Its 1:58 am on Friday morning and I've been in a designing frenzy.  I'm at that point in the night where I've had too much coffee so my brain is racing, but my body is ready to crash. This is becoming a common occurrence these days.  The good news is - I've got three new designs that I'm submitting to MLB for approval tomorrow.  Theres a fourth in the works too, I'm hoping to finish that up Friday afternoon.   I always seem to get more accomplished when its really late at night with a little music in the headphones.  

I've been fortunate enough to have my work featured on two fairly high profile blogs in the last few days and I thought I would mention it here.  First, on www.bostondirtdogs.com where Steve Silva - the writer and web-master (and all around kick *** guy) has used my work from time to time, resulting in hundreds of people checking out my site.  I owe the Globe article last fall to exposure from his site (which resulted in a Dunkin Donuts poster campaign).  If your a Red Sox fan and have had your head in the sand for like 7 years, be sure to check it out.

A good friend of mine from college called yesterday with last minute tickets to the sox game.  He was in town from CT with a couple of friends of his. When I met the three of them down by Fenway, I was told we had 4 tickets, in two different places (2 each).  The plan was to switch off about half way through the game.  Two of the tickets were about 6 rows up from the Texas bench/homeplate area.  In the second inning my phone started blowing up with calls from friends, parents and old co-workers with the news that my mug was showing up on television every time the camera zoomed on a right handed batter.  I thought it was funny to hear that but not that big of a deal.  After the game, I made it home in time to catch the replay on NESN.  Curious what my fat head looked like on the small screen, i tuned in.  What I found was an almost constant shot of me spitting sunflower seed shells into a cup.  File under: Classy

My hands still have wet ink on them as I type this - which explains the red fingerprints on the keyboard.  I really should be more careful with my beloved mac. 

I'm sitting here watching the All-Star game, enjoying the one time a year I can root for Mariano Rivera.  The score is tied 3-up in the ninth and it seems that the mid-summer classic is delivering in a big way this year.  I expected the typical AL trouncing, but the NL is at least making a game of it. Hopefully we will lock up home field for the World Series. 

Saturday I went down to The Yawkey Way Store for fan appreciation day.  I arrived and saw a table with a stack of posters on it, and a sign that said "Chris Speakman signs his famous Dunkin Donuts Posters".  After a roll of the eyes and a smirk, I sat down and took in the scene.  There seemed to be a pretty solid turnout of fans, mostly families with children.  Jim Rice, Hazel Mae, Joe Morgan and some other former red sox players were in the back of the store signing autographs.  It was a funny thought that I was there "signing" as well.  If you had your choice between a Chris Speakman autograph and a Jim Rice...which would you choose?  Well luckily nobody had to choose, I wouldn't want to show up Jim :)  I'm kidding of course, my only thought was that I may sit there all day without signing a single poster.  

Speaking of the team store...I made my first couple of retail sales this week - the Red Sox Team Store, and Newbury Comics will now both be carrying my offset posters.  It will be really cool for me to see them in these stores - and hopefully the first of more retail spots to help me get my work out there.  I'm really excited for this as it will be a big part of the business end of it all going forward.

For the past 9 years myself and three friends have had a season ticket package in the center field bleachers at Fenway.  We sit right on the end of the row and have two seats.  We are pretty fortunate to have a package that includes all the weekend and holiday games.  So I usually go to about 8-14 games a year.  Every year the four of us purchase 1 extra game where all four of us can go and enjoy the atmosphere together.  I usually find that these games are more of a social event than a "watch every pitch" kind of game.  So friday was the this years game and we had a blast, got to see the Cardinals come to town and probably had one or two more beers than the surgeon general would recommend.  We ended up with seats that were as far away from home plate as possible and still be technically inside the park.  I was looking at the Dunkin Donuts suite on the first base side (i could barely see it from such a distance), remembering fondly the game they invited me too a few months back and I was able to live like a king.  That being said, I still take pride in having seats at all, and being with the real fans in the bleachers.  Even though the sox lost, we had a blast and I'm already looking forward to next years game.  

I finally got to finish the Jon Lester no-hitter print.  Here is the print with the first two colors applied next to the final:

I received final approval on the Jon Lester Design and I have some really exciting news to report.  Jon's Agent requested that a number of prints to be donated directly to Jon so he can auction them for his charity - which of course I'm MORE than willing to do.  He also asked if he could have some prints for Jon's own personal use, which i found to be a really nice compliment.  So as a result, I'm planning on donating the first 20 numbers in the edition to Jon for charitable use.  I of course got right to work and spent the day printing the first color which is a metallic silver.