I don't know about you guys, but Fall is by far my favorite season here in the Chicagoland area. You get to wear great shirts, boots, jackets and coats. I'm breaking into my Fall stuff a little early. Today I'm wearing my Timberland Pro pants, Smith Mills flannel, Hamilton Khaki King watch, and one of my pair of Asolo hiking boots. If you do any resl hiking or orienteering like I do, you owe it to yourself to try a pair of Asolo boots. They are true hikers, not your typical Merrell, Keen, or Salomon (although some of the Salomon boots are actually quite capable hikers, just not quite as hard core as the Asolo's) Wednesday is typically my last day of the week in the office as I'm generally remote on Thursday and Friday. I'll get back to my Wednesday suit days soon, too. Warner

When you look at yourself in the mirror ... When you choose an item of clothing to wear in the morning ... When you choose an item of clothing to buy from a shop or an online store ... What are you hoping to achieve? Do you want to look like you fit in with what you perceive 'your type of person' to be? Do you want to stand out from others who are 'your type of person'? Do you want to look strong and dependable? Artistic and sensitive? Mature and wise? Sexy and attractive 'in that way'? What is your 'goal' beyond keeping warm and not being arrested for indecency?

Hey guys....it's been a minute since I came on here, but I wanted to show one of my current projects. A couple of months ago I had to put down my 14+ year old pitbull. It was not easy, but it was definitely time for her. Anything longer would have just been extending her misery. Everything was getting difficult for her, and the past few weeks she was eating only sporadically. I put some much into her that I even had a dedicated bedroom for her to use as a bathroom. I put down a large piece of leftover vinyl flooring over the ratty berber carpeting that was already in that room when I bought the house. I had been using the room for storage, and even painted some of my project toolboxes and whatnot in there. I told my girlfriend that when Spooky (my dog) was gone, we'd turn that room into a walk in closet. We did all of the work ourselves, which included ripping out vinyl and old berber carpeting, then using Nature's Miracle on the particle board subfloor where urine had soaked through. Let me tell you, that stuff is AMAZING! Once the subfloor was treated with that and it dried completely, I put 2 coats of Zinsser BIN shellac primer on the subfloor, then we bought and installed vinyl plank flooring. The original owners just had 1x4 material as molding along the floor. I used a bit in my router table to give that a nice top edge and not look so blocky. I also patched all the walls and painted them. The original owner had created this room by encroaching on the original garage, then built a full 2 car garage onto the existing garage. Kind of wonky but it worked. They didn't however have any ceiling mounted lighting, choosing rather to mount some wall sconces on the one wall which were inadequate and pretty redneck to me. I re-routed those wires up into the attic and then drilled holes into the plasterboard ceiling for ceiling mounted lights. To explain the ceiling situation.....there is a drop ceiling they installed, that's about 2" below what used to be the old garage platerboard ceiling. The drop ceiling is only 6'8" tall, and because of the limited height and limited options, I went with some very slim LED panel lights that I managed to wrestle into the drop ceiling grid (that was not a super fun part of the job). The lights are adjustable for light color (3.5k, 4k, or 5k) and have 3 different lumes settings. That was the basic shell of the room.

My mostly thifted outift today are some grey lucky pants (bought from Sierra for $15 or $20), Alfani shirt (estate sale - $4), Florsheim cap toe shoes (just got these last weekend for $5 - haven't even polished them yet). The watch is a Rado Xeramo that I bought years ago on ebay. All ceramic which is nice because the black doesn't wear off like an anodized case - I believe I paid about $250 for this if I remember correctly - it was a while ago. I need a haircut but the rest of it looks decent. Hahaha.

Since my last visits here, I've gotten a TON of new stuff from estate sales, mostly art but some clothes and shoes as well. These two pair are from this weekend's haul. A pair of Florsheim loafers and a pair of Bruno Magli wingtips, with seude and leather. I polished both of these since buying. The Florsheim's were pretty much like new, but the Bruno's were pretty beat. They still have some character marks, but they are certainly wearable still. Pretty unique too. ($15 for both pair)