A present from my awesome girlfriend. Now I’m one step closer to working on stuff at home, wearing boxers, with a beer in hand. Beats the school’s furnace of a lab.
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End of the 1st Year
In less than 2 weeks my first year of Engineering School will wrap up.
In this period of time, I plan on locking myself down to the bare essentials in order to see it through.
Circuit Theory II, with them complex conjugate whatchamightcallit AC circuits will be a pain to study for, will take up most of my time.
I mean, it even ruined my fucking childhood faster than Michael Bay did.
And the group projects that I need to complete!
When the last final exam is over, I’ll drive my ass home. But before I get there, I’ll stop at Shake Shack.
I’ll buy $50 worth of burgers and shakes (yes, plural on the shakes. No, you may not have one). And when I reach home, I’ll guzzle all of it, and wash it down with a couple of 6-packs. 
After replenishing the calories I’ve neglected to intake throughout the semester, I’ll sleep. Forever.
And then I’ll wake up for this summer research I so eagerly agreed upon.
BUT,
I need to finish writing this program first.
Sigh.
New things coming.
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I’m an Electronic Engineering Technology student at Wentworth Institute of Technology these days. New things coming, and don’t be surprised if it’s related to my coursework.
There goes the tomahawk…
And after a good 7-8 years of abuse the handle on my tomahawk finally snapped. I’m actually surprised that this tomahawk stayed intact for so long. I only abuse the hell out of it every year. The head is pitted with rust and chipped paint, and the handle started splitting from all the horrible tosses it had to endure. Looks like if you don’t keep up with practice, you lose the touch. After a few more throws the handle splintered apart. I ended up tossing it into the fire-pit nearby. This only means two things: Craft a new handle, and buy a not-so-shitty hatchet. That way I’ll have a nicer one for the real work and keep the shitty one to toss.
The days are filled with random BBQs and off the wall moments you would only find in a dysfunctional household. Dogs dart around the yard as family members garden, drink, film family videos, and watch as others run around haphazardly with sharp swords. The ones holding the swords are usually the ones involved in the drinking.
These summer BBQ days are usually one of the few times that the family gets together for a meal. Our schedules are sporadic to the point where everyone’s dinnertime is different. And yet somehow summer BBQs bring all of us together.
Between all the mayhem of playing with the dogs, tossing tomahawks, riding an ATV and bicycles around the backyard, we find the time to sit as a family and enjoy a meal as a family. Suddenly things don’t seem so dysfunctional.
Then you realize that your grandmother is drinking hard Chinese liquor from a pirate shotglass.
Here’s to a long summer.
Hope yours is just as good, if not better. Unless I hate you, that is. Hope you get destroyed by mosquitoes.I’m kidding, of course. But not really.
Dog collar
Due to a steady weight gain, Yoshi the Shiba required a new dog collar. The previous collar was braided by my girlfriend using 550 paracord. It took a year for the collar to get snug. I ordered a Tanner Goods collar for the fatass.
The collar is heavier than any other collar, leather or nylon, Yoshi has worn.
He seems to enjoy it.
Wallets
Four wallets in six years. That’s a little excessive, isn’t it?
I have gone through 4 bilfold-style wallets in order to find one that I loved. Each wallet I’ve owned was wonderful, but have been lacking in one area or another. I really should stop hunting for something else, but for some reason I find myself very critical and particular about wallets. Maybe it’s because I keep it in the back pocket all day long.
The wallets in this outdoor picture are way too bright. I need to pay more attention during the picture-taking and post-processing steps. Anyways, from the top going clockwise: Corter, Saddleback, LV and Makr bifolds.
Louis Vuitton: This wallet was a gift from my mother a couple of years back. The LV bifold was my first nice wallet. Before this one I was carrying a poorly constructed canvas and velcro wallet that was well on it’s way to falling apart. The LV is the slimmest out of all four you see, built using their Epi Leather. It feels like plastic to me from the moment I touched it to the time I retired it. This eventually led me to hunt for another bifold to hold my contents.
Maybe due to how thin and plastic-y the leather was I always felt that the wallet was overpriced for what it was. Maybe someone can school me on the awesomeness of Epi Leather.
Saddleback: Thick, full-grain leather with a pigskin interior. This wallet is tough and still has a wonderful leather smell after a year of accidental liquid contact (Alcohol, beer and alcohol, rubbing to name a few.) The Saddleback arrived stiff and rough on touch, but over the course of a year the leather has developed a smooth surface with a variety of markings made from daily use.
The wallet was a little thicker than I would have liked. My preferred carry for a wallet is in the back pocket of whatever pants I wore. It’s been like that since I started carrying a wallet as a kid, and it’s not going to change anytime soon. This makes for an uncomfortable carry is I sit for a prolonged period of time. If I carried my wallets some other method the extra thickness would be wonderful. This Saddleback has been given to someone who needed a wallet upgrade.
Makr: This wallet was meant to be a replacement for the Saddleback, but in the end I only carried it for a month. This bifold is a slimmer wallet made with Horween’s chromexcel leather. Not that it’s a bad wallet, but a part of the construction of the wallet had me continue my quest for a bifold.
I don’t have a picture of it, but the interior of the wallet is stitched in a way that the two flaps of leather end up as a bulge at the big cash slot. This gave the interior a clean appearance, but it also had the negative effect of bending the objects in the slot. At worse it shortened the lives of receipts. The stitched area managed to render one of my UPS tracking numbers illegible. Checks get bent into shapes that give the Bank of America ATMs a hard time.
This is all too bad because I really wanted to like this wallet. The wallet had developed some character from the month’s worth of carrying. It’s slim without feeling weak, and denim stains have made it’s appearance on the exterior of this wallet. If I just kept cash in the main slot I wouldn’t have much of an issue with it, but due to my small collection of necessary receipts and checks the wallet had to be retired.
The Makr wallet now serves as a contingency.
Corter: Of course, this gave me an excuse to check out Eric Heins’ leather-crafting.
Eric operates Corter Leather from his studio apartment in Boston. He crafts all the wallets by himself from hide to a finished product. I can only imagine the blisters from all that abuse to his fingers. I met Eric briefly when I went to his apartment pick up a wallet made with Horween’s shell cordovan. Although extremely busy with churning out orders he took some time to accommodate me. Talking to him and seeing his workplace affirmed my decision to seek him out for a quality wallet. His room/workplace is filled with leather-crafting tools, books and old as well as new products. If I had half the dedication Eric has with Corter Leather, I’d be set.
He offers an assortment of bifolds, from natural to fabric lined, waxed or dyed, but I was set on purchasing the full shell cordovan variation (As opposed to outer shell cordovan and inner veg tanned leather.) This wallet holds the glossy look and smooth feel of my other shell cordovan products. Eric even cut the leather in a way to save most of the stamp from Horween at the center of the main slot. The stitching is wonderful, and I find myself taking this wallet out a few times a day just to hold it. Yes, I’m weird.
This wallet contains all the ingredients to what I wanted in a wallet. It uses leather from the US, made locally. It’s the right size, not too thick but enough so it’s still substantial. The stitching is solid and the crafter is someone that takes pride in their work. I’ve only had this wallet for a month, but I plan on keeping this one until one of us expires. Who knows, the wallet might outlast me.
Shell Cordovan
At least I match.
