STAINS!

It seems to me that every time I get a HUGE stain on my shirt, it’s the first time I’ve worn it. Today I wore a NFL jersey and dripped Arby’s Sauce all over the number on the front of the jersey, of course the numbers are white. These jerseys cost $120 BUCKS!!!!

A lot of people recommend getting a jersey dry cleaned, I tried it, the jersey wasn’t the same when I got it back. Some of the patch got really messed up so I don’t reccomend it for hockey or football jerseys. Do this at your own risk!

Now I am scouring the internet looking for proper stain removal/laundry tips so I figured since I work for Excel Sportswear I should probably blog about this to assist a customer if it happens to them on their Excel t-shirt. So here goes…

1. ACT FAST- Brand new stains are the easiest to get rid of!

2. READ ALL DIRECTIONS- Don’t just start dumping every stain remover you have onto your garment and ALWAYS test it first on a hidden area if possible.

3. INSIDE THE SHIRT- You want to make sure that when you spray any kind of stain remover on your garment you do so from inside or behind the stain.

4. USE EXTREME CAUTION WITH DRY CLEANING SOLUTION- These can be extremely dangerous if used incorrectly. If you decide to use any be sure to rinse thoroughly and let dry before you put it in the washing machine if not it could result in a FIRE!

5. NEVER SPOT CLEAN WITH BLEACH- If you decide to use bleach for stain removal consider doing the whole garment in bleach rather than 1 spot. The reason being is it may result in uneven color consistency throughout the shirt.

6. NEVER MIX SOLUTIONS- This can result in harmful odors and results for your clothes may vary.

7. ALWAYS WASH GARMENT AFTER APPLYING SOLUTION ON IT- Don’t just put stain remover on it and forget about it. If you don’t you could have residue left behind AND you don’t want them chemicals against your bare skin!

8. DON’T RUSH- You want to make sure you thoroughly clean your garment. If it takes 2 or 3 washings, so be it.

You can find these tips but more in depth at About.com

The 44th Annual National Tractor Pulling Championships in Bowling Green Ohio were a blast! It was a humbling experience to see so many of our shirts walking around the fairgrounds and great to put faces with so many of our customers.The pullers were a fun bunch, the fans were more than enthuastiac, and the event coordinators were hospitable and took care of everything we needed. It was great to see the looks on the faces of the fans and kids when they were shooting the promotional Excel Sportswear t-shirts out of the shirt cannon. Congratulations to all of the ring winners. I know that is something that everyone wants, but few can obtain. Thank you again to everyone that made this years trip a success (and fun), Im sure you will see Excel Sportswear at future pulling events.

Congratulations to the 2010 NTPC Ring Winners

SS Diesel  -  Brian Shramek / Young Blood

Super Farm – Larry Sheets / Red Rider

Modifieds – Adam Bauer / Cross-Threaded

4WD Trucks – Scott Phillips / Yankee Blue

2WD Trucks – Jeff Bartley / Lumberjack

Open SS – Terry Blackbourn / Extremely Armed & Dangerous

Unlimiteds – Bill Vories / American Thunder

Modified Minis – Jason Hathaway / Honkin’ Donkey

Pro Stock – Kevin & Danny Schmucker / Rampage

Semis – J.R. Collins / Buckeye Bulldog

LSS – Brian Korth / Considered Armed & Dangerous

Everyone loves stickers and we just got in a new batch!

If you’d like one of our new Excel Sportswear stickers, send a self addressed, stamped, business size envelope to:

I want a sticker!
c/o Excel Sportswear
15 Forbes Road
Trafford, PA 15085

Are you a Gamer?

How many people in the world game?

When I say “game” I mean anything, whether it’s Farmville, Tetris Online (My Addiction), WoW, or your favorite console game. It seems like everyone plays some sort of online game now-a-days. Actually, in America, Social Network games are upending other game outlets and sales are dropping.

So, since a lot of us here at Excel are gamers, we were thinking about starting a clan with employees, customers, and basically anyone that plays and would like to join our clan. We would like to do this with an already established PC game such as TeamFortress 2, Counter Strike, or World of Warcraft. I just mentioned these games because a lot of us here already play them. If you have a different game to suggest please do.

We work hard here and like to play hard as well and would like to have some fun with other gamers we talk to everyday but never knew they played. If you are a customer of ours, you already know how to contact us if not feel free to contact us and Let The Games Begin!

For more on this and many other topics follow us on Twitter

@excelsportswear

@jgeyer412

@apetrosky

Excel has some great things in the works right now…

WE HAVE A WINNER! Keith Russell’s name was drawn for the 23″ ViewSonic Monitor contest! Congrats Keith! Very soon everyone will have more chances to WIN some really cool swag such as… YEAH RIGHT, you’re going to have to check back for that, but believe, it will be full of AWESOME.

Currently, we are patiently awaiting the arrival of our new Falcon-M, 8 Color-10 Station Automatic Printing Press. This will boost productivity BIG time and ensure fast turn-around for our customers.

A bunch of us here have been putting a lot of time into getting our new artists web community, P*art* of Life off the ground. P*art* of Life is one of Excels Facebook pages at the moment and we plan on doing some pretty cool stuff resulting in expanding this to much more than just a page. Everyone has some type of art inside them and we and the rest of the world would love to see it. Feel free to post anything art-related to the page but you must “Like” it first in order for you to be able to post.

As I type, 2 members of our sales force Al and Patti are in Bowling Green, Ohio, for the 44th National Tractor Pulling Championships which just started today and ends Sunday the 22nd of August. Our booth is located in “The Pits” and we will be there until the curtain closes. Feel free to stop by, say hello, and enter to WIN 48 FREE custom t-shirts. Also, look for the guy shooting the t-shirt gun, and be sure to have your hands in the air because we donated a bunch of shirts, so don’t miss it.

At the beginning of every school year there is a student/parent rush for new school clothes, supplies, book bags, books, and computers. A lot of people are under the impression that they need a new laptop because the one they have is old and slow. If your laptop is newer than 4 years old, you may not need a  new laptop. What you may need is a new Operating System.

The problem is most students don’t have the money for a new laptop, or Windows 7, the latest operating system from Microsoft.

What these, and a lot of others may not know, is that there is now a fast, reliable, and easy to use alternative to Windows. What I am speaking of is a flavor of Linux called Ubuntu, and it is 100% free.

Instead of replacing that old laptop with a new one, install Ubuntu and you will notice it is nearly as fast as the day you bought it. Ubuntu has a little different look and feel but after you explore a little bit you’ll find it isn’t as “scary” as most people think. There is plenty of documentation out there if you run into an issue as well as a huge user community and forums where you can go ask anything you want to know.

Installing Ubuntu on your computer is also much faster and easier than installing Windows. You will be asked a few questions such as what time zone you are in and “BOOM” you are ready to go.

Unlike Windows, Ubuntu also comes with most of the apps you will need already installed. One of these applications are OpenOffice.  OpenOffice is very similar to MS Office and comes with the same tools you are accustomed to using. Ubuntu has also made installing and removing applications very easy with the “Synaptic Package Manager”. This allows you to easily find and install applications without inserting a cd or going to the internet and downloading anything.

The newest release of Ubuntu comes with “Ubuntu One”; a personal cloud service that you can use to sync media to different computers. Ubuntu One can also be accessed from any computer with an internet connection. In addition to syncing with computers it’s also capable to sync with your Smart Phone. So if you are in class and you forgot to copy your report to a flash drive or CD/DVD from your Desktop the night before it’s possible for you to get it with your phone, sync to your laptop, and print from there.

Finally, one my personal favorite things about Ubuntu OS is that you really don’t have to worry about Malware and Spyware. No crazy pop-ups, no nothing. Why? It’s because Ubuntu’s structures and file system simply are not recognized by the virus and as a result it cannot affect it.

If you are looking for an alternative to Windows or would like to revive your old PC, I strongly suggest looking into Ubuntu. It’s a very good alternative at an even better price, FREE. If you would like to do some research on your own to see if this fits your needs go to WWW.UBUNTU.COM. Please feel free to leave a comment or a question and it will be answered by Jeremy or my Supervisor Aaron.

2010 44^th Annual National Tractor Pulling Championships

Bowling Green, Ohio
August 20, 21, 22

Excel Sportswear is happy to announce that we will be attending the 48 FREE custom t-shirts at no charge to you. We will also be donating shirts for the event staff to shoot into the crowd so be sure to watch for it. We would also like to mention that if you order by Sept. 4^th you will receive free items with your order. Please call for details on the sale or ask at the booth.

We can’t wait to see all of you!