Happy Repeal Day everyone.

I took my team out to celebrate, we got a drink at the Blue Bar at the Algonquin Hotel. The bartender kind of sucked, but at least it was a storied drinking establishment not too far from work.

Tonight please enjoy one of the few pleasures in life explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution.

We had some electric shades installed recently. They are so cool I just can't get over it. Each shade is battery powered, and the batteries should last for two years or so. We got the 5% translucent shades, so they block quite a bit of light. You can still see out through the weave if there is light out. They are pretty opaque if there isn't light right on the other side.

They make me feel like a Bond villain. I should wear a shiny suit, sit in my big leather chair and stroke Hanzo while I watch them lower.

Needless to say, they are remote controlled.

My new shirts were finished Friday. I love them! I've never had shirts that fit so well.

The shirtmaker is Cego, a tiny little company on a fifth floor walk-up off Fifth Ave. It's not a store you wander into, you have to make an appointment to have a fitting, and your first order is usually a five shirt minimum. I went in when he was doing a special two shirt minimum. The store is about the size of a medium kitchen and filled with books and bolts of fabric. After a very thorough set of measurements (including shoulder slope, and asking if you wear a watch and how big it is) you pick your fabrics and tell him what sort of collar, cuffs, and button stance you want, what sort of shirt tails, etc..

I got a white french cuff spread collar and a blue oxford cloth button down. I opted for real mother-of-pearl buttons on each. When I picked up the shirts I tried one on so he could fine tune the measurements. Everything came out perfectly, but he put a note to add about 1/4 of an inch in the shoulder. I loved the shirts so much I immediately ordered two more; a medium pink check on white and a blue gingham of very soft Italian fabric. I'm already thinking of a few more shirts I'll get. I'm hooked. I love that everything is made in NYC. All the cutting and sewing is done in town.

It's dark now, but I'll get some photos up once the light is better.

The next sartorial adventure will be an expedition into Deepest Brooklyn (Bay Ridge) to check out an old school Italian tailor to see if he can fix some suits that my overseas Thai guy did a crap job fitting (what is with the Thai guys cutting everything long?).

Old School.



If you are going to wear it, wear it fearlessly. Respect the bow tie.

Last night we arrived home from the hospital.

Monday evening Lulu suddenly started to behave very strangely and spiked a huge fever. We got her to the hospital right away, where we were admitted. It turns out she had a bad UTI, which in a baby of her age can be very dangerous as the bacteria can jump between body systems (blood, spinal fluid, etc.) very easily. We were in the hospital for five days total, and it was a really tough experience. Because a baby can't give you detailed information on how she's feeling there have to be a lot more tests: spinal taps, catheters, IVs (have you ever imagined the process of trying to get an IV feed into a vein smaller than a pencil lead). But we are home now, and it feels so good.

The last few weeks have been a whirl-wind of activity. A month or so ago I decided to test the waters in regards to finding a new job. I started talks with three companies, all of whom had friends and/or associates of mine working for them.
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I not only got out to my CrossFit class yesterday, I worked out the night before as well! I even finished first in my heat:

21-15-9 reps of:

115# squat cleans
L-pull ups (though the last round was more tuck pull ups than Ls)

20:01

J., the "beast" (he did this with 135# in about 16 minutes) coached me through the final rounds and I think really helped my time.

I am a very sore guy right now, but it feels great.

K. came at the end of class and brought Lulu to meet all my CrossFit friends, which was really cool.

In other news I broke down and bought a Kindle. I had been waiting to the supposed 2.0 version that was rumored to come out this year, but when Amazon brutally debunked that rumor I decided to take advantage of a number of discounts and gift certificates and just go for it. It should be interesting, I'm expecting to read a lot more "current" books now that I can get them for $10 rather than waiting for paperbacks, used with shipping costs, or eternal waiting lists at the library. I should have the ugly little duckling mid next week.

On the work front things have been pretty frustrating lately. I hate dealing with internal systems issues that are huge blockers for actually running deals. My current job is just full of these. It's a Kafka-esque bureaucratic nightmare in many respects. Very frustrating.

On top of this I have not been able to workout practically at all.

I need motion to keep me happy. Without getting my energy out in a physical way (generally by lifting heavy things very fast many times over) I get... testy. Combine this with the Lulu Effect of poor sleep and I'm something of a mess.

But there is hope. On the work front I have three different companies courting me to come work for them. One very aggressively. It's sounding tempting.

In a total non-sequitur yesterday marked the return of Metal Thursday at work. This time I sent the update out as a google doc as the presentation was getting quite large.

So for everyone's enjoyment, please find below the entire history of Metal Thursday. Read, learn, listen, and throw those horns up! If you want to start from the beginning hit the final slide and go backwards from there, we go in reverse chronological order.


http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=df4np89p_0fsb7rwhq

A lot of amazing things have happened in my life lately. Lulu's birth. The realization that I'm a father. The realization that being a father at this stage in my life definitely means I'm all "growed up", no matter how much metal I listen to or how many silly t-shirts I own. I find that realization alternating between disturbing and calming. Right now it's on the calming side.

I used to be (and somewhat still am) something of a hot-head. Things going wrong really used to piss me off. I find it amazing that in the last two weeks I've dealt with the following relatively smoothly:

1. All the struts on my beat-ass subaru needing to be replaced to the tune of $800.
2. Our refrigerator dying a clanking 80 degree death the night we brought Lulu home. I had to store all our food upstairs with a friend for a few days, which made meal times problematic.
3. Having to undertake a major cabinetry job to create a space wide and tall enough for a replacement refrigerator (thanks Dad and Dad-in-law for your help, it was definitely a three person job).
4. Our air conditioner dying the day after we brought Lulu home, in 95 degree heat that would not end for the next few days.
5. The guys who fixed my struts breaking my rear right seat belt in the process (and they'll not charge me labor to fix it, just parts, "such a bargain". But don't piss off an NYC mechanic while they have your car, you'll regret it.).
6. Lulu having a bad case of colic and alternating between sleeping, eating, and screaming (probably par for the course the next month or two at least unfortunately).
7. Negotiating a tricky Mother-in-law vs. Wife dispute having to do with long standing cultural routines that are not appropriate for us at this point.

Having conquered all of that without loosing my mind, I raise this glass of delicious alcohol (Pegu Club cocktails tonight) and toast to myself.

In other news, if you have broad shoulders and hate how your shirts hang all saggy off the hangers and get strange creases and "points", and your suit shoulders aren't supported by regular suit hangers made for regular shouldered men check out hangerproject.com. You can actually order hangers that are the right size!

So, shifting from amazing new family additions to monkey punching.

Someone is going to get reamed at the Times over this ad placement. I think the screenshot I took says it all.

( doh! )

So I haven't posted in a long time, but I figure that the birth of my daughter is reason to dust off the keyboard.

Luella (Lulu for short) made her appearance after 17 hours of labor at 12:23 AM on the 16th. 6 pounds 4 ounces, 18.75 inches long. Beautiful, and quite a set of lungs.

Obligatory photos after the cut.
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