Chick-Phil-A

Opening Day Arts and Crafts - A Chooch to answer all your questions.

Since seeing the commercial for MLB 2K11 with Roy Halladay talking to a Carlos Ruiz pillow I have wanted a Chooch pillow of my own to guide  me in my daily decisions.  I did some brainstorming to try and figure out how to make one.

Finally, this week, I had some time to gather supplies and actually attempt this project.  I thought it would be fitting for an Opening Day arts and crafts project.

I gathered all the supplies I would need - a white twin sheet from IKEA, Iron On transfer inkjet printing paper, pollyfill, and a few photos of players I had taken in the last year or so.

The paper only comes commercially in regular letter size, so I decided to start small and see how it would turn out.

I used Photoshop Elements to extract individual players from photos to use as the graphic for the mini pillows.  I then flipped the image and printed it onto the transfer paper.

 Supplies gathered!

I cut out each player shape, ironed it onto the sheet, cut it out with a matching back and sewed around the edges.

 Roy's all sewn up.

Not much left to do but stuff with pollyfill and hand stitch the opening where I stuffed the mini pillow.

 Shane's stuffed!

And here are the finished products:

 

 

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Our cat, Rhett, became very curious about these new mini people...

 It was pretty easy to do.  Now I am going to keep a better eye on my camera subjects to make sure I get some good "pillow worthy" shots and make a few more.  I think it would be fun to have a mini plush 25 man roster.  Or take mini Chooch around and take photos of him visiting places, like the Travelocity gnome (ha ha).

 Chooch says: "Keep running"!  He's like a mini motivational figure on my treadmill.

Anyway - time to get a move on and get to the game.  See all you crazy kids in Lot K around 10 am!!

Odds and Ends - Phillies Photo Day 2010

So July came and went.  I can't believe that we are already halfway through August!!!  Only like, 7 weeks of the regular season left, and division races are pretty freaking close in 5 out of 6 divisions of the MLB.  Pretty exciting.

This is the 1st weekend in about 2 months I have not attended a Phillies game in person.  It was kind of weird to not be at a ballpark for a few hours.  At the same time it was kind of nice to actually have nothing on the agenda and just relax and get some stuff done around the house - like actually unpack our CDs (we moved over 2 years ago).

Anyway - as I wait for the 3rd and final game in this Phillies/Mets series to happen tonight, I figured I'd throw up a few more photos and what not from my July Phillies adventures.  Enjoy!

PHILLIES PHOTO DAY - JULY 24, 2010

This was the first year I actually had tickets for Photo day!  I was really excited - no 100 degree + heat index was going to keep me away from possibly getting photos with some Phillies players.  Mr. ChickPhilA was in San Diego at ComiCon, so I took my mom with me, who was also really excited.

I didn't know what to expect when we got there - it actually wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be.  We got there when gates opened and went right down onto the field, found a good spot near the Southwest sign in left center and waited.  And waited. And waited.  In the meantime, I did buy a Phillies yearbook from the roaming vendors - free leftover Charlie Manuel bat with purchase!! yes please!!

Finally, the broadcast team started making the rounds.  I was really kind of excited for this - to see LA and Scott in particular.  LA and Sarge were playing by the rules - not coming over to the rope to take photos with people, but they were looking ever so stylish.  So was the Phanatic's Mom - with her Chanel outfit:

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I was actually able to get a photo with Scott, though - I was pretty excited to meet him:

Most of the players were stopping for pics, but I was so excited just to shake their hand, say a few words...any my mom kept forgetting to snap photos during it ha ha.  I was able to get a few good close shots of the guys though.  Chase, Jayson, Ryan, Chooch:

 

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There were a few people that I actually did get to take photos with.  Chad Durbin, Vance Worley (had a funny convo. with him actually - it was towards the end of the photo time, and most people had already filtered out.  No one knew who he was, it was kind of funny.  When he came around I said to him, "It's a bit different here than in Reading, huh?"  He laughed and said, "Oh man, you have no idea, this is unreal."  Later that day, of course, he would make his MLB debut and pitch a scoreless inning for the Phills, then be sent down to AAA - it was neat to have that moment with him on such a momentous day for him).  Last but not least - I was able to chat with and get a photo with Charlie - tooo coooool!!!  That made the whole standing out in the sun all afternoon totally worth it.

 

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So my 1st Phillies photo day was a success.  Hope to go again next year (and not be so "starstruck" perhaps...).

Later on - More photos from our Baseball road trip to Chicago!

 

 

Braves Organist plays Mr. Softee!!! Ice Cream for EVERYONE!!

I love the organist @ the Ted.  First - I'm just happy that they have a real organist still who actually plays (instead of just canned music) and second - I really appreciate the thought that goes into each and every song he picks to play for the opposing teams hitters.

Case in point - this week when the Phillies were in Atlanta the following songs were played for our guys:

Holiday Road for "Chevy Chase" Utley

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (also for Utley)

Jesus is just alright with me - for Werth

RAUUUUUUUULLLLL werewolves of London

The theme from The Office for Ryan "the intern" Howard

Doobie Brothers songs for Greg Dobbs

When I'm 64 for Old Man Moyer

What's even more awesome is that he is on Twitter and actively is asking for thoughts and suggestions from the fans.  I don't think he was prepared for the onslaught of Phillies fans with active musical imaginations.

Last night people started asking about some kind of ice cream songs for our favorite cone loving catcher, and he was confused, and offered to maybe play a Van Halen song about ice cream.  

I thought "holy crap  - no he needs to play the mr. softee truck song!!!" and i promptly found the sheet music online and tweeted it to him:

I didn't hear anything back from him. I thought to myself - maybe he needs more proof that Chooch loves Ice Cream (last night he didn't even know that Carlos Ruiz = Chooch, so how in the world would he know about his love for Ice Cream) so I sent him this link to the wonderful site Tug from The Fightins made last year:

 

I still didn't hear anything from @bravesorganist all day, but kept my hopes up. I wondered if he even knew what Mr. Softee was.  Do they have that in Atlanta? (I just looked, no - they don't - it's a company started in Philly and now based in Runnemede NJ - though they do have a few trucks down in Tampa/St. Pete - which makes a ton of sense now).

Well - he did it - he played the Mr. Softee song!!  For Chooch!!  Literally ICE CREAM FOR CHOOCH!!! Did he play it from my prodding - I have no idea, but I'm going to think he did :)  

Very Very awesome.

Thank you @bravesorganist!!