Patience is a virtue

When I first started thrifting seriously for clothes, I bought everything of even middling quality that came close to fitting me. It was only upon finding that I had far too many useless, ill-fitting clothes cluttering up my closet that I had to change my mindset to one of biding my time until the right items came along.

Although I haven't been finding the wealth of ties that I used to when I went out more often, I've still run across a couple treasures lately. One is this heavy silk Turnbull and Asser in white with navy stripes and check. It has a couple tiny little pulls, but they're only noticeable on super close inspection.

While I haven't been hitting the physical stores as much as in the past, I've managed to pick up a few great finds here and there on ebay. One example is this pair of made in Italy J Crew wingtip boots. J Crew isn't always known for their quality, and these boots looked ridiculously beat in the auction photos, but a couple points stuck out to me while looking at the auction.

The first is that the heel is actually stacked wood, and the boots are entirely made of leather (except the heel). There are a few J Crew lines that have been licensed by seriously quality makers (in fact, they have done some with Alden), and these appear to be top shelf. One of the things I'd wanted over the past year was a pair of boots just like this, and instead of forking over $300 or more for Allen Edmonds or something of similar quality, I managed to make these mine for under $50 including shipping. After a quality polish, they've done quite nicely, and I'm guessing that if I take care of them, they'll last me a decade or so.

I'll admit it's fund to splurge and strut your stuff with something new once in awhile, but I somehow manage to get that same feeling when I find a screaming deal.

Shill: Saucony Kinvara

Prior to our daughter being born, my exercise of choice was cycling. Several summers back, I found an old (1985, to be exact) Trek touring bike and modded it out, turning it into a poor-mans cyclocross bicycle that was perfect for riding the crushed limestone rails-to-trails paths that snake across the countryside in my state.

Over the course of under three years, I put over 5000 miles on that bike, and would routinely leave the house for 2 hour rides, my favorite being a 30-mile jaunt that I finished in an hour and 20 minutes at my peak.

With a month left in the pregnancy, I started getting the feeling where I didn't want to be too far of a distance away from home (especially in the middle of the countryside), just in case. The bike got parked in the basement, and I dusted off my running shoes.

It wasn't enough to just start running, though, as I'd done that many summers ago and ended up paying for it with some severe shin splints in the fall. Instead, I did a little reading up and decided to rebuild my running technique based on ChiRunning. Having read up on it, I figured a change might be in order, as over time it's supposed to reduce injury and be better for the body in general. After five summers of hardcore tennis playing and some bone spurs in my hip to show for it, I was looking to reduce wear and tear in any way possible.

Here's a picture of the bottoms of my first pair of minimalist running shoes (Saucony - Kinvara) after almost 600 miles. The outsole is massively compressed, but they're still wearable and even comfortable.

Here's the same shoes from above, showing a little bit more wear and tear, including a bunch of dirt and crud that got embedded in the mesh while running off paved paths (about half my mileage). The shoes are crazy light, weighing in at only 12 ounces each (and that's for a size 14 shoe), and have just enough cushion for a large-framed fellow without going full-on barefoot style (which I know my body would not like).

Since I retired the aforementioned pair, I picked up the latest model from Saucony, the Kinvara 3. They've upgraded a few of the things that bugged me (the outer mesh is stronger), while keeping everything great about the shoe.

I'm up to almost 1000 miles run (since I started up again) and haven't been slowed by injury once (with the longest break between runs being 5 days due to sickness). For an old, lanky fellow with a tendency for aches and pains, I consider that a win.

Pull your feet to your chest

After a nice warm-up later last week and the beginning of this one, we had another cold snap here today. Between lunch and the end of the work day, we got almost 4 inches of snow, making the drive home slow going and pulling into the steep driveway a hit-or-miss proposition. Fortunately, the front-wheel drive found success on the second try.

I knew it was it was coming, though, and tried to celebrate yesterday with some suitable hints of warmer color.


Up top, I went with a western-styled tweed jacket that's incredibly versatile on days that fluctuate wildly in temperature. It's warm, but only half-lined, so it breaths pretty well. Paired it with a pink and white university striped OCBD and even busted out one of my Hermes ties. Pocket square in gold (another one courtesy of Kleidsam, - thanks man!) seems like it might be a bit of a stretch, but bear with me here...


Down below, I went with cream corduroys, striped socks and my beeswax Clark bucks, which have aged nicely and are giving off a lovely patina of yes, gold!

Like I said, that's pushing it a bit, but I was trying to shove some subtle attention in their general direction. Their color is just too nice to not appreciate.

And now, I must go scoop the sidewalk.

Swing Your Partner, Do Si Do

Last week sometime, my wife and I saw a listing for an estate sale that looked absolutely fascinating, largely for its kitsch value. In a rather ritzy part of town, there was a late 80s house absolutely packed full of stuff, including 6 walk-in closets full of mens and womens clothes, over 400 pairs of swing-dance outfits, and all the crazy out-dated artwork and home furnishings that a person could shake a stick at.


The entire house interior seemed to be either teal, pink, or cream, with gold accents everywhere. It was like being stuck in a time capsule of a particular era, and while it definitely wasn't anything even close to the styles that I like, it was certainly a site to behold. My wife's friend described it best when she said, "It's like Golden Girls on steroids."

The main thing that got me out of bed on a Saturday and to the sale, though, was that I saw that the ad listed size 13 shoes for men. Because I have a heck of a time finding interesting shoes, I figured it would be worth a trip to check things out, and fortunately I was right.

First up was a pair of nearly unworn Sebago docksides. Burgundy colored and very comfy. I'd been looking for a pair of boat shoes, and here they be.


Next up is a pair of chocolate brown vintage Florsheim Imperial loafers. The leather is a bit dry, but I'm going to hit them up with some conditioner and cream polish and I think they'll be ready to rock.


Another pair of vintage Florsheim Imperial loafers, this time in light gray! This is another pair that's going to need a bit of love (mainly looks like the wrong color polish was used in a couple spots at one point) to get back to absolutely sharp level, but for what I paid (see below), it was worth the chance.


Last up is yet another pair of vintage Florsheim Imperials. Light brown ankle-boots with a thin strap to close. I'm honestly not sure if it's thick enough to be considered a monk strap, but they're pretty neat regardless. Like the other pair of brown loafers above, the leather is going to need just a bit of conditioning and polish to really get to a sharp level, but it'll be a fun project.


Luckily for me, the total cost of all four pairs was only $8 ($2 a pair)! Despite some of them needing a bit of TLC, it has to qualify as one of my best scores of the summer.

The actual clothing that the gentlemen owned was either too big in girth or two short in length for me, and much of it was poly blends or off-the-charts in cheese factors that I couldn't bring myself to buy it. I didn't walk out with just the shoes, though.

I also found this record:


Amongst all the Lawrence Welk and loads of polka records was this absolutely crazy, "rated X" LP by Kapela S Pelka (aka "Band From Hell"). It's raucous, don't-give-a-shit sleazy orchestral polka from Czechoslovakia that's actually pretty fun.

Not a bad haul for less than $10 including tax.

Gilt without the guilt

I'm not quite sure on the time frame, but I think it was about six months or so ago that I saw mention of Gilt Groupe, an invite-only, "flash sale" (usually only a couple days or so, with lots of stuff selling out within hours or even minutes) site that mainly caters to higher-end brands and designers (there was some questions raised by Put This On about their pricing/advertising about a month ago). Being the thrifty fellow that I am, I didn't think it would be a site that I'd need to join, but eventually signed up just to see what was being peddled.

As it turned out, just about everything on the site is waaaay out of my price point, and much of it laughably so. Once in a great while, though, I noticed an item that was close to something that I'd purchase, and I decided to hang out and see if anything caught my eye.

And it did!

There are a couple more juicy pictures in this older post.

While certainly not high-end, there was a batch of different Simple Shoes, including this gray tweed pair that caught my eye. The purchase price was $26 + $7 for shipping, which is certainly more than I'd pay for shoes at a thrift store, but I'd been on a bit of a shoe drought and got weak in the knees for the tweed. What can I say?

Unless they start stocking their site with more items under 30 dollars, I doubt I'll be a regular buyer, but heck, it was fun to do it once.

(Oh, and if you're not a member of Gilt but would like to experience the still mostly insanely priced sale items for yourself, leave me a comment and I'll shoot you an invite. Whee!)

Subdued spring

Ah, so this is what spring feels like.

For the first time in five (FIVE!) months, the temperature rose above 60 degrees (Fahrenheit), and for about 6 hours all seemed right with the world. With a morning temperature hovering around 30, though, I knew I'd have to wear one of my jackets that was warm enough that I wouldn't get too cold on the bike in, but light enough that I wouldn't crack a huge sweat on my ride home and back for lunch.

Basically, it was the perfect excuse to pull out my brown cashmere/wool combo from this post. With a scarf and some gloves (and ear-band and helmet!), it was just about right in the morning, and was thisclose to being too warm at lunch. With a temperature swing of over 30 degrees, I consider that a success.

At any rate, I paired it with my favorite light wool LL Bean pants ($2), a paisley Oscar de la Renta tie ($2), a blue/white striped Stafford oxford ($2) and what are quite possibly my favorite pair of shoes; A pair of vintage Florsheim wingtips that I scored for $1 just over a year back.

Yes, the bike is mine. More on it later.

In wearing the jacket again (and especially looking at the above photo), I realized that I'm going to have to get the arms taken in just a bit. They're rolling almost 29 inches from the shoulder seam right now, and I'm closer to 28.

The light was bright and harsh at lunch, so the shots didn't quite turn out as well as I had hoped, but I did take a couple details to hopefully give a little better idea of how the colors went together.



Seeing a close-up of my shoes also makes me realize that I need to give them a little love.



Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that the reason I named the post as I did is because we're supposed to get several inches of snow tomorrow. I couldn't go an break out all my crazy bright colors quite just yet with such knowledge in hand.

*Sigh*