What I want Thursday – 4/2/15

Some stuff on my current want-list:

To stop traveling SO MUCH!
For real spring to arrive in Toulouse
To stop eating so many carbs and so much sugar
For my wife to feel all better
A couple of lathe tools.
A three day walk in the mountains
About 15 big, not cheap, hard cover books
A Moore & Giles Portfolio
For my new garage in Seattle to be done & dusted.
For my wife to finish some alterations and repairs for me
Porsche Design TecFlex Fountain Pen (F or EF Nib)
For my workbench to be 100% done
A slender dark grey Yorkshire cap
A sweet tweed vest
A few pairs of two-tone wing-tip Made-In-England Doc’s: White and Tan
A set of 10 cedar shoe-trees
Tickets for my son’s trip to France to be CHEAP.
For my Al’s Attire brogue boots not to squish my toes
Brooks Brothers grey or subtle pattern sport coat – slim cut.
A Filson Medium Travel bag.
One medium-small Rimowa Carry-on
To start working out again in earnest and stick to it
A fine set of Cuff-links
For my business plan to be finished
Tiffany blue silk tie and a matching pocket square.

5/5/2015 Update:

For real spring to arrive in Toulouse
A couple of lathe tools.
For my workbench to be 100% done
A slender dark grey Yorkshire cap – I got a sweet green tweed one made in London
A few pairs of two-tone wing-tip Made-In-England Doc’s: White and Tan
A set of 10 cedar shoe-trees
For my Al’s Attire brogue boots not to squish my toes – Had them stretched in the States last week.  Perfect fit now!
Brooks Brothers grey or subtle pattern sport coat – slim cut.
Tiffany blue silk tie and a matching pocket square.

What I want Thursday

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 trip to the Taoist temple of Mount Qingcheng

While in China near the city of Chengdu, my co-workers wanted to show me a Chinese cultural site and planed for this crazy hike up a mountain to see the Giant Buddha of Leshan. I opted out as I was crazy jet-lagged and was not geared for a mountain hike on this trip. The alternate plane was to visit the Taoist temple of Mount Qingcheng, which is one of the the most important sites of Taoism/Daoism in China and is the historical center of the Taoist religion. I like temples, so I said “sure”

I wore jeans, a button-up shirt, a sweater and wingtips. Instead of climbing one mountain, I got to climb two, in the rain, wander through a cave and hike 10+km (~7 miles) in those awesome wingtips. I think that “I don’t want to hike up a mountain” was somehow lost in translation. They meant well. The temple complex was very cool and the food at the top of the mountain was yummy, but super pricey – as they have zero competition.

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Paris in Winter

I spent a few days in Paris working and got into the center of the city one afternoon. The positive side of cyber commuting: I can work from a cramped little cube/office, from my sun-filled home office, or from a street cafe across from Notre Dame in Paris…

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