Ode to Southside (while taking a swipe at Lexington)

So, some of you may remember t's old tshirt that he thought up and had his brother make for him. The slogan was "Lexington (really large text) It's just a suburb (small text)" and the shirt's only graphic was a straight line with a single blue monolith in the middle, representing the horizon and Lexington's silhouette with its only "large" 5th/3rd building. This was during the hype before the Louisville-Jefferson County merger, when Lexington (which already had combine city/county) claimed they would be larger than Louisville in a few years. I had in my mind a series of shirts to follow, and due to a recent discovery of the www.whylouisville.com, I thought I might submit some design ideas. So here is one of the ideas I've had for a while, though I'm not sold on the slogan (maybe add a question mark after Lexington), I like the basic theme and the graphic.

Here is a sample of what the shirts might look like. The SSL is a rough draft of my Southside Louisville logo. I considered similar shirts for different regions including "Lexington? I'd rather be in J-town" with a gaslight graphic... I'm openly soliciting opinions

UPDATE: Response from whylouisville.com

"we get enough grief about our Keep Lexington Lame shirt!

Dont want to over do it so we'll pass"

Denied!

...Quick trip to NYC

So j and I just got back from Manhattan this afternoon. We went for the Louisville-Seton Hall game (I don't want to talk about it), and stayed with j's best friend since high school. I love going to NYC, and since we've been staying with friends, we've been able to actually see how people our age and (roughly) education level live. It's cramped because space really is as expensive as you've heard, but it's also great because there are so many restaurants, corner stores, and public transportation. I actually would love to live in there for a year, just for the experience, but I just don't know that it will ever happen. Ever since I heard the stories of my oldest brother taking both of his sons (age 1 and 3 at the time) on the subways with him, I've had reoccurring visions of me riding the subway with my own kid in a stroller, j and I hanging out in Central Park, and going to games at Yankee stadium (still hope to do this year before they close it next year). I'm not a Yankees fan, but you can't beat the history. Anyway, just thought I would share...

Advantages to living in Philadelphia... (pt 1)

So I often find myself kind of frustrated with Philadelphia; being that it's far from family and friends, many of the people are jerks, near constant Eagles coverage on the radio, generally dirty, etc... So I've been trying to focus on some of the things that I do like about the city so that I realize that it really isn't that bad. So I'm going to start a series in which I list things that I actually like about Philly (and hopefully help me when I've been a lazy blogger).

Advantage No. 1 to living in Philly: It's close to nearly everything on the East Coast. We're centrally located between NYC, Baltimore/DC, not too far from Boston, an hour a later from Atlantic City/beach, and so on and so forth... Since UL joined the Big East 3 years ago we've been able to go to a lot of their away games (we just went to Rutgers today, we're going to Seton Hall next weekend). So it may seem a little tongue-in-cheek to say that my favorite thing about Philly is that it so much closer to better places; but it's true, you can't really beat the location.

Commenting

Okay, apparently I used the defaults on my site to make it where you had to register in order to comment, which was never my intention. It should be set up now that you just need to do a word verification. Let me know if it is still a pain, I don't post that way on my own site so I never knew.

RIP Grandma Brey

I’ve made an unexpected return to Louisville due to the passing of my paternal grandmother, who was my last surviving grandparent. While she had lost some of her original spunk after a bout with lung cancer, she was still a free spirit that would tell it like it is and had the single trait that binds all of us Brey’s; she laughed quick and loud. When my grandfather died 20 years ago, I spent a lot of time with her, and was really close with her. She even ironed my shirts in high school, and you could always tell when I had done it myself. Here are some things that will always make me think of my Grandma:1. Hubba Bubba and Star Crunch: Grandma always had Hubba Bubba bubble gum whenever we visited. I chewed so much, that I had something like 4 cavities in my baby teeth. To the point that my Mom restricted me to sugarfree gum (except of course when Grandma would sneak me some Hubba Bubba). Star Crunch was a weird Little Debbie snack consisting of chocolate and rice crispies and maybe caramel. I have never actually bought a box, but would always have one when I was at Grandma’s house.
2. Old Milwaukee: It’s funny to hear other friends talk about their grandparents in high school, and I always had stories about how my grandma had closed a bar with my aunt. When we visited her at home, she was rarely without her Old Milwaukee. 3. Bingo: When I was in high school, one of the ways that I made money was by working at my high school’s weekly Bingo. My Grandma would go, get some Bingo sheets, her beer, her cigarettes, and play Bingo and Pulltabs all night. When she won, it was a great night for me. All I had to do is inhale second hand smoke for 3 hours every other week and keep the tables clean.

4. Angelo’s Pizza: This longtime establishment on Berry Blvd (next to the Foxy Lady) was the place where we’d get takeout pizza when we went to Grandma’s house. This was in the days before pizza boxes, so they would place the pizzas on pieces of cardboard and mushroom a piece of paper sheeting over it, so not to touch it, but it would make it impossible to stack pizzas. They also had a sitdown, 2player Galaga game and a standup Ms Pacman to play while you waited or for the occasional time that we dined at the restaurant.
5. Fisher Price Stack and Rock Baseball: Now I’m not aware of anyone else playing this game, but my brothers and I ended up using the donuts and an old wooden stick-bat for playing baseball in the back yard. I guess the mound was too close to home plate, because I now think that would be really hard with the wicked curves you could throw with those things. There was also a tree in her back yard that was perfect for climbing.

6. Boston Terriers: In the picture above, she is with her Boston terrier, Boomer. And it was the most hyper and ornery thing you’ve ever met in your life, but she just loved that dog. She once was asked about the intelligence of the grandchildren and said “Well Eric’s the smartest, then there’s Boomer, and then there’s the rest.” Eric will never let us forget it.

So that’s about all I’m going to write on my Grandmother at this time. She was a great person, and she loved and was loved dearly.

ADDENDUM: Everyone started passing around pictures and I found this one and thought it was hysterical. It’s my Grandma and Grandpa, and it just goes to show the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…