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Bond18
Around the World in 150 Days, Day 10, Sleepless in Las Vegas
by Bond18 on 04/19/09
Authors note: This entry was written while mostly drunk, so the grammar and spelling in it promises to be a disaster. April 16th, Somewhere over the Pacific: I have no idea what time it is, but I’d guess in the area of 3am. I guess to figure out that you’d have to define a time zone first. I spent some time attempting to sleep but again it didn’t work. I decide to take out ‘The Wolf on Wall Street’ and keep reading as Jordan Belforts increasingly excessive drug addiction has his already absurd life spinning wildly out of control.
I read until the plane lands in Los Angeles at LAX. The local time is roughly 6am and my next flight doesn’t leave until 10:10am. I go over to the ‘Admirals Club’ lounge and find out again that just because I have a first class ticket I will not be receiving a free entrance. However, I do have the option of paying $50 for a one time entry, and considering I have four hours to kill I figure I can get some writing done and grind poker, so in theory it’s +EV.
I find a spot in the lounge that has me sitting upright so I don’t fall asleep. I fire up the computer and start writing and toying around on facebook. Eventually I fire up Full Tilt and play some heads up, but unfortunately get stacked when I run top two into bottom set and never really regain any momentum in the match. Fuck it, all that matters was the equity involved in playing, plus the action and music cranking in my head phones has managed to keep me up quite easily. I order some dry cereal with milk. I debate hitting on the blonde girl sitting a table over from me, but she’s talking on her cell phone and I haven’t slept so I’d be talking like a maniac.
After my four hour internet vacation in the lounge I walk over to the gate for my flight and get in line. As anyone who has flown LA to Vegas before knows it’s a very easy less than hour long flight, and today is no different. We touch down a bit past 11am and I book it for the baggage claim. I collect my things, get in the giant Vegas airport taxi line, and after a 15 minute process of weaving through the queue I finally hop into a cab and spend the ride chatting to the lady cab driver about how quiet Vegas has been lately. She asks me quite a bit about the poker tournament I’m about to play then wishes me luck when she drops me off at the Bellagio. I wonder how many times a cabbie in Vegas says good luck a day?
When I arrive at the Bellagio I check into my room, throw my stuff down, take a shower and get changed. I walk down to the poker room at about 1pm and find that the $5000 pre lim event (the last of the series) is going off. I haven’t slept yet, but the atmosphere is intoxicating. I find LuckyChewy and Charder30 sitting next to each other on a table and start chatting. One of them asks if I’m going to play. I say I kind of want to, and ask if they have $5000 I can borrow. Chewy says ‘sure’ then gives me his room card, tells me where to find it, and I run up to his room. I tear thorugh the contents of the location he recommended, find over $5,000 in cash, then run back downstairs into it and bu yin. It’s about 1:30pm, and I haven’t slept.
Ironically, I wind up being seated on the table of Chewy and Charder. My moderate sleep deprivation causes me to hit some kind of strange second wind and when I sit down at the table I am a stream of constant and totally nonsensical table talk.
The tournament itself is incredibly boring. I’ve never played a donkament where my decisions were so incredibly straight forward and simplistic, where I have basically nothing to consider and there is basically nothing worth a proper write up (let’s be honest here, that tournament was dull but I wrote down a few hands, I’m simply way too drunk and high right now to bother actually rewriting them.)
By 12 hours later we’ve grinded a field of 120 down below 18, which was the amount of players that cashed. After that I engage in a three hand sequence that gets interesting:
First we’re seven handed a player UTG raises to 11k and I shove 90k next to act with TT. He and everyone else folds and I move up in the world. The next hand I find 33 UTG 7 handed and with an incredibly tight image open raise. It folds to the BB who call on a short stakc, and when the flop comes 257 he checks and I get nearly enough to put him in. He folds and I move up to about 130k. The very next hand it folds to the MP2 player who is local Las Vegas player ‘Prince’ who nobody can quite figure out, but he’s really aggressive and doesn’t seem overly stack size aware. He makes it 11k like he does many hands, and it folds to me in the BB with 99. I think over my options then decide shoving is best because if I normally 3 bet he won’t four bet light, I have an image for all in bets right now, and he open raises a ton. He snap calls AA and I busto when the board blanks off for me. I finish 15th for a slightly over $1,500 profit.
Afterwards I stumble off to my hotel room and order some food because I haven’t eaten in for fucking ever. Then I pass out.
Around the World in 150 Days, Day 9, Zoodonker
by Bond18 on 04/16/09
April 15th, Honolulu: I wake up around 11:30am, totally refreshed after a night of the most pleasant sleep. A glass of wine and a three milligram pill of melatonin (an over the counter sleep medication) put me out beautifully last night and I’d quickly drifted off a little before 2am. Before I shower or bother to do much of anything I go on a 15 minute run around Cade’s neighborhood in preparation for what promises to be an interesting day. Cade and Kari are off on a morning modeling shoot, an activity they’ll repeat later this afternoon, except with me in front of the camera and Kari behind it.
Kari has been involved in the modeling industry on both sides of the camera for a few years now. A couple days back she suggested I do some photos for her, and when she brought up the idea of getting female models involved in the act my response was somewhere in the area of “Fuck yea I’ll do that shit” (which upon further consideration, was likely my word for word response.) On top of modeling and photography Kari is also heavily involved in art creation including jewelry making and she intends to use the shoot as a way to showcase her works. She got Cade involved not long ago, who is simultaneously blessed with the handsome exotic looks of a half Asian and the roughly 6’1” height of a half white guy, though he maintains that we are both 6’2”, as we are the same height.
Cade and Kari arrive back at the house around 1pm. I’m scrambling to make sure everything is in order for my departure later this evening, but eventually we run out of time and have to depart to pick up one of the other models.
We leave the house around 1:45pm to pick up Chantelle, a pretty blonde with crystal blue eyes who looks to be in her early to mid 20’s and has a Marine for a husband. She and Kari quickly launch into a conversation about which photographers they’ve worked with, and Kari educates Chantelle as to which are actually professional and which are borderline perverts. Kari tells us that the modeling industry has a term for ‘wanna-be’ male photographers with no actual skill that are likely just looking for a way to get hot women naked; ‘guys with cameras’. From their conversations it sounds like a high percentage of male photographers are either weirdo’s or have enormous attitude problems, though they do discuss a few that are on the normal and professional side of things.
We take 20 minute drive out towards our destination; Makapu beach, where I nearly got my stupid ass drowned yesterday. Across the street there’s some kind of marine wildlife center that we park the car in and meet two of the other models for the shoot; Angelina and Rachel. Rachel is tall and classically pretty with an Anglo look and thin frame, Angelina is shorter and curvier with a flawless face and appears to be have some kind of mixed dark haired-tan skinned background, though I have no idea as to what.
We walk over to a secluded area of Makapu beach that has many black rocks and wave pools. We’re soon joined by Kari’s good friend Vika, a tall blonde Russian girl who seems strangely distant today, particularly after Kari spoke about her personality like it might explode at any moment. I spend quite a bit of time chatting to the other three girls, who all seem very nice and not at all in the stereotype of stuck up, materialistic models. They all have a good sense of humor about my quips, such as when I tell them “I’m totally uncomfortable going topless.”
Kari begins by taking pictures of the girls alone while Cade and I sit around shooting the shit. He’s rather tired and decides to just plunk down on the sand and stares at the sky while wearing my aviators, which are too big for him. Eventually Kari calls me over to begin my shoot with Chantelle and instructs me to lose my shirt. When she asks Chantelle if she’s comfortable going topless she doesn’t hesitate for a moment to whip off her bikini top and then jumps up on the rocks next to me. It was a smart decision to take care of myself last night.
I want nothing more than for the girls to feel comfortable and for Kari to get the photos she wants, so I behave professionally and do exactly as told. Kari instructs me to loop my thumbs within Chantelle’s jeans belt loops, and then reminds me to relax my hands. Kari gives us direction as to where to turn our heads and look, and Chantelle is very fun and easy going throughout it all. Meanwhile, I do my best not to think of Derek Zoolander making his ‘blue magnum’ face, then internally debate attempting to replicate it.
After we finish Cade and Angelina take their turn on the rocks doing a set of photos together, as their dark features match well. I feel jealous watching him because I love short, dark haired women and Angelina is just gorgeous in my opinion.
Next comes my turn with Rachel on the rocks. She and Kari discuss her going topless, and I tell her either way I’ll just be staring off into the distance. During one photo Kari asks us to interact and make eye contact, and when I look into Rachel’s eyes I nearly blurt “Whoa” like Keanu Reeves in ‘The Matrix’, though mine would likely have been with more emphasis than his cold delivery. Her eyes are deep brown with a hint of gold, incredibly wide and completely flawless. It’s a cliché thing to complement a woman on her eyes, but hers nearly knocked mine out.
When we finish Kari takes a few more shots of the girls individually, and then has us take a few group photos for the blog. Everyone seems very happy with the way things went, and overall it was quite a fun experience. From the way the girls spoke about their previous experiences in modeling it seems like a lot of shoots are either very professional and formal or the photographer is bordering on creepy, so I guess it was something slightly different to have such a young photographer and a group that simply hung out casually (but perhaps not, I haven’t done anything like it before.)
After the shoot we drop Chantelle off and go for dinner. Cade continually brings up that he had a new pair of nipples pressed against him today, and after each time Kari asks me “How cool of a girlfriend am I?” Clearly the answer is ‘very’. At some point during dinner I randomly announce “Christ, I need to get a new girlfriend of some kind, this shit is driving me nuts” which I guess is what happens to you when you go from consistent sex to zero then spend a day surrounded by models in minimum clothing. I bet it’d help me sleep better.
We leave the restaurant and return to Cade’s house where I quickly pack my things in an extremely haphazard manner. They’ll probably be fine. We leave for the airport allowing me a considerable amount of time to get there, and we arrive quite early. I hug Cade and Kari goodbye, thank them for everything, and then go over to the check in. When I booked my flights with the agency they informed me that “unfortunately” they’d have to put me in first class for my US domestic flights instead of business like I was traveling internationally
“My God, this is a complete outrage! How dare you inconvenience me in this manner!?” I yelled at the travel agent over the phone, who giggled and played along by saying “I know you must be really unhappy about this.”
Unfortunately my ticket doesn’t gain me access to any kind of lounge as it seems I have to be a member of some club, and the woman at the counter is cold and disinterested, totally invulnerable to any kind of smooth talk. After I check in my bags I go through security and look for a place to kill the 90 minutes before my flight. As I walk down the terminal I walk past what appears to be a sports bar and restaurant, and although I’ve been good about not drinking lately I decide I have nothing better to do tonight.
I enter the restaurant and take a seat at the bar a few chairs over from a pretty blonde woman who looks about 30 and appears to be alone, then order a beer. I wait a few minutes to see if any husband or boyfriend comes back from the toilet, and when neither does I turn to her and ask
“So where are you off to tonight?”
“I’m doing good, how are you?”
She has apparently misunderstood my opener, but I just run with it
“I’m doing quite well myself, a rather interesting day really. Where are you headed tonight?”
“Montana, going to visit home.”
“Ah, I’m a Midwest man myself, going to visit there soon too.”
We enter into a fairly lengthy discussion about the Midwest, why six months of winter is totally intolerable, how that’s one of the reasons she moved to Hawaii, and that before she did she worked in the laser industry
“Cool! Did you work for a Bond villain?” I quip.
Our chat lasts for maybe 15 minutes before she finishes her martini, wishes me a nice flight, and walks off to go board her plane. The moment she’s out the door a guy in his mid 20’s a couple seats on my right turns to me and says
“That looked like it was going pretty good dude!”
“Yea I guess so, never know if it turns out she plans on visiting Vegas in the near future or something, worth a shot. So how’s your night going man?”
I enter into a lengthy discussion with Jason, who is a med student in Hawaii and going to visit Austin Texas. He seems really chilled out and tells me about his time living in Hawaii and in the health industry. I demand that he tell me a good story from his time in medicine. He launches into a story about a professor he had whose entire job it was for 17 years was to study ‘the gooch’, or a ‘goochologist’ as he elects to put it. He finds this epic and hilarious. I find it moderately amusing, but humor him that it’s really awesome.
At some point during our conversation on sports we discuss how it’s okay for the Brewers to suck, but that the Red Sox and Cubs sucking for so long with the ability to spend so much money on their team is unacceptable. This brings an interruption from two thick blonde women in their late 20’s sitting on my left, who demand to know what we said about those teams. I repeat myself, and they are faux offended that I would have the audacity to insult their team, though they don’t make it clear which they support. When Jason eventually leaves for his flight I turn back to them and ask “So was it Boston or Chicago you root for?” It turns out the answer is Chicago, and I tell them “Man, fuck Chicago…cause it’s way cooler than Milwaukee.” This opens them up and I spend another 15 minutes chatting to them about Vegas and how I winded up as a professional poker player living in Australia. Normal people always find that story amusing, or at least pretend to. I leave them halfway through the giant second beer the bartender has given me and find my way to the gate for my flight to LA.
After we depart I sit on the plane reading ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ for a couple of hours while downing numerous glasses of complimentary red wine. Eventually I put the book away, set my pillow against the window, and try to fall asleep. I spend 20 or so minutes attempting this, and it obviously doesn’t work. I give up, take out my laptop, and start writing.
Now that I’ve finished I’m going to reread the entry and see if writing half drunk has lead to more grammatical errors than usual.
Authors note: Yep, it read like it was written by a ten year old with a copy of ‘Playboy’. Fixed now though.
Second authors note: So I just got to LAX and I haven’t slept. I’m sitting in the admirals club, which is a really shitty version of the Qantas Club in Australia, but at least I have internet. Kari sent me three of the pictures, so I’ll post this entry and them, and add more later when I get them. These ones are with Rachel and the group shot.
Kari has been involved in the modeling industry on both sides of the camera for a few years now. A couple days back she suggested I do some photos for her, and when she brought up the idea of getting female models involved in the act my response was somewhere in the area of “Fuck yea I’ll do that shit” (which upon further consideration, was likely my word for word response.) On top of modeling and photography Kari is also heavily involved in art creation including jewelry making and she intends to use the shoot as a way to showcase her works. She got Cade involved not long ago, who is simultaneously blessed with the handsome exotic looks of a half Asian and the roughly 6’1” height of a half white guy, though he maintains that we are both 6’2”, as we are the same height.
Cade and Kari arrive back at the house around 1pm. I’m scrambling to make sure everything is in order for my departure later this evening, but eventually we run out of time and have to depart to pick up one of the other models.
We leave the house around 1:45pm to pick up Chantelle, a pretty blonde with crystal blue eyes who looks to be in her early to mid 20’s and has a Marine for a husband. She and Kari quickly launch into a conversation about which photographers they’ve worked with, and Kari educates Chantelle as to which are actually professional and which are borderline perverts. Kari tells us that the modeling industry has a term for ‘wanna-be’ male photographers with no actual skill that are likely just looking for a way to get hot women naked; ‘guys with cameras’. From their conversations it sounds like a high percentage of male photographers are either weirdo’s or have enormous attitude problems, though they do discuss a few that are on the normal and professional side of things.
We take 20 minute drive out towards our destination; Makapu beach, where I nearly got my stupid ass drowned yesterday. Across the street there’s some kind of marine wildlife center that we park the car in and meet two of the other models for the shoot; Angelina and Rachel. Rachel is tall and classically pretty with an Anglo look and thin frame, Angelina is shorter and curvier with a flawless face and appears to be have some kind of mixed dark haired-tan skinned background, though I have no idea as to what.
We walk over to a secluded area of Makapu beach that has many black rocks and wave pools. We’re soon joined by Kari’s good friend Vika, a tall blonde Russian girl who seems strangely distant today, particularly after Kari spoke about her personality like it might explode at any moment. I spend quite a bit of time chatting to the other three girls, who all seem very nice and not at all in the stereotype of stuck up, materialistic models. They all have a good sense of humor about my quips, such as when I tell them “I’m totally uncomfortable going topless.”
Kari begins by taking pictures of the girls alone while Cade and I sit around shooting the shit. He’s rather tired and decides to just plunk down on the sand and stares at the sky while wearing my aviators, which are too big for him. Eventually Kari calls me over to begin my shoot with Chantelle and instructs me to lose my shirt. When she asks Chantelle if she’s comfortable going topless she doesn’t hesitate for a moment to whip off her bikini top and then jumps up on the rocks next to me. It was a smart decision to take care of myself last night.
I want nothing more than for the girls to feel comfortable and for Kari to get the photos she wants, so I behave professionally and do exactly as told. Kari instructs me to loop my thumbs within Chantelle’s jeans belt loops, and then reminds me to relax my hands. Kari gives us direction as to where to turn our heads and look, and Chantelle is very fun and easy going throughout it all. Meanwhile, I do my best not to think of Derek Zoolander making his ‘blue magnum’ face, then internally debate attempting to replicate it.
After we finish Cade and Angelina take their turn on the rocks doing a set of photos together, as their dark features match well. I feel jealous watching him because I love short, dark haired women and Angelina is just gorgeous in my opinion.
Next comes my turn with Rachel on the rocks. She and Kari discuss her going topless, and I tell her either way I’ll just be staring off into the distance. During one photo Kari asks us to interact and make eye contact, and when I look into Rachel’s eyes I nearly blurt “Whoa” like Keanu Reeves in ‘The Matrix’, though mine would likely have been with more emphasis than his cold delivery. Her eyes are deep brown with a hint of gold, incredibly wide and completely flawless. It’s a cliché thing to complement a woman on her eyes, but hers nearly knocked mine out.
When we finish Kari takes a few more shots of the girls individually, and then has us take a few group photos for the blog. Everyone seems very happy with the way things went, and overall it was quite a fun experience. From the way the girls spoke about their previous experiences in modeling it seems like a lot of shoots are either very professional and formal or the photographer is bordering on creepy, so I guess it was something slightly different to have such a young photographer and a group that simply hung out casually (but perhaps not, I haven’t done anything like it before.)
After the shoot we drop Chantelle off and go for dinner. Cade continually brings up that he had a new pair of nipples pressed against him today, and after each time Kari asks me “How cool of a girlfriend am I?” Clearly the answer is ‘very’. At some point during dinner I randomly announce “Christ, I need to get a new girlfriend of some kind, this shit is driving me nuts” which I guess is what happens to you when you go from consistent sex to zero then spend a day surrounded by models in minimum clothing. I bet it’d help me sleep better.
We leave the restaurant and return to Cade’s house where I quickly pack my things in an extremely haphazard manner. They’ll probably be fine. We leave for the airport allowing me a considerable amount of time to get there, and we arrive quite early. I hug Cade and Kari goodbye, thank them for everything, and then go over to the check in. When I booked my flights with the agency they informed me that “unfortunately” they’d have to put me in first class for my US domestic flights instead of business like I was traveling internationally
“My God, this is a complete outrage! How dare you inconvenience me in this manner!?” I yelled at the travel agent over the phone, who giggled and played along by saying “I know you must be really unhappy about this.”
Unfortunately my ticket doesn’t gain me access to any kind of lounge as it seems I have to be a member of some club, and the woman at the counter is cold and disinterested, totally invulnerable to any kind of smooth talk. After I check in my bags I go through security and look for a place to kill the 90 minutes before my flight. As I walk down the terminal I walk past what appears to be a sports bar and restaurant, and although I’ve been good about not drinking lately I decide I have nothing better to do tonight.
I enter the restaurant and take a seat at the bar a few chairs over from a pretty blonde woman who looks about 30 and appears to be alone, then order a beer. I wait a few minutes to see if any husband or boyfriend comes back from the toilet, and when neither does I turn to her and ask
“So where are you off to tonight?”
“I’m doing good, how are you?”
She has apparently misunderstood my opener, but I just run with it
“I’m doing quite well myself, a rather interesting day really. Where are you headed tonight?”
“Montana, going to visit home.”
“Ah, I’m a Midwest man myself, going to visit there soon too.”
We enter into a fairly lengthy discussion about the Midwest, why six months of winter is totally intolerable, how that’s one of the reasons she moved to Hawaii, and that before she did she worked in the laser industry
“Cool! Did you work for a Bond villain?” I quip.
Our chat lasts for maybe 15 minutes before she finishes her martini, wishes me a nice flight, and walks off to go board her plane. The moment she’s out the door a guy in his mid 20’s a couple seats on my right turns to me and says
“That looked like it was going pretty good dude!”
“Yea I guess so, never know if it turns out she plans on visiting Vegas in the near future or something, worth a shot. So how’s your night going man?”
I enter into a lengthy discussion with Jason, who is a med student in Hawaii and going to visit Austin Texas. He seems really chilled out and tells me about his time living in Hawaii and in the health industry. I demand that he tell me a good story from his time in medicine. He launches into a story about a professor he had whose entire job it was for 17 years was to study ‘the gooch’, or a ‘goochologist’ as he elects to put it. He finds this epic and hilarious. I find it moderately amusing, but humor him that it’s really awesome.
At some point during our conversation on sports we discuss how it’s okay for the Brewers to suck, but that the Red Sox and Cubs sucking for so long with the ability to spend so much money on their team is unacceptable. This brings an interruption from two thick blonde women in their late 20’s sitting on my left, who demand to know what we said about those teams. I repeat myself, and they are faux offended that I would have the audacity to insult their team, though they don’t make it clear which they support. When Jason eventually leaves for his flight I turn back to them and ask “So was it Boston or Chicago you root for?” It turns out the answer is Chicago, and I tell them “Man, fuck Chicago…cause it’s way cooler than Milwaukee.” This opens them up and I spend another 15 minutes chatting to them about Vegas and how I winded up as a professional poker player living in Australia. Normal people always find that story amusing, or at least pretend to. I leave them halfway through the giant second beer the bartender has given me and find my way to the gate for my flight to LA.
After we depart I sit on the plane reading ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ for a couple of hours while downing numerous glasses of complimentary red wine. Eventually I put the book away, set my pillow against the window, and try to fall asleep. I spend 20 or so minutes attempting this, and it obviously doesn’t work. I give up, take out my laptop, and start writing.
Now that I’ve finished I’m going to reread the entry and see if writing half drunk has lead to more grammatical errors than usual.
Authors note: Yep, it read like it was written by a ten year old with a copy of ‘Playboy’. Fixed now though.
Second authors note: So I just got to LAX and I haven’t slept. I’m sitting in the admirals club, which is a really shitty version of the Qantas Club in Australia, but at least I have internet. Kari sent me three of the pictures, so I’ll post this entry and them, and add more later when I get them. These ones are with Rachel and the group shot.
Around the World in 150 Days, Day 8, I Like to Live Dangerously
by Bond18 on 04/15/09
April 14th, Honolulu: I wake up needing to urinate horribly, but I’m still so tired I just lie there for a while wondering if perhaps I can just fall back asleep for a while and let it be. I couldn’t fall asleep until somewhere around 4am last night, even though I tried to get to sleep at 2am. That just happens some nights, and it’s been like that for a long time. The best explanation as for why is that my brain won’t shut up, won’t stop bombarding me with thoughts and things to consider. I’ve found the best way to slow it down is to write, to put all my thoughts in a place where I know they’re permanent and can’t be forgotten but no longer need my attention. That or get high so I can’t think anymore. I wrote nearly 20 pages last night but I still ended up wasting over an hour staring at the ceiling before I gave up and went outside to read for a while.
After failing to fall back asleep I get up and make a dash for the bathroom. When I come out Cade and Kari inform me that the ‘shark people’ called on us to cancel again. Where it gets interesting is that they also said that we have to show up for the 11am trip and naturally Kari refused because it was way too early. The ‘shark people’ said that if we didn’t show they’d charge the credit card anyway, and Kari told them that if they did she’d contact the Hawaii business bureau and start some action against them. They gave up after that and everyone went back to sleep. I decide that’d be a good idea too and return to the bedroom, and although I lie there for a good 45 minutes again fail to fall asleep.
When I get up properly Cade and I decide to go to Makapu beach, where I’m sure not to get injured because there are no rocks at the bottom. Kari’s not feeling well so she elects to stay behind, so we change into our swim wear and head out.
Makapu is about a 20 minute drive outside the center of Honolulu, but the waves and sea floor conditions are vastly superior to those of Waikiki. However, it seems like the beach is really only known amongst locals, and on most visits there’s rarely more than a couple dozen people hanging around, plus the spattering of hardcore surfers. The waves aren’t barreling very much today but they are pretty large, and after lying around in the sun we hit the water.
I’m not a stellar swimmer but not totally useless at it either. My biggest problem with swimming in the ocean is that my eye’s tolerance for salt water is basically zero, and if I get any in there I’m temporary blinded and I can’t open them very well. Because of this, I normally stay fairly shallow and just jump over waves instead of duck diving under them, as Cade tells me I should do.
For a while things are ordinary and Cade and I swim around slamming into waves and acting like general morons in the water like we normally do. Then rather suddenly I find myself surprisingly far out and a moment later Cade is yelling at me to dive under the next large wave. I decide to try and go over instead, and it slams me under and takes me for a spin. I come up blinded and the next wave hits me instantly, sending me back under again. I come up struggling for breath and open my eyes just in time to see another wave slam into me, knocking the air out of my lungs completely. I try to concentrate on pushing up towards the top and when I break the surface I try to take a huge breath in, with mixed success. I look at the wave in front of me through my stinging eyes and start swimming as hard as I can towards the beach as it slams into me again and knocks me under. By this point I’m nearly totally out of air and the thought “I wonder what the odds of my drowning are?” crosses my mind as I feel the pressure tighten in my airless lungs. I somehow make it back to the top and see that Cade has found his way near me
“I need out of here now Cade!” I yell at him and grab for his shoulder.
Another wave crashes into us and puts me under again as I swim as hard as I can towards the beach. I manage to find my way to the surface again and I hear Cade say
“You’re good, I got ya here.”
Luckily the next wave that comes in is much smaller and I manage to swim it much further in towards the beach as I grasp on to Cade to make sure the current doesn’t sweep me back out. The next wave is even smaller and I make it back towards an area of the beach where I am basically walking out. I am gasping for air 100 times harder than at the end of our three mile run last night, and I get to the edge of the beach and then plop down in the sand and try to catch my breath. Cade joins me a moment later
“I told you to duck dive” he says
“Lesson learned” I retort. Oh well, I like to live dangerously, a statement I back up by staying out of the water for the rest of the day. I spend the remainder of my at the beach on my towel trying to get a tan.
In the evening Cade, Kari and I go to dinner at a Vietnamese place. The discussion of my swimming incident comes up, and I tell Cade I’d guess there was a roughly 5% chance of my drowning. He says he thinks it was closer to 15. I think he’s probably over estimating, but either way I’d say I’m running pretty good on my trip so far. Christ, I would look so retarded if I got myself killed on day eight of a 150 day trip.
After failing to fall back asleep I get up and make a dash for the bathroom. When I come out Cade and Kari inform me that the ‘shark people’ called on us to cancel again. Where it gets interesting is that they also said that we have to show up for the 11am trip and naturally Kari refused because it was way too early. The ‘shark people’ said that if we didn’t show they’d charge the credit card anyway, and Kari told them that if they did she’d contact the Hawaii business bureau and start some action against them. They gave up after that and everyone went back to sleep. I decide that’d be a good idea too and return to the bedroom, and although I lie there for a good 45 minutes again fail to fall asleep.
When I get up properly Cade and I decide to go to Makapu beach, where I’m sure not to get injured because there are no rocks at the bottom. Kari’s not feeling well so she elects to stay behind, so we change into our swim wear and head out.
Makapu is about a 20 minute drive outside the center of Honolulu, but the waves and sea floor conditions are vastly superior to those of Waikiki. However, it seems like the beach is really only known amongst locals, and on most visits there’s rarely more than a couple dozen people hanging around, plus the spattering of hardcore surfers. The waves aren’t barreling very much today but they are pretty large, and after lying around in the sun we hit the water.
I’m not a stellar swimmer but not totally useless at it either. My biggest problem with swimming in the ocean is that my eye’s tolerance for salt water is basically zero, and if I get any in there I’m temporary blinded and I can’t open them very well. Because of this, I normally stay fairly shallow and just jump over waves instead of duck diving under them, as Cade tells me I should do.
For a while things are ordinary and Cade and I swim around slamming into waves and acting like general morons in the water like we normally do. Then rather suddenly I find myself surprisingly far out and a moment later Cade is yelling at me to dive under the next large wave. I decide to try and go over instead, and it slams me under and takes me for a spin. I come up blinded and the next wave hits me instantly, sending me back under again. I come up struggling for breath and open my eyes just in time to see another wave slam into me, knocking the air out of my lungs completely. I try to concentrate on pushing up towards the top and when I break the surface I try to take a huge breath in, with mixed success. I look at the wave in front of me through my stinging eyes and start swimming as hard as I can towards the beach as it slams into me again and knocks me under. By this point I’m nearly totally out of air and the thought “I wonder what the odds of my drowning are?” crosses my mind as I feel the pressure tighten in my airless lungs. I somehow make it back to the top and see that Cade has found his way near me
“I need out of here now Cade!” I yell at him and grab for his shoulder.
Another wave crashes into us and puts me under again as I swim as hard as I can towards the beach. I manage to find my way to the surface again and I hear Cade say
“You’re good, I got ya here.”
Luckily the next wave that comes in is much smaller and I manage to swim it much further in towards the beach as I grasp on to Cade to make sure the current doesn’t sweep me back out. The next wave is even smaller and I make it back towards an area of the beach where I am basically walking out. I am gasping for air 100 times harder than at the end of our three mile run last night, and I get to the edge of the beach and then plop down in the sand and try to catch my breath. Cade joins me a moment later
“I told you to duck dive” he says
“Lesson learned” I retort. Oh well, I like to live dangerously, a statement I back up by staying out of the water for the rest of the day. I spend the remainder of my at the beach on my towel trying to get a tan.
In the evening Cade, Kari and I go to dinner at a Vietnamese place. The discussion of my swimming incident comes up, and I tell Cade I’d guess there was a roughly 5% chance of my drowning. He says he thinks it was closer to 15. I think he’s probably over estimating, but either way I’d say I’m running pretty good on my trip so far. Christ, I would look so retarded if I got myself killed on day eight of a 150 day trip.
Bond18's Guide to Style
by Bond18 on 04/14/09
This article is a result of a few guys in BBV4L asking me to write about fashion, and will hopefully be interesting and educational.
I personally subscribe to two universal rules of fashion:
1. You should look and feel comfortable in your clothes: At the end of the day, you should wear the clothes you like wearing and that best present who you are to other people. Whether you realize it or not, your choices in clothing tell people things about you and odds are you’ll want your clothes to be some kind of representation of your personality or what kind of person you are. There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to dress, it’s all about preferences. If you wear something that somebody else decides to needlessly hate on because it’s not their preference, either ignore them knowing you feel comfortable, or casually tell them “This is how I roll, so you and your opinion can go fuck yourself.”
2. Your clothes should be appropriate to your setting: There’s a little catch to the above rule about just wearing whatever the hell you prefer; it should be appropriate to where you are or where you’re going. If you show up to the beach in a tuxedo, or to ‘The Oscars’ in shorts and sandals, you’ve earned whatever glib remarks people shoot at you. The traditional fashion rule is that if you aren’t sure what’s appropriate for the venue, it’s better to go over dressed than under. It’s not illegal to show up anywhere wearing anything you want (provided it’s not nothing) but it comes with the consequence that people will think you’re a clown or tool if it’s way too little or too much.
The style I’ll be discussing here is mostly a result of personal fashion tastes, mixed with things I’ve read and discussed, plus some common sense. My style preference leans towards the formal side though not overly so, and I often wear a suit and dress shirt with open collar with no tie with a decent pair of dress shoes. My preferences are the result of a childhood spent with a fashionable father, my obvious idolization of James Bond, and reading GQ/Esquire since I was in my early teens. Many will find what I write here to not be applicable to their personal tastes at all, and in that situation I’d encourage them to totally disregard what I’ve written and wear whatever they like.
First let me discuss a few basic guidelines I prescribe to.
1. Your style should be noticeable yet subtle, not gaudy and excessive: Whenever I flip through fashion magazines I inevitably see a vast array of designer advertisements. I believe a number of even very high end designers clothes to look way too flashy and attention whoring, or as I say when I remark about them to a friend “This designers stuff looks like he brought in a bunch of Euro Trash and had them vomit on his clothing line.” I recommend avoiding overly bold patterns, very bright colors (unless you’re somewhere they’re appropriate), or any accessories that are too blinged out. Example: I think giant gold watches littered with jewels look retarded. You can spend $20,000 on a watch if you really want, but it shouldn’t be something that’s going to blind people next to you and inspire muggers to target you.
2. You should be conscious of the style of those around you: This is something I struggle to find a balance with. I hang out almost entirely with poker players, and most of them dress very casually (this is not an insult directed by anyone, it’s simply their preference.) If I were to walk around in suits 100% of the time I would look ridiculous hanging around a group that’s in jeans and a t-shirt, therefore I keep the more formal wear for places where it looks more appropriate, namely casinos and high end restaurants. For every day wear I still aim a little more fashionable than the group, but I try to find balance by wearing jeans and a casual button up with decent shoes so I don’t look so vastly out of place.
3. The color of your belt should roughly match the color of your shoes, no black on brown combinations: As far as socks, they are mostly determined by your shoes or pants color, you can kind of go either way. Black shoes can handle black, grey, blue, or generally dark colored socks. Brown gets brown, tan, pale green, and generally light colored ones. For other colors of shoes, use common sense.
4. Don’t over pattern: Generally, if your suit has a pattern (be it pinstripes or something else) your shirt should be without one. There are a few ways to match pinstripes and pinstripes that can look good, but it can be difficult to find an appropriate balance. This is mostly done by having the suit with wide and soft pinstripes and the shirt having more thin and noticeable ones. Don’t mix and match patterns, such as a suit with pinstripes and a shirt with squares, that just looks messy. Also, I personally never wear any shirt or suit with a square pattern on it, as I believe this is a look for older gentleman.
5. One traditional fashion rule, which I’m less fussy about than most, is that light colored suits are for during the day, though dark ones can be worn whenever (but if you’re Humphrey Bogart, you get to wear a white dinner coat at bar time.) That said, I think this is probably an excessively nity rule, and if you’re wearing a light suit during the day and go change into a dark one you’re probably going a little too far.
6. I aim to buy and wear things that are fairly timeless. What I mean is that I don’t want my clothes to be overly trendy looking, and if one day I look back at what I wore at 24 when I’m 44 I won’t think “My God, I can’t believe I actually dressed like that.” Not only will this mean you get more wear out of your clothes, but you don’t risk things coming in and out of fashion heavily and you suddenly feeling that you wasted your money.
7. I personally don’t wear vests, and they seem to currently be out of style. I think the only people who currently look appropriate wearing a vest are older gentleman, however now and then I’ll see a guy wearing a dress shirt and vest but with no suit jacket, and if he has broad shoulders it can look smart on him. This is rare though.
8. No black shirts on black suits, unless you’re in the mafia.
Now let’s discuss the specific articles:
Suits: I believe that no article of clothing can make a man look good like a well made suit. Take an average looking, average shape guy, and put him in a well made designer suit tailored specifically to him with the appropriate accessories and he’ll suddenly look very sharp.
When it comes to suits you really do get what you pay for. It takes very little interest in clothing to be able to notice the difference between a guy wearing a cheap suit and a well made one. I would say if a person only has room to pay for one really quality aspect of their wardrobe, it should be suits. Shirts, shoes, socks, accessories; these can all be obtained cheaply in the right places or the middle ground stuff can look fine when combined with the slickness of a quality suit.
When you buy a suit you are mostly paying for three things; the material quality, designer name, and the amount of man hours spent on hand stitching. The higher quality suit, the more hours spent on hand stitching. Cheap suits are fused together with glue, which means they don’t drape and contour well over the body and they will eventually ‘bubble’, which means after enough wear and cleaning you will notice small bubble like spots pop up and stick out all over the suit. Even some well known designers use glue fusion on the cheaper lines of their clothing, so do your homework and make sure to avoid this. If you’re out clothing shopping, you can ask the shop assistant about this. They might tell you that the glue is fine and all that bubbling stuff is exaggerated; don’t listen to their shit they’re trying to sell you something (perhaps someone in the fashion industry can come in and elaborate on this, who knows perhaps the process has gotten better but until I see something conclusive I’ll aim to avoid them.)
Having a suit tailored to fit you seems like a must, and even an average suit will wear much better when this detail is given attention. When it comes to buttons, anywhere from one to three is acceptable, but two is the standard. Three is a little bit 90’s but can still be pulled off nicely (they look best on tall men), and one seems to have regained style, but I think this may be one of those things that winds up falling out of being fashionable in the not so distant future. When you wear a three button suit you wear it with just the middle button done up, or occasionally with the top two buttons done up; if you have just the top on it places considerable stress on the button plus it looks a little off balance, and you only button all three if you work in a funeral parlor. For the two button suit, the consensus seems to be you only button only the top button, though when I’m out in a windy day and don’t want it blowing everywhere I’ll button both. If you can’t figure out the one button suit I advise you to get a vasectomy in order to maintain quality control on the human race.
When it comes to lapels (which are the part of the suit that runs down from the shoulders towards the buttons) I prefer a more long and thin one, which seems to be the modern style that also has been around and looking good for decades. Additionally, long ones have the benefit of making you look a bit taller. Here is an example of a long lapel suit by Z Zegna:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=longlapelsuit.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/longlapelsuit.jpg" border="0" alt="Long lapel suit"></a>
There’s no golden rule about them, but excessively short or wide ones look pretty dumb in my opinion. You also don’t want them to be too thin either, but most aren’t. There are some that are both long and wide, which I’d recommend avoiding because then it tends to dominate the suit and if not made properly can flop around and make you look very stupid.
If you truly want the ability to show off the quality of your suit, get one where the buttons on the sleeve can actually be undone and unbutton the very bottom one on each sleeve. This designates quality because even on many very expensive suits the time isn’t put into the hand stitching for this feature, and by leaving the bottom button undone you are essentially flaunting the quality of your suit. Unfortunately, only pretentious English gentleman and people who have read this article will know what you’re doing.
When it comes to what altercations to done on a suit I recommend doing the following:
A. Have the sleeve length such that when wearing an appropriate dress shirt you are showing roughly ¼-3/4th’s an inch of sleeve. If you wear cufflinks all the time, you can go a little more in order to show them off a bit, but this length seems to be the standard. I prefer about half to a three quarters inch.
B. Have the trousers at a length that they comfortably drape over your shoes but do not risk touching the ground, as this will quickly damage them. When you are standing there should be a slight bend in the pants about two inches above your foot where the fabric folds in from contact with the shoe. The tailor will pretty much get the length correct for you here.
C. If possible, have the breast pocket opened up so you can wear pocket squares if you so choose. These can sometimes provide a nice way to add variety to your look without going so far as wearing a tie.
D. The tailor will likely take care of this for you, but a suit should wear fairly thin on you (as is the style these days, and in my opinion, looks the best.) How thin you want to go is up to you, but don’t go too far as it will cut down your mobility in the cloth. That said, suits that wear thin tend to look more tailored and slick on the whole, assuming you have the kind of physique where wearing one is appropriate.
As far as brands go, the very highest quality suits you can get are created by Saville Row tailors from England or extremely high end Italian designers, such as Brioni (James Bond often wears both of these in the movies.) These will run you roughly $5,000 to $10,000 per suit, and obviously no real person can afford them. For suits that look good, wear thin, and hold up well I’ve become a large fan of Zegna. Their high end suits are around the $2,500 area (sometimes much more) but their Z Zegna line was created for young men and is more in the $1,000 area. However, some parts of a Z Zegna suit are fused with glue, though they also include hand stitched parts as well and I own several of them and have not had any issues with bubbling over multiple years of use. Many high quality suits will go on sale at places like Saks Fifth Avenue or even the outlets themselves during a sales season, and can be obtained considerably cheaper than the prices I’ve quoted (often about 30-40% cheaper in some cases.) I own only a couple of suits that I paid full price on.
Ties: I personally rarely wear ties. This is because they are the mainstay of the ‘professional world’ and I take a certain degree of pride in not having to participate in their formality. However, you will either occasionally have an event where a tie is mandatory, plus every now and then I’ll mix one in for varieties sake. When matched up appropriately a tie can really make an outfit come together nicely.
When it comes to choosing an appropriate tie just use common sense, don’t have some gaudy pattern that is excessive and stands out too much. Don’t match your tie precisely to the color of your shirt either. Your tie should share some degree of coloring with either your suit or shirt, but again not match them perfectly. If you have a suit and shirt with pin stripes, go with a plain pattern tie. If you have a suit and shirt with no pattern, get a tie with squares or pinstripes.
As far as which knot, go with the Windsor or Double Windsor. Just trust me on that, you can ‘Youtube’ how to tie it. I’d recommend getting some crappy tie to practice with until you get good at it because if you’re not naturally good with knots and shit you just might wreck a tie putting pressure in the wrong places trying to get it right.
Shirts: First things first, you need to figure out your size. Shirts measurements are in neck width and sleeve length. For example, my shirts are ’16, 34/35’. This means a 16 inch neck and 34-35 inch sleeve. If you’re not sure what yours are, either try a bunch on and see what fits appropriately or just have a tailor measure you. When the top button is closed, your shirt should be snug but by no means suffocating you. If it’s not tight enough it hangs loosely and looks sloppy. Your sleeves should come down to the very end of your wrist but not start spilling over onto your hand, which is not only bad fashion but will get annoying when you try to use them. You also don’t want them too short because they will wind up hidden beneath your suit sleeves. Don’t think for a fucking second about getting a short sleeve dress shirt, unless you want to look like one of the schmucks from ‘Office Space’, though it will afford you an opportunity to make the ‘O Face’ reference.
The modern style in shirts seems to be a more slim and tailored look. I’m personally a big fan of ‘Hugo Boss’ and ‘Zegna’ shirts, which both often fit this way. These will run you roughly $100-$200, though again you can get them cheaper on sale sometimes. It’s hard to explain a shirts quality of fit precisely, so if you want to see what I’m talking about I suggest you go somewhere like Zegna and try on one of theirs, then go to a department store and try one of their generic ones. I promise you’ll notice the difference, both in quality of construction and fit.
There are numerous types of cuffs on a shirt, the standard which has one button, the shotgun which has two buttons, and the French cuff, which is what cufflinks are inserted into. In my opinion cuff links are a very sexy look and should be worn whenever appropriate, so I aim to get French cuff whenever possible.
Also pay attention to the collar on the shirt. I personally prefer collars that run in the middle of length and height. I think short collar shirts look dumb and will fall quickly out of fashion, and very high collar ones just flop around and make you look like you’re stuck in the 70’s. Here’s an example of a short collar shirt:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=shortcollarshirt.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/shortcollarshirt.jpg" border="0" alt="short collar shirt"></a>
Like I said, it looks pretty dumb, but his Javiar Bardem in ‘No Country for Old Men’ haircut probably isn’t helping.
Here’s a good example of a more moderate collar shirt, which as you can see pops out of the suit nicely without garnering too much attention:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=mediumcollarshirt.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/mediumcollarshirt.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
When you wear a collar with a tie you obviously button it up to the top. Without a tie I recommend you undo the top and second button. If you only undo the top it’s a bit on the conservative side but can absolutely look good in many situations. If you unbutton the third one you look gay, and I’m not trying to be insulting.
Shoes: As I mentioned before, your shoes should match the color of your belt and of course, fit into the overall color ensemble of the outfit. The classic is leather material, though occasionally some suede shoes can look good with formal wear.
Jeans: With dark jeans you go with a darker shirt/shoe (or possible jacket) ensemble, and with light obviously lighter. That said, dark jeans are a bit more versatile than light ones, and you can wear a light shirt with them just as easily (I often like dark jeans with a white shirt.)
The cut should be on the slim side but not overly thin unless you want everyone to know how much you like punk rock. Here's a decent example:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=jeanspic.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/jeanspic.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>You want to be able to move around, but a baggy look is going to look dumb when the rest of your clothes are on the form fitting side. Make sure they aren’t too long, as again they’ll drag along the ground and get torn up.
You can go with either laces or loafer, though I often prefer loafer since they take half a second to put on and I don’t have to worry about laces snapping or getting dirty or any shit like that. I prefer longer, thinner looking shoes, but it’s important to note that shoes shouldn’t be so long and pointy that they wind up looking ‘elfish’.
The tip can be either on the round or square side, and it’s not terribly important but I recommend finding something congruent to your overall look. If you’re a fat guy with soft, round features I’d recommend going with more rounded shoes, and if you’re a thin guy who prefers sharp looking clothing go for more square tips or sharper round tips. Here’s a good example of a more long, thin Zegna shoe that I own and find to be very versatile:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=blackleathershoe.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/blackleathershoe.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
Just remember, overly long and thin shoes that curl up at the tip will have people asking you “How’s Santa?”
Cuff links: Like most accessories just make sure your cuffs are tasteful and not tacky. I’d recommend staying away from very bright colors or gem stones, and I personally won’t even wear gold colored cuffs. My favored look here is something silver or steel, and if it has coloring it should be congruent with my outfit.
Watches: As I mentioned before, a lot of guys like to use a watch to show off but I think giant, blinged out watches are overbearing and for guys who would like to get their watch stolen. I won’t even wear a metal band watch, as I think leather is a classic and handsome look that feels more comfortable on my wrist. That’s not to say you can’t get an extremely expensive watch if you want, but there are ways of going about this that people who know quality when they see it will recognize yet realize you have the subtlety to be understated in this area. I personally don’t bother with expensive watches because it’s exactly the type of thing I tend to lose, and these days I’m not wearing one at all. Jack Strauss once said something to the affect of (and I’m paraphrasing) “I used to want a Fossil, then I wanted a Movado, then a Rolex, and then a Cartier. Then I realized the true luxury was in not having to know the time.” He was a clever guy up until the day he dropped dead right on the table.
Well that’s all I can think of to go over for now. If there’s any questions just fire away.
I personally subscribe to two universal rules of fashion:
1. You should look and feel comfortable in your clothes: At the end of the day, you should wear the clothes you like wearing and that best present who you are to other people. Whether you realize it or not, your choices in clothing tell people things about you and odds are you’ll want your clothes to be some kind of representation of your personality or what kind of person you are. There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to dress, it’s all about preferences. If you wear something that somebody else decides to needlessly hate on because it’s not their preference, either ignore them knowing you feel comfortable, or casually tell them “This is how I roll, so you and your opinion can go fuck yourself.”
2. Your clothes should be appropriate to your setting: There’s a little catch to the above rule about just wearing whatever the hell you prefer; it should be appropriate to where you are or where you’re going. If you show up to the beach in a tuxedo, or to ‘The Oscars’ in shorts and sandals, you’ve earned whatever glib remarks people shoot at you. The traditional fashion rule is that if you aren’t sure what’s appropriate for the venue, it’s better to go over dressed than under. It’s not illegal to show up anywhere wearing anything you want (provided it’s not nothing) but it comes with the consequence that people will think you’re a clown or tool if it’s way too little or too much.
The style I’ll be discussing here is mostly a result of personal fashion tastes, mixed with things I’ve read and discussed, plus some common sense. My style preference leans towards the formal side though not overly so, and I often wear a suit and dress shirt with open collar with no tie with a decent pair of dress shoes. My preferences are the result of a childhood spent with a fashionable father, my obvious idolization of James Bond, and reading GQ/Esquire since I was in my early teens. Many will find what I write here to not be applicable to their personal tastes at all, and in that situation I’d encourage them to totally disregard what I’ve written and wear whatever they like.
First let me discuss a few basic guidelines I prescribe to.
1. Your style should be noticeable yet subtle, not gaudy and excessive: Whenever I flip through fashion magazines I inevitably see a vast array of designer advertisements. I believe a number of even very high end designers clothes to look way too flashy and attention whoring, or as I say when I remark about them to a friend “This designers stuff looks like he brought in a bunch of Euro Trash and had them vomit on his clothing line.” I recommend avoiding overly bold patterns, very bright colors (unless you’re somewhere they’re appropriate), or any accessories that are too blinged out. Example: I think giant gold watches littered with jewels look retarded. You can spend $20,000 on a watch if you really want, but it shouldn’t be something that’s going to blind people next to you and inspire muggers to target you.
2. You should be conscious of the style of those around you: This is something I struggle to find a balance with. I hang out almost entirely with poker players, and most of them dress very casually (this is not an insult directed by anyone, it’s simply their preference.) If I were to walk around in suits 100% of the time I would look ridiculous hanging around a group that’s in jeans and a t-shirt, therefore I keep the more formal wear for places where it looks more appropriate, namely casinos and high end restaurants. For every day wear I still aim a little more fashionable than the group, but I try to find balance by wearing jeans and a casual button up with decent shoes so I don’t look so vastly out of place.
3. The color of your belt should roughly match the color of your shoes, no black on brown combinations: As far as socks, they are mostly determined by your shoes or pants color, you can kind of go either way. Black shoes can handle black, grey, blue, or generally dark colored socks. Brown gets brown, tan, pale green, and generally light colored ones. For other colors of shoes, use common sense.
4. Don’t over pattern: Generally, if your suit has a pattern (be it pinstripes or something else) your shirt should be without one. There are a few ways to match pinstripes and pinstripes that can look good, but it can be difficult to find an appropriate balance. This is mostly done by having the suit with wide and soft pinstripes and the shirt having more thin and noticeable ones. Don’t mix and match patterns, such as a suit with pinstripes and a shirt with squares, that just looks messy. Also, I personally never wear any shirt or suit with a square pattern on it, as I believe this is a look for older gentleman.
5. One traditional fashion rule, which I’m less fussy about than most, is that light colored suits are for during the day, though dark ones can be worn whenever (but if you’re Humphrey Bogart, you get to wear a white dinner coat at bar time.) That said, I think this is probably an excessively nity rule, and if you’re wearing a light suit during the day and go change into a dark one you’re probably going a little too far.
6. I aim to buy and wear things that are fairly timeless. What I mean is that I don’t want my clothes to be overly trendy looking, and if one day I look back at what I wore at 24 when I’m 44 I won’t think “My God, I can’t believe I actually dressed like that.” Not only will this mean you get more wear out of your clothes, but you don’t risk things coming in and out of fashion heavily and you suddenly feeling that you wasted your money.
7. I personally don’t wear vests, and they seem to currently be out of style. I think the only people who currently look appropriate wearing a vest are older gentleman, however now and then I’ll see a guy wearing a dress shirt and vest but with no suit jacket, and if he has broad shoulders it can look smart on him. This is rare though.
8. No black shirts on black suits, unless you’re in the mafia.
Now let’s discuss the specific articles:
Suits: I believe that no article of clothing can make a man look good like a well made suit. Take an average looking, average shape guy, and put him in a well made designer suit tailored specifically to him with the appropriate accessories and he’ll suddenly look very sharp.
When it comes to suits you really do get what you pay for. It takes very little interest in clothing to be able to notice the difference between a guy wearing a cheap suit and a well made one. I would say if a person only has room to pay for one really quality aspect of their wardrobe, it should be suits. Shirts, shoes, socks, accessories; these can all be obtained cheaply in the right places or the middle ground stuff can look fine when combined with the slickness of a quality suit.
When you buy a suit you are mostly paying for three things; the material quality, designer name, and the amount of man hours spent on hand stitching. The higher quality suit, the more hours spent on hand stitching. Cheap suits are fused together with glue, which means they don’t drape and contour well over the body and they will eventually ‘bubble’, which means after enough wear and cleaning you will notice small bubble like spots pop up and stick out all over the suit. Even some well known designers use glue fusion on the cheaper lines of their clothing, so do your homework and make sure to avoid this. If you’re out clothing shopping, you can ask the shop assistant about this. They might tell you that the glue is fine and all that bubbling stuff is exaggerated; don’t listen to their shit they’re trying to sell you something (perhaps someone in the fashion industry can come in and elaborate on this, who knows perhaps the process has gotten better but until I see something conclusive I’ll aim to avoid them.)
Having a suit tailored to fit you seems like a must, and even an average suit will wear much better when this detail is given attention. When it comes to buttons, anywhere from one to three is acceptable, but two is the standard. Three is a little bit 90’s but can still be pulled off nicely (they look best on tall men), and one seems to have regained style, but I think this may be one of those things that winds up falling out of being fashionable in the not so distant future. When you wear a three button suit you wear it with just the middle button done up, or occasionally with the top two buttons done up; if you have just the top on it places considerable stress on the button plus it looks a little off balance, and you only button all three if you work in a funeral parlor. For the two button suit, the consensus seems to be you only button only the top button, though when I’m out in a windy day and don’t want it blowing everywhere I’ll button both. If you can’t figure out the one button suit I advise you to get a vasectomy in order to maintain quality control on the human race.
When it comes to lapels (which are the part of the suit that runs down from the shoulders towards the buttons) I prefer a more long and thin one, which seems to be the modern style that also has been around and looking good for decades. Additionally, long ones have the benefit of making you look a bit taller. Here is an example of a long lapel suit by Z Zegna:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=longlapelsuit.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/longlapelsuit.jpg" border="0" alt="Long lapel suit"></a>
There’s no golden rule about them, but excessively short or wide ones look pretty dumb in my opinion. You also don’t want them to be too thin either, but most aren’t. There are some that are both long and wide, which I’d recommend avoiding because then it tends to dominate the suit and if not made properly can flop around and make you look very stupid.
If you truly want the ability to show off the quality of your suit, get one where the buttons on the sleeve can actually be undone and unbutton the very bottom one on each sleeve. This designates quality because even on many very expensive suits the time isn’t put into the hand stitching for this feature, and by leaving the bottom button undone you are essentially flaunting the quality of your suit. Unfortunately, only pretentious English gentleman and people who have read this article will know what you’re doing.
When it comes to what altercations to done on a suit I recommend doing the following:
A. Have the sleeve length such that when wearing an appropriate dress shirt you are showing roughly ¼-3/4th’s an inch of sleeve. If you wear cufflinks all the time, you can go a little more in order to show them off a bit, but this length seems to be the standard. I prefer about half to a three quarters inch.
B. Have the trousers at a length that they comfortably drape over your shoes but do not risk touching the ground, as this will quickly damage them. When you are standing there should be a slight bend in the pants about two inches above your foot where the fabric folds in from contact with the shoe. The tailor will pretty much get the length correct for you here.
C. If possible, have the breast pocket opened up so you can wear pocket squares if you so choose. These can sometimes provide a nice way to add variety to your look without going so far as wearing a tie.
D. The tailor will likely take care of this for you, but a suit should wear fairly thin on you (as is the style these days, and in my opinion, looks the best.) How thin you want to go is up to you, but don’t go too far as it will cut down your mobility in the cloth. That said, suits that wear thin tend to look more tailored and slick on the whole, assuming you have the kind of physique where wearing one is appropriate.
As far as brands go, the very highest quality suits you can get are created by Saville Row tailors from England or extremely high end Italian designers, such as Brioni (James Bond often wears both of these in the movies.) These will run you roughly $5,000 to $10,000 per suit, and obviously no real person can afford them. For suits that look good, wear thin, and hold up well I’ve become a large fan of Zegna. Their high end suits are around the $2,500 area (sometimes much more) but their Z Zegna line was created for young men and is more in the $1,000 area. However, some parts of a Z Zegna suit are fused with glue, though they also include hand stitched parts as well and I own several of them and have not had any issues with bubbling over multiple years of use. Many high quality suits will go on sale at places like Saks Fifth Avenue or even the outlets themselves during a sales season, and can be obtained considerably cheaper than the prices I’ve quoted (often about 30-40% cheaper in some cases.) I own only a couple of suits that I paid full price on.
Ties: I personally rarely wear ties. This is because they are the mainstay of the ‘professional world’ and I take a certain degree of pride in not having to participate in their formality. However, you will either occasionally have an event where a tie is mandatory, plus every now and then I’ll mix one in for varieties sake. When matched up appropriately a tie can really make an outfit come together nicely.
When it comes to choosing an appropriate tie just use common sense, don’t have some gaudy pattern that is excessive and stands out too much. Don’t match your tie precisely to the color of your shirt either. Your tie should share some degree of coloring with either your suit or shirt, but again not match them perfectly. If you have a suit and shirt with pin stripes, go with a plain pattern tie. If you have a suit and shirt with no pattern, get a tie with squares or pinstripes.
As far as which knot, go with the Windsor or Double Windsor. Just trust me on that, you can ‘Youtube’ how to tie it. I’d recommend getting some crappy tie to practice with until you get good at it because if you’re not naturally good with knots and shit you just might wreck a tie putting pressure in the wrong places trying to get it right.
Shirts: First things first, you need to figure out your size. Shirts measurements are in neck width and sleeve length. For example, my shirts are ’16, 34/35’. This means a 16 inch neck and 34-35 inch sleeve. If you’re not sure what yours are, either try a bunch on and see what fits appropriately or just have a tailor measure you. When the top button is closed, your shirt should be snug but by no means suffocating you. If it’s not tight enough it hangs loosely and looks sloppy. Your sleeves should come down to the very end of your wrist but not start spilling over onto your hand, which is not only bad fashion but will get annoying when you try to use them. You also don’t want them too short because they will wind up hidden beneath your suit sleeves. Don’t think for a fucking second about getting a short sleeve dress shirt, unless you want to look like one of the schmucks from ‘Office Space’, though it will afford you an opportunity to make the ‘O Face’ reference.
The modern style in shirts seems to be a more slim and tailored look. I’m personally a big fan of ‘Hugo Boss’ and ‘Zegna’ shirts, which both often fit this way. These will run you roughly $100-$200, though again you can get them cheaper on sale sometimes. It’s hard to explain a shirts quality of fit precisely, so if you want to see what I’m talking about I suggest you go somewhere like Zegna and try on one of theirs, then go to a department store and try one of their generic ones. I promise you’ll notice the difference, both in quality of construction and fit.
There are numerous types of cuffs on a shirt, the standard which has one button, the shotgun which has two buttons, and the French cuff, which is what cufflinks are inserted into. In my opinion cuff links are a very sexy look and should be worn whenever appropriate, so I aim to get French cuff whenever possible.
Also pay attention to the collar on the shirt. I personally prefer collars that run in the middle of length and height. I think short collar shirts look dumb and will fall quickly out of fashion, and very high collar ones just flop around and make you look like you’re stuck in the 70’s. Here’s an example of a short collar shirt:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=shortcollarshirt.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/shortcollarshirt.jpg" border="0" alt="short collar shirt"></a>
Like I said, it looks pretty dumb, but his Javiar Bardem in ‘No Country for Old Men’ haircut probably isn’t helping.
Here’s a good example of a more moderate collar shirt, which as you can see pops out of the suit nicely without garnering too much attention:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=mediumcollarshirt.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/mediumcollarshirt.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
When you wear a collar with a tie you obviously button it up to the top. Without a tie I recommend you undo the top and second button. If you only undo the top it’s a bit on the conservative side but can absolutely look good in many situations. If you unbutton the third one you look gay, and I’m not trying to be insulting.
Shoes: As I mentioned before, your shoes should match the color of your belt and of course, fit into the overall color ensemble of the outfit. The classic is leather material, though occasionally some suede shoes can look good with formal wear.
Jeans: With dark jeans you go with a darker shirt/shoe (or possible jacket) ensemble, and with light obviously lighter. That said, dark jeans are a bit more versatile than light ones, and you can wear a light shirt with them just as easily (I often like dark jeans with a white shirt.)
The cut should be on the slim side but not overly thin unless you want everyone to know how much you like punk rock. Here's a decent example:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=jeanspic.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/jeanspic.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>You want to be able to move around, but a baggy look is going to look dumb when the rest of your clothes are on the form fitting side. Make sure they aren’t too long, as again they’ll drag along the ground and get torn up.
You can go with either laces or loafer, though I often prefer loafer since they take half a second to put on and I don’t have to worry about laces snapping or getting dirty or any shit like that. I prefer longer, thinner looking shoes, but it’s important to note that shoes shouldn’t be so long and pointy that they wind up looking ‘elfish’.
The tip can be either on the round or square side, and it’s not terribly important but I recommend finding something congruent to your overall look. If you’re a fat guy with soft, round features I’d recommend going with more rounded shoes, and if you’re a thin guy who prefers sharp looking clothing go for more square tips or sharper round tips. Here’s a good example of a more long, thin Zegna shoe that I own and find to be very versatile:
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/?action=view¤t=blackleathershoe.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/Bond18/blackleathershoe.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
Just remember, overly long and thin shoes that curl up at the tip will have people asking you “How’s Santa?”
Cuff links: Like most accessories just make sure your cuffs are tasteful and not tacky. I’d recommend staying away from very bright colors or gem stones, and I personally won’t even wear gold colored cuffs. My favored look here is something silver or steel, and if it has coloring it should be congruent with my outfit.
Watches: As I mentioned before, a lot of guys like to use a watch to show off but I think giant, blinged out watches are overbearing and for guys who would like to get their watch stolen. I won’t even wear a metal band watch, as I think leather is a classic and handsome look that feels more comfortable on my wrist. That’s not to say you can’t get an extremely expensive watch if you want, but there are ways of going about this that people who know quality when they see it will recognize yet realize you have the subtlety to be understated in this area. I personally don’t bother with expensive watches because it’s exactly the type of thing I tend to lose, and these days I’m not wearing one at all. Jack Strauss once said something to the affect of (and I’m paraphrasing) “I used to want a Fossil, then I wanted a Movado, then a Rolex, and then a Cartier. Then I realized the true luxury was in not having to know the time.” He was a clever guy up until the day he dropped dead right on the table.
Well that’s all I can think of to go over for now. If there’s any questions just fire away.
Around the World in 150 Days, Day 7, Rocky Water
by Bond18 on 04/14/09
April 12th, Honolulu: Kari and Cade wake me up around 11:30am. It’s an hour drive out to the shark diving and the boat leaves at 1pm. Kari has brought us coffee, so I lay in bed for a moment collecting myself then peel myself out of bed and start downing the iced something or other she brought me. I feel pretty good after 10 hours of sleep.
Half an hour later we’re in Kari’s car, blasting songs out of her ‘Ipod’ through the stereo system and singing along as loud as we can in preparation for the karaoke we intend on going to tonight. It’s a gorgeous day out despite the forecast again calling for rain, which it has for the last three sunny, perfect days. Hopefully the light allows me a closer inspection of the sharks, which will no doubt cause me to yell “CHAAAAAAARK!!” in a Humberto Brenesesque accent.
We arrive a little before 1pm at the dock, park the car, and walk over to the boat. We’re about 10 feet away from the boat and I’m fairly certain I overhear the guy in charge telling the people in front of us that he won’t be able to take them out on the boat today. However, when we go up to him he informs us to go talk to the guys on the other boat.
We approach the guys on the other boat, who are currently unloading the passengers from the voyage they just took out. After five minutes of standing there while they move out the people and various equipment the guys eventually turn to us and explain that because of conditions they won’t be able to take us out today. Cool of the other guy to dump the responsibility of telling us on to them. We discuss how sometimes when they tell people they won’t be able to take them out because it’d be dangerous they get mad for having wasted an hour long drive out to get them.
“HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT ENDANGER MY SAFETY!?!” I yell jokingly at them, which they appear amused by. They suggest we simply spend our day getting wasted on the beach instead. I tell them I like their style. After we walk away I regret not asking them if they have any weed, since they seemed super cool and the types to whip some out and smoke me up on the spot.
We walk over to a nearby beach to hang out for a while, though apparently it’s covered in rocks underneath the water and the current is so strong that it’s not recommended we go swimming. Three enormous sea turtles wash up on the shore and just sort of sit there basking in the sun relaxing, at least until a couple little kids come along and start poking one of them with a stick. Kari goes over and asks them to stop, and tells them if they don’t “You’ll wind up killing the turtles.” The kid holding the stick instantly snaps it in half upon hearing this.
Kari goes to sleep on the beach for a while and Cade and I walk over to a grassy area to practice the seven basic blocks of Kung Fu that I was taught when attending a session at his school the other day. I’ve spent the last few months doing some boxing training, but increasingly find other forms of self defense fascinating, plus awesome ways to get a work out. My session at the Kung Fu school gave me a huge respect for what I now realize is an extremely lethal defense form.
After a while we decide to go over to Honolulu’s most popular beach, Waikiki, so we can actually go into the water. There’s pretty bad traffic so it takes an hour to get there, and once we park I run off to the bathroom and tell Cade and Kari I’ll find them later. After I walk out I take a stroll down the beach checking out the eye candy, and notice a cute strawberry blonde who is reading lying next to another girl. I walk up and say to her
“Excuse me, I know this is very forward of me, but I saw you as I was walking along the beach and thought you were really cute so I wanted to come say hi, plus I already know we have something on common.”
She stares at me blankly for a moment and I point to her book then say sarcastically
“I too can read.”
She seems mildly amused so I take a seat and introduce myself. I ask what brings her to Hawaii (the answer will obviously often be vacation, it’s simply a way to get in a normal conversation) and she answers vacation. I ask where from and she tells me Melbourne Australia. It may seem weird to come all the way to Hawaii and wind up hitting on a girl from Melbourne, but on the plus side it gives me plenty of material to go forward with.
I wind up chatting to her for a good 15 minutes. At no point does she seem totally enthralled by our interaction, nor does she seem disinterested. I try to crack some jokes, which have mixed results, such as when I ask what the origins of her name ‘Phillipa’ are
“It’s the female version of Phillip.”
“No I mean, what kind of ethnic origins.”
“English I guess?”
“Ah so your one of the guys who shot all the aboriginals huh?” (Upon later consideration, I doubt most English-Australians would find that particularly funny)
“Actually I’m from New Zealand” (Something she’d told me about 10 minutes earlier.)
I ask her about coming to karaoke with me and my friends that night and she says karaoke isn’t really her thing but she’d be down to hang out sometime during her trip. I am without a phone on the beach (don’t ever be without a phone during a pick up attempt) so she suggests she add me on facebook. She asks for the spelling of my last name, which network I’m on, and then I hang around and keep chatting for a while. Two things to be learned here; first of all I made a huge mistake by not getting her information as well. I’m so used to whipping out my phone and telling the girl to put her number in there that I blanked on this aspect, as when doing a pick up it’s really unlikely that a girl will get in contact with you even if she found you intriguing, because that’s just how girls are. For example, I would never allow a girl to take my number and not give hers; it’s just a total waste of time. Second, even after you close the contact information you should still hang around for a while and keep chatting (which I got right.) If you bail the second after you get a number/facebook-add you wind up making the girl feel like you didn’t have that much actual interest, that you simply run around collecting numbers as quickly and efficiently as possible. While the conversation in this particular approach went pretty well overall (though not great) I’d be pretty surprised if she actually bothers to add me, the consequence for my forgetting to get her information.
After I walk off I find Cade and Kari about 50 feet down on the beach and we hit the water. Unfortunately Wakiki also has quite a few rocks below the surface, and I naturally wind up getting my foot slammed into some fairly hard at one point during my swim. When we get out of the water Kari isn’t feeling well so we call it a day and head back to Cade’s house.
In the evening Cade takes me for a three and a half mile run down near the beach, which I surprisingly complete without too much difficulty or feeling much out of breath at the end. I haven’t been that good about my diet or exercise in Hawaii, so it’s good to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully once I get to Vegas I’ll recommit myself in the Bellagio gym, but I have a feeling I’ll wind up just getting drunk instead.
Half an hour later we’re in Kari’s car, blasting songs out of her ‘Ipod’ through the stereo system and singing along as loud as we can in preparation for the karaoke we intend on going to tonight. It’s a gorgeous day out despite the forecast again calling for rain, which it has for the last three sunny, perfect days. Hopefully the light allows me a closer inspection of the sharks, which will no doubt cause me to yell “CHAAAAAAARK!!” in a Humberto Brenesesque accent.
We arrive a little before 1pm at the dock, park the car, and walk over to the boat. We’re about 10 feet away from the boat and I’m fairly certain I overhear the guy in charge telling the people in front of us that he won’t be able to take them out on the boat today. However, when we go up to him he informs us to go talk to the guys on the other boat.
We approach the guys on the other boat, who are currently unloading the passengers from the voyage they just took out. After five minutes of standing there while they move out the people and various equipment the guys eventually turn to us and explain that because of conditions they won’t be able to take us out today. Cool of the other guy to dump the responsibility of telling us on to them. We discuss how sometimes when they tell people they won’t be able to take them out because it’d be dangerous they get mad for having wasted an hour long drive out to get them.
“HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT ENDANGER MY SAFETY!?!” I yell jokingly at them, which they appear amused by. They suggest we simply spend our day getting wasted on the beach instead. I tell them I like their style. After we walk away I regret not asking them if they have any weed, since they seemed super cool and the types to whip some out and smoke me up on the spot.
We walk over to a nearby beach to hang out for a while, though apparently it’s covered in rocks underneath the water and the current is so strong that it’s not recommended we go swimming. Three enormous sea turtles wash up on the shore and just sort of sit there basking in the sun relaxing, at least until a couple little kids come along and start poking one of them with a stick. Kari goes over and asks them to stop, and tells them if they don’t “You’ll wind up killing the turtles.” The kid holding the stick instantly snaps it in half upon hearing this.
Kari goes to sleep on the beach for a while and Cade and I walk over to a grassy area to practice the seven basic blocks of Kung Fu that I was taught when attending a session at his school the other day. I’ve spent the last few months doing some boxing training, but increasingly find other forms of self defense fascinating, plus awesome ways to get a work out. My session at the Kung Fu school gave me a huge respect for what I now realize is an extremely lethal defense form.
After a while we decide to go over to Honolulu’s most popular beach, Waikiki, so we can actually go into the water. There’s pretty bad traffic so it takes an hour to get there, and once we park I run off to the bathroom and tell Cade and Kari I’ll find them later. After I walk out I take a stroll down the beach checking out the eye candy, and notice a cute strawberry blonde who is reading lying next to another girl. I walk up and say to her
“Excuse me, I know this is very forward of me, but I saw you as I was walking along the beach and thought you were really cute so I wanted to come say hi, plus I already know we have something on common.”
She stares at me blankly for a moment and I point to her book then say sarcastically
“I too can read.”
She seems mildly amused so I take a seat and introduce myself. I ask what brings her to Hawaii (the answer will obviously often be vacation, it’s simply a way to get in a normal conversation) and she answers vacation. I ask where from and she tells me Melbourne Australia. It may seem weird to come all the way to Hawaii and wind up hitting on a girl from Melbourne, but on the plus side it gives me plenty of material to go forward with.
I wind up chatting to her for a good 15 minutes. At no point does she seem totally enthralled by our interaction, nor does she seem disinterested. I try to crack some jokes, which have mixed results, such as when I ask what the origins of her name ‘Phillipa’ are
“It’s the female version of Phillip.”
“No I mean, what kind of ethnic origins.”
“English I guess?”
“Ah so your one of the guys who shot all the aboriginals huh?” (Upon later consideration, I doubt most English-Australians would find that particularly funny)
“Actually I’m from New Zealand” (Something she’d told me about 10 minutes earlier.)
I ask her about coming to karaoke with me and my friends that night and she says karaoke isn’t really her thing but she’d be down to hang out sometime during her trip. I am without a phone on the beach (don’t ever be without a phone during a pick up attempt) so she suggests she add me on facebook. She asks for the spelling of my last name, which network I’m on, and then I hang around and keep chatting for a while. Two things to be learned here; first of all I made a huge mistake by not getting her information as well. I’m so used to whipping out my phone and telling the girl to put her number in there that I blanked on this aspect, as when doing a pick up it’s really unlikely that a girl will get in contact with you even if she found you intriguing, because that’s just how girls are. For example, I would never allow a girl to take my number and not give hers; it’s just a total waste of time. Second, even after you close the contact information you should still hang around for a while and keep chatting (which I got right.) If you bail the second after you get a number/facebook-add you wind up making the girl feel like you didn’t have that much actual interest, that you simply run around collecting numbers as quickly and efficiently as possible. While the conversation in this particular approach went pretty well overall (though not great) I’d be pretty surprised if she actually bothers to add me, the consequence for my forgetting to get her information.
After I walk off I find Cade and Kari about 50 feet down on the beach and we hit the water. Unfortunately Wakiki also has quite a few rocks below the surface, and I naturally wind up getting my foot slammed into some fairly hard at one point during my swim. When we get out of the water Kari isn’t feeling well so we call it a day and head back to Cade’s house.
In the evening Cade takes me for a three and a half mile run down near the beach, which I surprisingly complete without too much difficulty or feeling much out of breath at the end. I haven’t been that good about my diet or exercise in Hawaii, so it’s good to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully once I get to Vegas I’ll recommit myself in the Bellagio gym, but I have a feeling I’ll wind up just getting drunk instead.
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