Please note that if you are looking for race details, they'll be included in a separate post. For now, this post will capture all the awesomeness that was non-racing of my weekend in Rochester.
The race wasn't until 6pm so I had a lot of time to kill.
The day started off great with a solid breakfast of bagels and cream cheese with my mom and sister. We spent the late morning watching a few episodes of The Wonder Years. Man what a great program.
Early in the afternoon, we decided to go shopping at Mentality in the Village of Pittsford. Mentality is the place to shop for designer men's clothing in all of New York (outside of Manhattan). It was a little chilly in Rochester this weekend so I wanted to pick up something with long sleeves, either a Spring jacket (hopefully on sale since it is out of season) or a hoodie of some sort (same, although hoodies are never really out of season). I ended up finding a sweet reversible and oh-so-comfy zip up hoodie. The denim bar at Mentality is definitely its main attraction. Citizens of Humanity, Seven for all Mankind, Paper Denim & Cloth, Juicy Couture, Rock and Republic, True Religion . . . you name it, they have it. I probably tried on eight pairs of jeans . . . I was looking for a very light wash and found the perfect pair in a semi-destroyed pair of Paper Denims, unfortunately they only had them in 31 and I just couldn't bring myself to buy such a loose pair of jeans . . . which brings me to a pair of Rock and Republic jeans I tried on. Now, much has been made of my massive quads (mostly by myself, but who's counting?) but this was honestly ridiculous. The waist of the jeans was fine, or would have been fine, if I had been able to get them high enough to get them around my waist. As we all know, tight jeans are important and give you the must super of superhuman powers, but this was beyond anything that was called for. Anyways, I ended up settling on a single pair of Kasils, my first ever pair of dark jeans, that I was on the fence about until I just slightly folded the cuff up and decided they were awesome.
So, having bought an awesome new pair of tight jeans, I was looking good as far as the necessary pre-race prep (i.e. I had a sweet pair of tight, not the tightest but still tight, jeans going into an important race). I got down to the course quite early, had a chat with Matty White of Fiordifrutta, did some real honest-to-goodness warming up (I hate warming up) and then did my thing (see The Race post).
After the Pro race, I took the family home and met up with a old friend from high school at her apartment on East Ave (a really nice, artsy, collegial and happening area of town) to catch up. We ended up going to The Old Toad, a place I've been only twice before. I have to rate it as the best pub in Rochester and maybe the best bar in Rochester, period. Read the RocWiki entry for some details on the staff. Around 1am, as I was ordering some more pints, a guy on the corner of the bar started talking to us, asking us where we're from. When we told him we grew up in Rochester, he belts out "Raaaaaaaaaaaachester" in a deep, throaty, rumbling kind of way, imitating yet somewhat exaggerating the awful nasal Rochestarian accent. Turns out he was from England, Portsmouth, actually (or, as he said, "Por-muf") and was one of the staff though not working that night. The combination of:
1. Him being hammered
2. Us doing our best Rochester accents
3. Also us trying to do our best British accents . . .
4. . . . which then morphed into Aussie/Kiwi accents
All resulted in him ordering shot after shot after pint after pint for us (no charge) and Good Times Were Had By All. And so ended an incredible day of food, shopping, racing and drinking.
Showing posts with label jeans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jeans. Show all posts
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Jeans
Jeans are a very important thing, maybe even the most important thing.
First off, they are probably going to end up being the most comfortable article of clothing that you can acceptably wear in public. In this regard, it is important for jeans to break in quickly. I've bought a few pair over the years that are still stiff and crinkly after three months of solid wash and wear. That is poor jean performance. Be careful, however, when buying jeans that already feel like you've owned them for a year or so. They'll get "overbroken" and start to sag around the ankles and get wrinkles (or what women like to call age lines). What you should look for in level of break-in-ability is a firm yet supple denim that allows movement but at the same time holds all your parts together in the right ways.
Second off, jeans say many things about their wearer. However, not everything about the jeans speak at the same volume. Whispering quietly are the belt loops, bare loops tell tales of spontaneity and excitement while loops wrapped around a leather belt speak of consistency and tradition. On women's jeans, should the belt loops have the distinction of containing a necktie (coordinated to match the rest of the outfit, of course) or a scarf, listen closely because if you turn your head just right, you just might hear a touch of class and elegance juxtaposed with style and lighthearted playfulness. Speaking at a conversational volume, the fly also communicates the wearer's state of mind. A zipper-fly tells of practicality and pragmatism; it's all about function. The button fly, however, expresses an air of mystery; while well-worn button-fly jeans are just as easy-on/easy-off as a zipper-fly, the buttons and that extra layer of denim function as a bit of extra security. Never in the history of button-fly jeans has anyone forgotten to entirely close the fly. The same obviously can't be said for the zipper-fly. This brings us to the stitching on the back pockets. If the belt loops and fly were having lunch together, they'd both be talking about how obnoxiously loud the back pocket stitching was being on her cell phone across the café. The back pocket stitching really says it all. It's the shape and layering of the cake to the fly's icing and the belt loops' candles. So next time you're observing someone's beautiful (or not-so-beautiful) derrière, take note of all the things those jeans say, be it the shout of the stitching or the barely-audible yet wise words of the belt loops.
Last off, jeans give you super powers. The mechanism whereby this occurs is currently a hotly contested debate amongst the world's elite jeanologists and quantum physicists. While the mechanism is not entirely understood, there can be no debate about the end result: given the right jeans, anything is possible.
Now, for only $300, you can sign up for my eight-week program that I developed from eight years shopping at denim bars across the world. It's called JENKS KWON DO!
First off, they are probably going to end up being the most comfortable article of clothing that you can acceptably wear in public. In this regard, it is important for jeans to break in quickly. I've bought a few pair over the years that are still stiff and crinkly after three months of solid wash and wear. That is poor jean performance. Be careful, however, when buying jeans that already feel like you've owned them for a year or so. They'll get "overbroken" and start to sag around the ankles and get wrinkles (or what women like to call age lines). What you should look for in level of break-in-ability is a firm yet supple denim that allows movement but at the same time holds all your parts together in the right ways.
Second off, jeans say many things about their wearer. However, not everything about the jeans speak at the same volume. Whispering quietly are the belt loops, bare loops tell tales of spontaneity and excitement while loops wrapped around a leather belt speak of consistency and tradition. On women's jeans, should the belt loops have the distinction of containing a necktie (coordinated to match the rest of the outfit, of course) or a scarf, listen closely because if you turn your head just right, you just might hear a touch of class and elegance juxtaposed with style and lighthearted playfulness. Speaking at a conversational volume, the fly also communicates the wearer's state of mind. A zipper-fly tells of practicality and pragmatism; it's all about function. The button fly, however, expresses an air of mystery; while well-worn button-fly jeans are just as easy-on/easy-off as a zipper-fly, the buttons and that extra layer of denim function as a bit of extra security. Never in the history of button-fly jeans has anyone forgotten to entirely close the fly. The same obviously can't be said for the zipper-fly. This brings us to the stitching on the back pockets. If the belt loops and fly were having lunch together, they'd both be talking about how obnoxiously loud the back pocket stitching was being on her cell phone across the café. The back pocket stitching really says it all. It's the shape and layering of the cake to the fly's icing and the belt loops' candles. So next time you're observing someone's beautiful (or not-so-beautiful) derrière, take note of all the things those jeans say, be it the shout of the stitching or the barely-audible yet wise words of the belt loops.
Last off, jeans give you super powers. The mechanism whereby this occurs is currently a hotly contested debate amongst the world's elite jeanologists and quantum physicists. While the mechanism is not entirely understood, there can be no debate about the end result: given the right jeans, anything is possible.
Now, for only $300, you can sign up for my eight-week program that I developed from eight years shopping at denim bars across the world. It's called JENKS KWON DO!
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