The Silver Jubilee

It was yet another great night to watch baseball in Downtown Buffalo yesterday evening and festivities were in abundance. The game itself was a rather boring game, but for any fan it was worth their money. I was able to take in some of the sights and sounds below . . .

The first pitch.

The Cone Head

The Herd.

Special Appearance by the Earl of Bud!

The man on my farm, one of the best farms in baseball.

Title screen

This . . .

. . . plus this . . .

. . . equals this.

Wil Meyers (Omaha Stormchasers) and Matt Harvey (Buffalo Bisons) are the Pacific Coast League and International League champs, respectively.

The grand finale!

I was disappointed that my dad needed the camera. I knew if I gave it to him, I would be missing some of the things I wanted to capture - including the introduction of the Earl of Bud. Oh well, many others got to catch it! The whole Bisons staff did a magnificent job putting these events together and I look forward to more!

-Ricky

Thomas and Mack?

I had to pull this one out of a hat. I was lucky to find this since the vault tank reads empty. I found this from working on Tom Vopni's Las Vegas Vipers logo. This was the winning logo in the designing the Las Vegas Vipers portion of a contest on HJC a year ago.

I decided to give their "New home" a try with a rink layout. They'd probably wind up at UNLV's Thomas and Mack Center. At least they wouldn't be playing at the Caesar's Palace parking lot like the Kings and Rangers did in an exhibition game did in 1993. Anyway, Hope you like it . . . More all star stuff tomorrow!

-Ricky

AAA Home Run Derby

I'm gonna let the pictures talk here. It was a great night for baseball in downtown Buffalo. Take it all in!

The one, the only, Conehead!

First and second round scores were combined.

Champions Gronkowski and Pascucci

Celebrity Derby winner Rob Gronkowski (New England Patriots)

Mets prospect Valention Pascucci.

Special appearance by the Famous Chicken!

 -Ricky

Monday, Monday

Today comes an idea spawned for the HJC Open. The Dilbert comic strip lands on BNG's blog. This is the shirt and tie that Dilbert wears at the office.His "arms are visible since it's  a short sleeve dress shirt.

What would Dogbert think?

I know this is dull for today, but I'm posting Home Run Derby photos tomorrow!

-Ricky

The Rendering

Unfortunately I will be entertaining my guests, the first of whom arrived this afternoon. They're swell guys but I can't devote time to them and the blog, so the blogs for the remainder of the week through Friday will be pre-written and slated for posting.However, I did want to share with you the original drawing of the collaboration of my room - fairly accurate I'd say.

The general idea (from June 2011)

Well it seems to have turned out very well and I am pleased. I will be covering the festivities of the MLB and AAA All-Star Games. The 25th AAA All-Star Game Is being hosted by my Buffalo Bisons as well as the home run derby and celebrity all-star softball game. The Famous Chicken is making an Extra stop to Coca-Cola Field tomorrow (Monday) in addition to the usual one summer game. The Herd got to the .500 mark, good enough for 4th place in the Northeast Division. The Pacific Coast League (PCL/opposing) manager is Marty Brown, IL Governor's Cup winner when he managed the 2004 Bisons. All of the above is the purpose for my guests' visit - and my inviting them.

This site may be boring concept-wise, but there should be many photos from the other events up here. I will also have them up on my (personal) Facebook account too. Details will be added later for the posts on this blog. Bye for now.

-Ricky

The Finishing Touch (of Phase II)

I just got back from Lake Chautauqua and guess what - my free-hand stencil is finished! I still have to paint the floor blue, but the closet has also been completed. My guests this week will be among the first to view my masterpiece in person. Here are the finalized products:

The "Big A of the East" . . . literally! 

A closet-ful of fun?

Anyway, I'm glade the featurette of the room can shine brightly so all can bask in it's glory. The climax is behind us as we approach the home stretch of this project. I will have decorative photos upon completion of the floor. In the mean time, I have to run as I make final preparations for our guests to be.

-Ricky

No Time for Later

Not only is the title a description of today, it is also a song written and performed by The Trews (as well as the album of the same name). I thought about how much fun I have with a training colored ball of this type. I'd have to find it so you can see on a later date. The below has been in my portfolio for a while.

Courtesy of Adidas.

My personal Teamgeist . . . couldn't find the one with the yellow and brown switched.

The fictional Newfoundland Labradors Teamgeist.

I am off to continue painting at the property in Chautauqua so I have nothing else to report.

-Ricky

"Timber, er . . . Avalanche!"

Justin Cox at "The Art of Hockey" wants to give his hometown Colorado Avalanche a new look. So I took it upon myself to give it a go too. This one is probably the best one I have done yet (in regards to hockey templates)! He wants to keep the third jersey - as would I.  It is based on the current third jersey for the Phoenix Coyotes, the one with the trotting fox on it. I feel this particular design helps support the third jersey much better.

Paul Stastny's new duds?

The professionalism of this concept brings a tear to my eye, especially since I wanted to promise better concepts than in the recent past. This is a good step in the right direction to my promise, and I hope to provide more of the same. Good-bye until later.

-Ricky

Truly an American Idea

My father forbade me (sort of) from using the computer so he and I could finish painting the deck along with other outdoor maintenance. So I am now finally here.

My welcome page.

The above has been my Google homepage since probably January of this year, a page I only cycle when I get bored of it. But yet I almost never use my homepage and go directly to whichever site I'm browsing. Anyway, how appropriate to finish the concept of a genuine American game-show and a spectacular American holiday - despite the Declaration of Independence being actually drafted on July second. Heck, even John Adams inaccurately predicted how there would be such exotic festivities on this day (2 July) . . . well, he got the celebratory part right.

4 July, 2008

So the blue for the Price is Right looks good in some spots and bad in others.

It wasn't easy, but it had to be done.

The Price is Right Blue Collection

Home, Road, Alternate

The alternate in this set seems to ruin the schematics, but I'm trying to make do with what I have and can do with it. Given that, let's put this to beddy-bye for now. Hoping to get better quality stuff following the past week. Happy concocting!

-Ricky

An Apology . . .

We experienced a minor issue as yesterday's post wasn't submitted properly and did not show. I had done it first thing in the morning and set a time stamp for 3:30 PM yesterday. As for today, the second summer session for school began for me. Instead of being at Erie Community College (ECC) South from 8-10:30 on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays I am now at ECC North from 10:45-2:30 Tuesdays and Thursdays(all times Eastern Daylight). In addition, it's at least twice the distance to North Campus than South from my place. Then I biked out for lunch as soon as I got back from school, then had to get ready and leave for work. I hadn't had time for myself until now . . .

Anyway, this one's new.

The Price is Right Orange Collection

Home, Road, Alternate

I wanted to try one of the other two color schemes.

Courtesy of www.qwizx.com

I might as well have the blue one ready tomorrow. They say that more often than not, double blue jerseys don't turn out well. I'm going to give it another go. Until then!

-Ricky

Failure to Launch

(originally "A Trip to Burbank")

A few years ago I came upon a website called Qwizx dot com which has everything game show from several countries, especially the US. I found some bonus items from The Price is Right in regards to schemes, effects, etc . . . and I decided to take something from it, a good idea but bad colors to work with. This was the result:

The Price is Right Green Collection
Home, Road, Alternate

Typically, Ryan at HJC would be hounding me for leaving the NHL logo in various places, but I always think it is fun to see them as an "NHL franchise" at all. The actual idea can be seen below.

Courtesy of www.qwizx.com

Maybe I could get this to work for St. Patty's Day if I can play around with the provided shades of green. This was done some time last year. You can obviously tell that the above scheme matched the Carolina Hurricanes scheme (and template at HJC) but it has failed. At least I had the appropriate wordmark! That does it for today.

-Ricky

Working for the Weekend

As mentioned yesterday, I was at our family's lake-house painting my room in LA Angels decor. With almost no help (a guest helped start who said she loved painting rooms), I finished two and three quarters worth walls with two coats each. I also did a second coat on the young lady's quarter of the wall. This is what we started with:

The middle room.

After two days worth of work, with me being a courteous host between coats I ended up with this:

Phase I - The Walls.

After the last wall was re-coated, it was off to home depot to get a gallon each for the LAA Navy for the logo/floor and a basic silver for the halo on the logo/closet in addition to a pint each of white and LAA Red for the logo stencil. A dramatized version can be seen below.

You can figure it out.

This will be finished next weekend on our next trip there. You will be able to see the final product pictures then. I can't wait to share them with you!

-Ricky