The San Diego Zoo and a Lunch at the Hopping Pig

    One of the “must see” spots we wanted to hit was the Zoo.  It was supposed to be one of the nicer zoo’s to see in the U.S. so to not go would just be silly.  The Zoo opened at 9am and we were there right at that time.  This zoo was gigantic.  The entire layout felt as if you were taking a weird paved stroll through a jungle.  It was really impressive.  I found myself able to take some really awesome photos, close up.  I’m not sure if its just a common thing, or maybe we were just lucky, but many of the animals were as close to us as they could possibly be.

These two were rough housing under water while we watched.

Seeing this guy brought some mixed feelings about the zoo.  These things are so human-like, that its hard not to look at them as slaves or prisoners.   They did state several times while walking through the zoo, that these animals end up living way longer than they normally would in the wild, but still…

Talking about the upcoming NFL draft…

This was a site to see….the panda!  With only like 1600 of these things left on this earth, getting to see the Panda was awesome.  This panda was totally relaxed in his tree stump recliner eating some veggies in the sun, living it up.  He was not as sad (or sad looking) as the orangutan.  I could be wrong though…maybe the orangutan wasn’t sad at all.   Maybe he was just as enthused as I’d be with people pointing at me while I tried enjoying lunch…

For 40 bucks a ticket, the San Diego Zoo ended up being worth the trip.  It was a gorgeous day, nice breeze, and great way to spend a few hours.

For lunch we headed back into the city to the Gas Lamp District, an area in the city loaded with shops, places to eat, and pubs.  I had Nicole pick the lunch destination and she surprised me by picking a place that was right up my alley, the “Hopping Pig”.  The Hopping Pig is a little place with an open front, some exposed brick, great taps, nice menu, and cool background music (I believe they played The Smiths the entire time we were there).  Having driven, I only treated myself to one beer, Port Brewery’s Erasure IPA, which was solid.  Nicole ordered the Short Ribs and I ordered the Yellow Tail.

The result of two awesomely prepared dishes! 

   I was pretty happy Nicole found this place, as these are commonly the places I seek out when going out of town.  Similar places to the “Blue Monk” in Buffalo, “Hop Leaf” in Chicago, and now I’ve had the pleasure of relaxing at “The Hopping Pig” in San Diego.  Like Cube says….

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San Diego Pretty Sweet….

   I’m terrible at blogging, I fully admit.  I keep forgetting.  But I remembered now!  That’s whats most important right!?  Well, Nicole and I are in San Diego and it’s been awesome.  San Diego is way better than San Fran.  Last year we went to San Fran, it was nice……beautiful scenery, great weather, begging, 20 year old homless, etc…….San Diego?  Great weather, beautiful scenery, great beer, great food.   San Diego wins.   Nicole and I have enjoyed our time here.  I love Buffalo, but man, after this winter, San Diego was like heaven.  Nicole couldn’t even drink…..shes a trooper.  I’m not going to lie.   The main reason I wanted to go to San Diego was to drink amazing beer…and that, I did.  As I type this, I haven’t even gotten to Stone yet!
Let me start with this……the staple of the west coast, is that you cannot get good pizza.  I was proven wrong.  I fully admit.  Chicago and New York are kings for pizza, and from everything I have experienced and from everything I have heard, there is shit for pizza on the West.  I was proven wrong this weekend, and pleasantly impressed!  Woodstock’s Pizza on Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach is tasty!  Delicious Pizza and top notch beer.  One thing I noticed while in San Diego….every place you go that is able to serve alcohol, has great beer.   We have come a long way in Buffalo with our craft beer scene, but there are still too many places that have a predominant menu of Bud, Coors, Molson, and Sam Adams.

Lets Get back to Woodstock’s.  I ordered the BBQ chicken pizza with a pint of freaking Union jack from Firestone Walker.

I’m a pizza snob.  One might even call me “a dick”.  Whatever, I’ve worked pizza since legal working age, so I know it.  Woodstock’s is as good as you’re going to get not being from NY or Chicago.

     My stepfather and I went out one night after the ladies were asleep in search of a beer oasis.  We found it at the Taproom.  Let me start by saying, that if you are on the West Coast, you should be constantly searching for Russian River’s Pliny The Elder.  I won’t even go into detail about it….if you are into craft beer….do some research. Needless to say, we were lucky enough to run into a freshly tapped barrel which they get only once a week, and gets kicked in a little more than a day.  It’s easily a top 5 IPA of all time.  I had one of those, along with Russian River’s “Blind Pig” which is an IPA, and then Stone’s Ruination on Cask.   The Ruination on Cask was like liquid gold.  If you don’t appreciate cask beer, then you can’t say you are a fan of beer.  With a cask beer, you taste beer in its purest form. If you think of it as just “flat beer”, than you failed to grab the pebble from the master’s hand.  You fu*king failed to capture a fly in the chop sticks and sure as shit didn’t perform the crane kick from a stoop.  The Ruination Cask was sick, and was the best beer I had while in San Diego (so far, I have yet to reach Stone!).

Are you kidding?

Ruination on Cask

Pliney

This trip has been sweet so far.  I’ll have more updates as they come.  I can’t wait till Stone!

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We will be closing for vacation 4/19-4/25

   Nicole and I are taking off soon for California for Vacation!  Our Etsy and eBay stores will be closed on 4/19 and reopening 4/25.  Our website will be open (unless I can find a way to close it!) but please be advised that if you order from the site, the package will not be mailed out until we return.  I will send an email  to you alerting you of this. I get all of your emails, so if you have any questions feel free to contact me!

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Bear with me! The business plan for the rest of the year!

   Things have been ridiculously hectic as of late.  My wife is pregnant, we are headed to San Diego in one week, I’m pounding out all your orders, and I’m transforming out entire stock,  That’s right, things are changing big time.  My goal with the Super Sweet Shirt Co. was to have a company that I ran with pride.  I have put out amazing shirts out for 5 years, selling thousands of shirts on my eBay, Etsy, and home site, every year improving more and more.  We have 100% feedback in all of our stores, which doesn’t mean we haven’t made mistakes, but have had the kind of customer service that made people glad we made a mistake.  I’ve reached a point were I need more.  Not more business, but more personal gratification.  That is why we are slowly replacing our inventory with American Apparel.  The entire process was a total pain in the ass, but totally worth it.   This was a big decision.  The reason being is that there would be a price increase.  American Apparel is top notch American made clothing made in L.A. California.  For years we have been using standard 100% cotton shirts made by Gildan or Fruit of the Loom , which are common brands used by a majority of screen printers.  American Apparel is flat out better.  Our shirts will flat out be better than our competition.  If your are unfamiliar with American Apparel, please visit the site below:

http://www.americanapparel.net/aboutus/

These shirts are made with the best quality cotton, the best stitching, and a way better fit than your standard shirts.

For the next few months we will be replacing our inventory with these shirts.  I have decided to continue offering a “Standard Shirt”  option in all of our designs for the rest of the year in case there are people who don’t want to pay for a better quality shirt.   Our Toddler Shirts and our womens shirts will not have the “standard option” and are changing over to 100% American Apparel.  The men’s shirts will have the option to purchase a cheaper “standard” version.  After a year, we will take a look at what we sold, and decide if we need to continue offering the “standard shirt”.
So far the feedback has been awesome, especially from the women.  I’m hoping that eventually we won’t need to offer anything but American Apparel Shirts.

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The Mario Lopez Moment

   A few posts back, I posted the picture that was sent to me by the folks over at “Daytime” in Tampa.  In case you missed it, they contacted me to send them our “Slater Onesie“, because they wanted to give him a little gift for the baby that he and his wife are expecting. To sum it up quick, I figured it was a scam, but went with it anyways.  Boy was I wrong.  They sent me a picture of him holding the onesie, and this week the video has been posted.  I took the video and cut it down because he was on there for 15 minutes.

I gotta say, it’s a surreal experience to watch A.C. Slater receive a gift from me, not only just to receive it, but to visibly see that he loved it!  My favorite part of this video is watching him show someone off camera in excitement while the show is wrapping up.

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Super Busy!

    Sometimes it can be tough trying to figure out things to write about in this blog.  I could easily just post shirt related things every day, but that would get boring.  I like to mix it up.  Today I’ll throw this into the mix:

Yup! My wife and I are having a baby!  The room we have been working on is actually going to be the nursery.  The last update I had on that room was drywall work and the removal of the ancient wallpaper.  I’ll have some pictures of the progress in there this week, along with some updates on some of the things we want to do in there.  Now that this news has been announced, it will be a little easier to communicate plans and ideas.  This blog has been a little slow lately, that’s about to change!

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A Serious Addition to Our Toddler Shirts.

   I am excited to start doing black toddler shirts.  The focus for the first part of 2013 has been expanding our toddler shirts section.  What a way to kick it off by adding a bad ass straight edge toddler shirt.  I still chuckle at little kids wearing straight edge shirts.  I mean, of course they are drug free, otherwise their parents should be arrested!  With all of that said, I present to you:

These are now available in our Etsy and eBay stores and will be up on the main site in a few days.  Don’t let your little one leave the house without looking super intense!

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Big sale at ETSY!

  We dropped a bunch of items in our Etsy store in the SALE section, check it out.  These items are limited to the size in the description, so be sure to check that section out first because supplies are limited and they go fast!  I’ll be adding new items all week until I clear some of this stuff out of here!

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A Real Slater onesie!

  Its been a while since my last post, things have been busy and sort of hectic.  A little over a week ago, I was contacted by the producer of a TV show down in Florida called, “Daytime”.  I was a bit skeptical of the call due to the nature of the request.  They informed me that Mario Lopez was going to be coming on their show and that they wanted me to send them our “Slater Onesie” because he was expecting a baby soon.  I was pretty excited.  I grew up watching that show and I was a pretty big fan.

The producer told met that they would be taping the show ahead of time and then it would air in April.  I sucked it up and mailed out the onesie, hoping that it wasn’t some prank or scam.  Days later…it totally paid off!

Thanks to “Daytime” in Tampa!

This had has pretty much been the ultimate highlight so far since I started screenprinting.  I mean look at this….

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New Steve Martin Shirt

    The other day I was doing some work, and all of a sudden I started laughing randomly, by myself.  Random thoughts sometimes pop into my head, this time that thought was from “The Jerk”.  This scene in particular is what I am referring to:

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/Tcwz8-EfFYE&source=uds

I decided it was time to pay tribute to Steve Martin with this shirt!

This shirt is now available in our Etsy and eBay shops and should be up on the site sometime next week.

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