Just in time for football season

This feels like the end of a pretty productive summer. I got a few good projects in, and even though let the lawn lapse a little (I only mowed the backyard once all season), things are in decent shape around the house right now.

Minus not finishing a painting or two, the big and small projects turned out like they should. I was really happy with how my helmet stands turned out earlier this summer, but looking at the photos of my ND helmet on it something was missing. I couldn't tell what it was until I realized it was the missing decal above the facemask.

A real helmet for sale.

My old helmet. Not quite the same.

It never bothered me before, partly b/c this wasn't an official helmet. When I was a senior I knew an equipment manager for the football team. This was when they were still spending the Fridays before games painting the helmets gold, and I just happened to have access to a few old helmets I had around, so I convinced him to bring them in with him and get painted. One for him, one for my roommate, and one for me. So it's not an official ND helmet, but it's about as official as an unofficial helmet could be.

It's always gotten attention from any sports fan that's seen it since then, and various people have even been impressed enough to offer to buy it off me to no avail. At this point I kind of love it more since I conned my way into it vs shelling out to buy a real one. Because of that, not having the decal never really bothered me but looking at the pics, I wondered if I could find some online.

Of course you can find them online, and even if they're not a perfect fit, since I'm still breaking even on this deal anyway, why not pay $6 for some decals and see if they fit. So that's what I did, and they do, in fact, look pretty great.

And while the missing decals didn't bother me, the yellow face mask always has. And if I'm spending money on decals, why not break out the leftover primer again to take care of that?

Huh. That might explain why the helmet is so small.

So many coats of grey at this point.

Looks good back on the stand though.

Even with my unsteady hand this thing is truly display ready, which is good b/c it's too small to fit my huge head and this is as much use as it's going to get. But it looks good back on the stand, and with football season starting this felt like a good project to get wrapped up as summer winds down. Now if only either of my teams could look competitive this year that would be a bonus. I have the feeling it's going to be a long fall.