Tag: Luggage

What I want Thursday

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I love wearing overalls , a leather apron, and work boots in the wood-shop.  During the summer, I spend my time at home in flip-flips and t-shirts, but I do clean up fairly well.  My J-O-B requires me to spend a good deal of time in front of customers and I have to look good: be well dressed, properly groomed, and present appropriately. Along those lines, there are a couple of things that I would like to add to my work-related accouterments:

A Moore & Giles Portfolio
Porsche Design TecFlex Fountain Pen (F or EF Nib)
A few pairs of two-tone wing-tip oxfords: brown and tan,  tan and green, brown and black, etc… 
Brooks Brothers grey or subtle pattern sport coat – slim cut.
Filson Medium Travel bag.
Rimowa Carry-on
A fine set of Cuff-links
Cobalt blue, Tiffany blue, purple, orange solid and patterned silk ties.

A couple of odd things from my latest trip to London.

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

During my third random search on my way home from London to Seattle (they “randomly” happen every other time I fly…), the agent/officer/person commented of how organized my bag was: cords and pens in individual tool rolls, glasses in their respective cases, clothes folded, shoes bagged… I was head-swelling proud right up until the moment she turned my bag over and shook all the contents out. She gave me a naughty smile with an eye twinkle as my stuff spilled and tumbled onto the stainless countertop – a look like the one the Devil gives right before drop-kicking someone into the Lake of Fire.

Also on this trip:

Novotel dining area

7:15am

Staff: “Sir would you like coffee or tea?”
Me: “Coffee please. Thank you”

I pour the contents of the warming kettle I was brought into a cup and add sugar & cream and stir. I then take what should be the first sip of a substance that makes me not want to murder my fellow man…

I have to stop myself from spitting whatever it was all over my table.

I hail the waitress that brought me this vile concoction.

Me: “May I please have some tea?”

Staff: “Oh, I am sorry sir, is there something wrong with the coffee?”
Me: “Nope, I am sure the coffee is fine – wherever it may be. THAT is not coffee. I’ll take the tea.”

Tea arrives and I have 3 cups.

“Coffee” is left on my table to mock me and remind me that someone at the Novotel has either a sense of humor or is the spawn of a medium ranked demon.

What I Want Thursday – 8/2/2012

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Below are the things that I find are present for me today:

1. More time with my children.

2. I want to stick to my new diet and workout schedule and not fall off the wagon and back into the cookie/café Mocha/lethargic/big-belly abyss.

3. For my wife to finish some long ago promised sewing tasks for me.

4. More book shelf space at home. We read more and more on our kindles and have sold many, if not most, of the paperbacks that have filled our lives for years and we are still completely out of space for our books. There are stacks on the floor in both of our home offices, to-read piles on each night-stand, fiction and history filing the living room book case, literature lined up on the basement hutch, cookbooks on the bottom shelf of the china hutch, and single volumes littered across the normally unoccupied spaces of our small home. We more shelves, not less books!

5. A finished kitchen

6. Painted lawn furniture

7. Filson Medium Travel bag. My son and I went to the Filson factory store and I fell into love/lust over this piece of luggage. I know that sounds weird, but I fly a LOT – I am a Platinum SkyTeam frequent flier member and a Gold OneWorld member. Quality, attractive, roomy, useful luggage is a necessity.

8. A cigarbox electric Ukulele for playing blues with a slide.

9. A proper car camping/glamping kitchen set up.

10. A few books: Passions:The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson; The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook; Paris Between the Wars 1919-1939: Art, Life & Culture; Ernest Hemmingway bio and a two books of his letters (1&2), etc…

11. A Truck bed full of wooden wine/port crates/boxes for a couple of open projects at home.

12. To give Heifer International a menagerie of animals. That is my charity goal for the year. I want to save, gather, raise, find as much cash as possible to give to Heifer International by the end of 2012 for the purchase of bees, goats, cows, water buffalo, chickens, trees, training and hope. It will provide animals and knowledge that will change lives for the good. I will add a link or a tab on my front page to a fund status page/counter and update it as the gift grows.

Thursday wish list – 6/30/11

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

What I Want Thursday was meant to be a weekly post but due to the realities of my J-O-B and growing list of home improvement projects, it has now become a bi-monthly (hopefully…) utterance.   For this Thursday I would like:

  1. For traffic to slow the fvck down on 35th Ave! – A ticket was handed out last week for 62mph in a 35mph zone and 50+ seems to be the norm.
  2. For my kids to write me real snail-mail letters in addition to dialing the phone, typing a single line e-mail, or sending me a text.  I do not want my generation to be the last that prizes personal tangible communication.  I want my children to send Thank You cards, notes of congratulations, and sympathy.  Manners are small gifts we give to other people, often strangers, that mean so very much…
  3. For my kitchen remodel to be finished and done with. I would like a celebratory breakfast of bacon, eggs, fine pressed coffee, OJ, flakey croissants, and lavender honey at the table in the breakfast nook.  I would like a morning free of worry and noise to enjoy my breakfast in our new clean, bright, painted kitchen, while reading the day’s International Herald Tribune.
  4. Some BADASS/useful luggage for my frequent international travel. No more fvcking roller wheels!!  Real bags, that look good with jeans or a suit.   I like this one from Monocle, A similar one from a guy in Portland, and a new laptop messenger from Timbuck2 in all black.
  5. More book shelves. I need 8’ or so of shelf space in the office, 4’ in the kitchen for our cookbooks, and 3-5’ in our master bedroom to accommodate our home library.  Some cool bookend would be snazzy as well.  These or these or these would work nicely.
  6. For iTunes to realize I do not live in Germany anymore and to FINALLY switch my account over to a US one. Every time I buy a song or app, I get charged in Euros and I have to call in, explain the issue for the umpteenth time and they send me a refund for the difference in 10-14 days.