up to walk my dog! :) Anyways, a lot of things to discuss so let's get to it. Early last week the Milwaukee Torrent (Wisconsin's new pro soccer team that will be arriving in 2016) released a few "sample" ideas of kits the players could wear. The majority of the fans were not impressed, so I took the liberty and submitted some ideas to the Facebook page. The results were surprisingly all positive! Pictured here, is the very first one I posted. When I decided to design a kit, I typically use Adobe Illustrator. It's a very useful graphic design tool, and anything that I've ever designed from scratch, I've always used that program. Well, we don't have Illustrator on our new computer so what I did was search the internet for any blank kits or ideas on how to go about designing a soccer jersey on Google. I discovered a designer who put together a simple kit using layers in Photoshop. He set up a link for anyone to download the kit with simple instructions on how to add color, your logo etc etc. So, after I submitted this, everyone was fired up, and wanted to see other color combos.  So, I submitted these combos. The majority of the people liked the blue/black combo (I do too, honestly) so we'll see what comes of this. It's been an exciting experience and I had got a message from the Torrent saying "we'll call you soon, thank you for all of your artwork".

Wednesday, Mia and I did a little Trader Joe's shopping. I don't remember what else we did, but it was a pretty low-key day. Just hoping this week we get a lot of nice weather. Friday, she had school. They learned about the Earth and how to protect her. When I came to pick her up, she was coloring a picture of the Earth. She told me she forget to take her chalk out for recess so she just hung out sitting on the chair howling at one of the boys in her class. Cute, right? Friday night, my brother, my Dad and Myself drove to a very wet Chicago, Illinois to watch the Fire take on NYCFC. My Dad has been wanting to see NYC play since they joined the MLS this year, but the player he was hoping to watch, we found out on the way down was injured. OOPS! Traffic was insane and the pouring rain didn't help, but we eventually made it with 20 minutes to spare. When we got our tickets, I thought to myself "man, we could have got a lot closer for just $10 more" but with the wind and rain, I was content sitting where we were. It was fun that this was my brother's FIRST MLS game, and of course he got heckled anytime a Fire fan saw him. He was wearing his bright blue NYCFC shirt. Right away in the parking lot a guy from a small bus yelled at him as he was ran into the portapotty "THERE'S ALWAYS ONE ASS-HOLE IN THE BUNCH! PROBABLY A PACKERS FAN TOO!" Throughout the walk around the grounds, people were booing at him, one guy growling at him but he felt better when some guy high-fived him wearing NYCFC gear too. His friend Brett was a section below us and also got heckled in his NYC gear. The game was pretty good for a 1-0 result (Fire winning) A guy from NYC got a red early in the game for a sloppy trip. After that, NYCFC couldn't get a good shot and played defensively the entire game. We left with a little time left in the game to beat traffic. Since we didn't eat dinner (and the lines for the concession were INSANE) we stopped at an Oasis right before entering Wisconsin. The food prices were a lot cheaper then the Fire's. I can't justify spending $11 on nachos. No. Never.  We were all pretty worn out when we got back to my house, but when I got in, both Jill and Mia were fast asleep. Turns out Mia wanted to wait up for me.

Saturday, we went to a baby shower for Jill's coworker/pal Heather. Mia was a great girl and not too shy with the guests. She even helped out handing out gifts for us to open. Saturday evening, we went to my bro's hockey game. They lost 3-0 but he had a nice breakaway. Mia asked him post-game "So, why didn't you get any goals??" Sunday was Chelsea vs Arsenal. I was anxiously waiting for this day. I wanted Chelsea to beat Arsenal which would pretty much guarantee the EPL title. With not a striker starting and having Oscar at the helm, we did our very best to keep them back. The scariest moment was the spearing from the Arsenal keeper right through Oscar. After he got up, he looked in rough shape like he had a concussion. At the 2nd half, Drogba came in and the announcers said that Oscar went to the hospital for brain scans. The results was a draw at 0-0, so we'll take the point and win the next few games to claim the title.

Mia has parent-teacher conferences this week and starts soccer on SATURDAY. Should be a busy week. I need to nail the 2nd and third kit for the Torrent ASAP. Thanks for reading!!