New Thing #199: White Nike Dri-Fit Shirt

I have this exercise shirt that I love. I bought it last year - I had a gift card that I spent on some sporting equipment, including a running shirt and some shorts.

It's a yellow Nike Dri-Fit shirt, and I got it at Dick's Sporting Goods.

This year, I had another couple of gift cards to Dick's that I was given for my birthday, and I bought some workout equipment. (More on that another time.)

I saw the shirts and had enough money left over after my purchases to get one.

As you can see, I went with the white.

Here's something you may not know about me: I have slight sensitivity issues. They've abated over the years, but they're still there a little bit. (For example: As a kid I hated turtlenecks. I still don't seek out a turtleneck if I have a choice, but I can now wear one without feeling terribly uncomfortable. Also, when I was a kid I hated the way certain tags felt on my neck, and this is still true. Similarly, if a shirt has too sticky of a logo on the front or the back - that bothers me too.)

But that's the best thing about these shirts - they are among the most comfortable shirts I've ever worn. I don't feel them around my neck, which appears to be my highest-sensitivity area. (Interestingly, the white shirt feels tighter around my waist than the yellow one. Not a big deal, just interesting. I only notice it when I wipe the sweat from my face with that part of the shirt while I run.) The tags on this shirt are not on the neck.

I don't know that I've ever had a wicking shirt. But I think these are wicking - they're a light material. I also don't know how they work - the tag says they keep you cool even in the heat. These do that, but they certainly absorb the sweat - they get sopping wet during my runs.

I saw the display of these shirts on my way into Dick's earlier this week - they were $22, which I thought was a pretty good price for these shirts. I made a mental note to come back if I had gift card money left over. When I did, there was only one problem.

I've written before about my inability to make decisions. There were so many colors to choose from. All shades of orange, green, black, white, blue, red, and gray. I narrowed it down to a royal blue (my size wasn't there in light blue) and white, and texted my wife. Her advice was exactly what I was thinking - if I wanted the better color I should get blue, and if I wanted it to be cooler I should go white.

I'm sure the 90-degree temperatures outside affected my decision, but I couldn't get the idea of a 'cooler' shirt out of my head. That's why I went white.

I'm getting to the point where I have a pretty good rotation of comfortable running shirts, which is good for me. I'm not below stopping a run because my shirt is giving me discomfort.

The way I see it, $22 is a small price to pay for a shirt that I love...and one less excuse not to exercise.

New Thing #150: A Decision With No Regrets

One time, when I was a kid, my dad took me and my brother and my sister to a Toys 'R' Us. I forget what parameters were set - I'm not really sure there were any at all - but he said we could get "anything we wanted".

My impulsive brother probably grabbed the first thing he saw.

My sister didn't seem to have trouble making a decision, but I have no memory of what she got because we never cared much for the girl toys she had.

Me? Paralysis.

I had no idea what to do, where to start, how much the toy should be, which toy genre I should pursue (action figure? book? board game?), which toy characters I should get.

I'm embarrassed about what I finally decided on even now, more than 25 years later.

And it didn't take long for me to regret my choice that day.

I still have trouble making some decisions...but I have come a long way.

Here's a story about a recent decision I made that I didn't regret.

Remember when I went to Quebec? (I know, how could you forget. Here we are more than a month later and I'm still talking about it.)

Well, a big part of the last day for me was what to bring home to my girls. I made a good decision for myself - I told you about my Nordiques glass - I got my wife something nice, and I got t-shirts for my daughters.

I'm here to tell you that there was only a little stress involved - I popped into a few souvenir stores before I was able to make my final decision. I'd love to tell you I bought immediately, but that's not really the way I operate.

With my girls' t-shirts, though, it didn't take long at all. (I spent more time agonizing over what to get my wife.) I saw a couple of very similar t-shirts for the older girls, and then for my youngest, well, you can just take a look and I think you'll agree that I made the right call:

The shirt's a lot cuter if you can see my daughter's face. But I'm not in the business of slapping my kids' pictures all over public web sites.

No regrets on that purchase.

OK. I know. You don't even care about my daughter's shirt anymore. You're wondering what toy I settled on that day at Toys 'R' Us when I was a kid. It's embarrassing.

OK. Here goes.

It was a He-Man bath set, with some soap and scrubby things. Maybe a bath crayon or two.

Oh man. Such an embarrassing decision. I cringe thinking of it.

Stop laughing at me.

New Thing #117: A New Suit

It can be hard for me to pull the trigger on major purchases sometimes. I don't know if it's indecision, or the seeming permanence of the decision I'm making (no turning back and all that), but I have to be in the right frame of mind.

Case in point: A little more than a month ago I went to the mall to buy a suit for tonight's big event.

I left empty-handed.

I saw a suit I liked...but I didn't feel like trying it on, I didn't feel like talking to salespeople.

And then a couple of weeks later...I came back and made the purchase.

I just knew the second time I went that I was ready to buy.

The first time I thought I was ready to buy - it turned out I was only ready to look. I packed up the family, we went to the mall, and it turned out that I only wanted to get the lay of the land.

And it worked...I just felt badly dragging everyone out for nothing.

When we went back - still with everyone - I had a plan. I determinedly walked to the rack where the suit I had seen before was, answered the salesperson's "Can I help you?" with a "You certainly can!" (this might be easy for most people, but it is hard for me), and he eyed me, nailed my measurements, had me try on to make sure, helped me with a matching belt (my wife picked the shirt and tie), and there was the sale.

It helped that the guy was so awesome - I've bought only a couple of other suits in my adulthood, and to be honest, they don't fit great. I like a bigger jacket. But, in retrospect, I admit it looks a little silly.

This guy gave me the better-fitting size...and I now own the best-fitting suit I've ever had in my life.

I'll write about the event I wore it for tomorrow.

New Thing #115: New Shoes

No, what you see at left is not a Muppet reject. It's the bottom of my black shoes.

First, an overview:

I carry two pairs of shoes. (Carry? Since when do I speak like that? Own. I own two pairs of shoes.)

One pair is brown, one pair is black.

I wear them most every school day.

Usually they'll last me a couple of years, and then I'll buy a new couple of pairs.

But this time the black pair gave out sooner than the brown.

And though I've lasted a bit with the crack in the bottom of the shoes (yeah, there's a crack in each), I need a nice pair for an event Saturday night.

So I now have new black shoes.

That's the new pair at right - they're a little narrower at the toe, but they're very comfortable. I spent a little more on these than I've spent on past shoes, but nothing ridiculous. (I have a thing against spending a lot of money on shoes or sneakers. Or maybe I'm just cheap.)

Lately I've been going with the slip-ons. You know why, mostly? I've had terrible luck with shoe laces. (That space is intentional. I know they're shoelaces. But sneakers have shoelaces too. So the space indicates I'm talking about the laces that are specific to shoes.)

I pull the laces tight, and inevitably they break. Well ahead of the shoes. And I hate buying new laces and threading them through the shoe. I just hate it. So slip-ons are the perfect solution. (Are slip-ons loafers? Because I'm sure they're not called slip-ons. But that's what I do...I slip them on.)

Here's the other thing, though - as I approached the register to pay, I asked the woman if they sold any shoe horns. She said, "No, but I can give you one." I accepted her offer, expecting a little, classy shoe horn like I grew up watching my dad use. He had a nice shiny silver one. Actually, I expected kind of a tortoise-shell one. Slightly less classy. Out of the cabinet behind her, though, she pulled out what must be an industrial shoe horn. It does not seem practical. But I'll use it. My new shoes are too nice to damage squeezing my foot in without it. I just need to find a place to store the thing - this picture might not do it justice - I think it's more than a foot long:

New Thing #52: An Orange-and-White Striped Shirt

My brother gave me this shirt for Christmas. As we all know by now, he thinks highly of his fashion sense.

I wore the shirt for the first time on Wednesday.

I'll be honest - I had my doubts I could pull off the orange-and-white striped shirt.

But I can't argue with that picture - I have to admit it's a nice-looking shirt.

He says he wanted to give it to me because he wanted me to have a nice shirt - it's J. Crew - I don't have much in the way of J. Crew. So he's right - I don't have much that's all that nice...and much of what I have is very monotonous. Literally. A lot of single-color shirts.

I'm not the only one who likes the look of the shirt - my wife complimented it and I texted a picture to my brother - he seemed to like it as well.

My daughters had some interesting reactions. My oldest (age 6) recognized it as a new shirt as soon as I put it on. "That's a nice shirt!" she said. Then, in one of those loud stage whispers she added, "That reminds me of 'Where's Waldo'?"

My middle daughter (age 4) noticed at the frozen yogurt place (you may have recognized the T-wisted wall in the background of the picture above) that the shirt looked just like her creamsicle frozen yogurt:

As for me and my wife - the funniest thing happened on our way home from that Christmas get-together back in December. We saw the following cement mixer, and I asked her to take a picture to send to my brother when I finally wore the shirt. It seems like I'm not the only one wearing orange-and-white these days.

New Thing #46: My All Star Game Hat

When the calendar turned to February, my thoughts started to turn to baseball a bit. And I started thinking about another Christmas gift I received that I had yet to wear.

I mentioned the pink shirt last week...today, I'm talking about my '2013 All Star Game' hat.

If you don't already know, this year's MLB All Star Game will be held at Citi Field.

(I hope to make "Attending the All Star Game" New Thing #200 or so...let me know if you can help make that happen.)

I like a good, unique hat. My Mets hat of choice these days is this orange number - I haven't seen it on too many people.

For this season, though, I'm looking forward to getting a good number of wearings out of the above All Star Game hat - I'm sure it's pretty popular in the New York City area, but here in Massachusetts it'll top the charts in originality.

I also have a t-shirt...I'll certainly be wearing that over the summer, but it probably won't merit its own New Thing entry. (And while we're on the subject - it's got a big All Star Game logo on the front, the kind that if you get sweaty and sticky in the summer might stick to your chest. We'll have to see how my clothes sensitivity holds up against that.)

We've had one day of baseball cap weather, and since then February's been all about snow. But pitchers and catchers have reported, we're on the verge of full-on spring training...I'll be getting in plenty of wearing of my new hat, and soon.

New Thing #39: Snow Pants

You may or may not have heard, there's a blizzard a-comin'. I'm prepared.

I bought a six-pack of Shock Top last night, I parked the cars in such a way that it will ease my shoveling load, and I have snow pants.

Snow pants? Aren't those for skiers and children? Aren't you neither?

No, I am not a skier or a child.

But I am going to be the smartest shoveler on the street.

I've thought about snow pants for a few years - every time I've stood in too-high snow and my pants have gotten soaked, I've thought, "I should get waterproof pants."

Recess duty in the snow and shoveling out from a storm are the most common times this happens.

About a month ago I was in a sporting goods store, and they had some winter stuff on sale. Among that stuff - snow pants. I made the purchase.

So now, after this storm drops its supposed three feet on us (and with drifts it could be up to five feet...I'm a little concerned for our front door area, which is a wind trap where leaves gather anytime there's a gust...I hope the 30+ inches of snow finds another place to settle), I'm prepared to go out in my snow pants and shovel all the livelong day without my pants getting wet.

And then, since it's been a couple of years since I could, I'm going to play with my daughters in the snow. And I'll look at them in their snow pants, and for the first time ever, I won't have to be jealous.

New Thing #37: A Pink Shirt

I value my brother's musical tastes. But I think I disagree with him over his fashion opinion...at least in this instance.

See, I have a new pink shirt (pictured, left).

I got it for Christmas, and wore it for the first time late last week.

Then, as I debated shaving my beard, I posted this picture on Facebook, soliciting opinions about whether or not to shave the beard.

Most favored keeping the beard. (At the last minute, I decided to keep the beard...at least through February.)

But I was taken aback when one post advised me to lose the shirt.

And I was taken even more aback when my brother agreed.

I asked him why. He gave a few reasons - too much pink. Shirt might work in the summer without a tie (maybe with a jacket), but with the beard (there was a whole other explanation about why beard and pink don't go together) it's kind of a clash and then the pink tie...it's a lot. Also, he'd rather a solid tie than a tie with a pattern with a pink shirt. And, lastly, because we're paler in the winter a pink shirt doesn't quite work.

I understand his points.

But I don't think I agree.

I wanted a pink shirt because I didn't have one. I think the shirt and tie went well. I liked it. Maybe he's right about a jacket - maybe I'll try that out.

But while my brother is my go-to for music info/advice, I have a couple of options ahead of him on the fashion advice list. And they both liked the shirt. (As a matter of fact, I do very little wrong in their eyes.)

So thank you to my wife for your kind words on my pink shirt and pink tie.

And thanks to you too, Mom.