New Engine-Turned Belt Buckle and Belt Strap from Belts.com

For Christmas, my brother was generous enough to give me an engine-turned belt buckle with my monogram on it. I had previously given him one, and he returned the favor this year. It's a 1-3/16" Trafalgar buckle, in 22K gold plate over brass (neither he nor I had sterling silver in our budgets).

Although I was excited about the buckle, I was confronted with the challenge of getting a belt strap for it. Straps from Dann Online start at $60 for the glove leather models, and only go up from there (to $375 for genuine alligator). Leather straps from Brooks Brothers are normally $88, though they're currently on sale for $66. Still, I was in search of a less expensive option.

I had heard about belts from Belts.com, and in looking at their selection of Dress Leather Belt Straps, I was impressed not only with their variety, but also their prices (many start at just $16.95). However, I noticed that all of the straps came with holes in them, and due to the way that engine-turned buckles are made, the holes are unnecessary.

So I contacted the folks at belts.com asking if their dress belts were available without holes. I received an email back from Jason at Belts.com who informed me that no, their dress belts could not be ordered without holes, but suggested that I look at their "Make Your Own Width or Size" belt straps. These are plain leather belts, but the length, width, and color can be chosen by the customer, and Jason suggested that I simply note on the ordering page that I wanted it made without holes. For just $20, I figured it was worth a shot.

The belt came today and you can see it in the picture above. It did indeed come as I requested it, without holes, and the 1-1/8" width worked perfectly for my 1-3/16" wide buckle. It seems to be well-made, and the leather seems to be pretty good. It is, however, fairly thick (it measures between 4 and 5 mm in thickness), and could be considered a bit unrefined for pairing with this style of belt buckle. These things won't keep me from wearing it, but I will be looking to upgrade at some point in the future.

If you have a similar belt buckle, I would recommend the Make Your Own Width or Size option from Belts.com if you're looking for a less-dressy strap to wear with your belt. However, I really wish that they would consider offering their dress belts without holes, as I would pick up their alligator grain and smooth leather straps in a heartbeat. I'd even be willing to pay a $4 or $5 premium for the option. I'm not really sure how their manufacturing process works, but it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to keep some holeless belts in stock, and I'm sure there are some engine-turned buckle owners out there who would love to have some less expensive choices. Oh well, maybe one day...

12 Days of Christmas tie

I am not usually a big fan of ties associated with a particular holiday (Christmas, Halloween, Easter, July 4th), but I am a fan of club ties, and this one falls more into the category of the latter. It is a Robert Talbott tie that I picked up a thrift store somewhere for a paltry sum a couple of years ago and is dedicated to one of the most annoying Christmas songs of all time. It is pretty fun, though, since one must get fairly close to see the details of the individual characters and then they have to figure out exactly what they mean, but it is rewarding to put it all together. It's a good tie for once-a-year wear, and I'm planning on wearing to the Christmas Eve service tonight.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Over the Rhine- "Snow Angels"

Over the Rhine is really a fantastic band, and their most recent Christmas album, Snow Angels, is a great one to pull out this time of the year. It came out in 2007, but hasn't lost any of its charm (nor has Karin Bergquist's voice). "All I Get for Christmas is Blue" and "Darlin' (Christmas is Coming)" are two of my personal favorites, but Linford Detweiler's piece "Goodbye Charles" is definitely a stand-out. It's a tribute to Charles Schultz that is played in the style of the Vince Guaraldi Trio and sounds like it could have been on the original A Charlie Brown Christmas album. I was even fortunate enough to hear them perform a few songs from this album at their concert that I went to in Athens last year.

One of the major points of this post is to let you know that you can currently stream this album for free on Over the Rhine's website. You can go there and look for the Over the Rhine Record Player image on the right side of the page, or you can click here and open the player directly. Merry Christmas.

On duck hunting

I have clearly gotten off to a poor start for blogging in 2009. I apologize and will do my best to make it up.

Over the Christmas break I was able to get in two duck hunts. I had never been duck hunting before, but it was something that I had wanted to try to get into and so I jumped at the chances.

The weekend following Christmas, a friend from my grad program invited a couple of our classmates and myself down to his family's farm go hunting. The "farm" is really a spectacular 900 acre parcel that the family uses for all kinds of hunting: dove, quail, deer, duck, turkey and even alligators. We went down on that Sunday and did some quail hunting that afternoon. The weather was unseasonably warm (upper 70s) and the dogs were having a hard time picking up the scent of the birds. We were able to scare up a few coveys, though, and I managed to bag my first two quail. I used my Yildiz 20 gauge and it was great. I really enjoyed it, and will try to make it a priority to do some more quail hunting next season.

The next morning, we got up and went to some flooded timberland on their property and did a little wood duck hunting. Again, thanks to the weather, the birds weren't flying too well, but I did manage to get a drake, pictured below (they made me also hold up the other duck that we got that morning). That it my friend's flat coated retriever, Brick, in the picture with me.



That afternoon we went out to a new pond that they had built which was essentially a flooded 40 acre corn field surrounded by pines. When we arrived out there around 12:30, we were able to scare up probably 600 ducks that were on the pond, which was quite a site to see. After finishing work on some blinds that they had started building, we settled down and waited for the ducks to return. While we did end up seeing probably about 400 ducks that afternoon that returned to the pond, my friends and I all happened to be on the part of the pond where they weren't landing, so in spite of our group taking 24 ducks that afternoon, we were only responsible for one of them.



My next duck trip to was up to Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge up in North Carolina, near the Outer Banks (and by "near," I mean about an hour away). My friend won a quota hunt for this lake and invited me to go along with him. This lake has, apparently, had a fairly legendary status among waterfowl hunters thanks to the number of ducks, geese, and swan that land there. We had some great expectations and figured it would be worth the eight hour drive.

It turns out that it wasn't. While we did see plenty of ducks, the first morning out there, very few of them flew anywhere near us and the only duck we managed to get was a green winged teal that I shot. While this could have been in part due to our decoy spread or my buddy's skills at calling ducks (I am not judging as I have never used a duck call before so I certainly couldn't have done any better), I think that it was par for the course for everyone hunting that day. A guy staying in our "motel" (I use this word very loosely) said that when he left the refuge, 14 of the 16 blinds had checked out and only 12 ducks had been taken amongst all of them. We all had hopes for the next day thought.


Decoys on Lake Mattamuskeet on the first morning's hunt

Those hopes turned out to be completely unfounded. During the night a front came through that stirred up a pretty strong southwest wing. When my friend and I trudged out to the blind (blind #16, which seemed to be regarded by most of the other hunters as the best blind) at 5:00 that morning, we discovered that the wind had actually blown all of the water out from in front of our blind. Since the lake is on 2'-3' deep over its entirety, we found ourselves with nothing but mud in front of our blind. We threw out a few decoys, and set out some more when it looked like the water was coming back in (this was only a tease, we found out, as the water left just as quickly as it came), but we started packing up at 7:45 after it appeared that no ducks were going to come anywhere near us.


Decoys on the mud flat formerly known as Lake Mattamuskeet on the second morning

Overall it was a fairly disappointing trip, but we did have a good time and at least we weren't skunked. I killed two ducks in my first season (I am not sure that I'll be able to make it out again before the end of the season in January) so I guess things could have been worse. I am looking forward to getting into it more next year.

David Sedaris "Six to Eight Black Men"

After listening to and enjoying several David Sedaris pieces on "This American Life" over the past few months, I went on Youtube to see what other content could be found on there. I came across his reading of his essay "Six to Eight Black Men" and could not stop laughing. Seriously. This is hilarious, and if you've got about 20 minutes, you should definitely listen to all three parts. Also, considering its references to Santa Claus, it is quite seasonal.

"Baby It's Cold Outside"

Since it has essentially become associated with Christmas, I pretty much wait 11 months out of the year to listen to this song. It is awesome (in spite of a good friend referring to it as "the date rape song"). Personally, I prefer the classic version by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer, but Over the Rhine has a really good version on their album "Live From Nowhere, Vol. 2." And since the overnight low is going to be 29 degrees tonight, I think that the atmospheric conditions have certainly been met...

New Red Mountain Music Christmas CD

Red Mountain Music, who I have written about previously, will be releasing a Christmas CD, entitled "Silent Night", this fall. You can view the track listing and sample all of the songs here. It sounds fantastic, and it appears that all of my favorite Christmas hymns have finally made it all on one CD. I'm pretty excited about it.

It will be released Oct. 20, but can be pre-ordered now.