Photos from the Canadian Rockies

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While I was on the trip-of-a-lifetime in the Canadian Rockies one month ago, I took well over 2,400 photos. Many were duplicates using different settings of my camera and from different angles and directions.

I teamed up with two professionals as guides to help me learn how and get the most out of the features of my Canon 80D DSLR.

Since I returned home, between volunteering gigs and routine stuff around the house and community (and rides on my Harley), I culled, cropped, and edited my photos.

Editing these photos took …
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Tribute: Hotboots.com

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My engagement with the internet boot world began with hotboots.com. This was a website that Larry Kenney and his (then partner, later husband) Bill created on March 3, 1997, at the early stages when the internet was just beginning to be available. Larry and Bill were pioneers in developing websites, this one being the premier site for men into boots. This is the introduction from an early page of the site written by Larry:

This is the web site for the man who loves BOOTS . . .the man who enjoys wearing them for work and for play . . . and who likes to look at ’em and talk about ’em, too!

These pages are designed primarily to entertain and inform bootmen, but everyone is welcome to come on in, look around and enjoy whatever interests them.

This site was started on March 3, 1997, and it has been growing continuously since then. It’s a labor of love for me, and it’s a great way to combine my boot fetish with my interest in computers and the internet.

I first found this site in 2000 and like many other guys, was a “lurker” for years.

Back then, I worked in a job where I hid my sexual identity as a gay man in the closet for fear of what homophobic superiors might do if they found out. When I left that job in 2004, I was more free to “come out.” That’s when I became more active on hotboots.

Hotboots.com meant a lot to me in my early “coming-out as a gay bootman” process. Through this site and the people I met, I…
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Old Videos–Delete?

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The other day, I received a namby-pamby message from YouTube that said:

Hi BootedHarleydude, We have reviewed your content and determined that it may not be suitable for viewers under the age of 18, per our Community Guidelines. As a result, we’ve age-restricted the following content:

Video: Harley Davidson Bike and Cop Boots

We haven’t applied a strike to your channel, and your content is still live for some users on YouTube.

The message rambled on about why they apply adult content warnings to some videos uploaded on their site.

The video they changed access to was uploaded 15 years ago — yep, in 2008. Why suddenly 15 years later they decide a video showing a boot on a Harley would be inappropriate for children under age 18?

Annoyed, I decided…
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Styling Boots with Jeans in 2023

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Way back in the day when I wrote my “how to wear boots with jeans” tutorial on my website, I once said that a guy should “stack” his jeans, which means

the jeans are long enough to come down to the foot of the boot, but not so long as to drag on the floor behind the heel. The jeans may form a soft fold along the foot of the boot. That is “stacked jeans” — simply, the jeans are long enough to stack (or fold) on top of the boot foot.

Usually that was done with straight-leg jeans.

I never recommended or wore “boot-cut” jeans. A “boot-cut” has a wider opening, which looked like old-style flared jeans. It never was necessary to have a wider leg opening to accommodate a traditional western boot. Straight-leg jeans would stack just fine.

These days, most men (including me) choose tapered-leg jeans. Why?
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Suits and Boots 2023 Update

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I have written posts on this blog about wearing boots with suits. Over the years, I have received questions from men who had concerns that “a man does not wear boots with a suit!” Poppycock.

I have provided gentle counsel along the lines of “wear what suits you best.” Generally along the lines of “wear what you like; to heck with the opinion of some style queens or your mother. Be your own man!”

During my working career, I wore suits for important and high-level meetings with the Big Cheese and his direct reports. However, I admit, I never quite felt comfortable in a suit. To me, a suit felt confining and hot. I felt ill-at-ease, and that would show on my face.

After I retired at the end of 2019, I donated the suits I had to charity, and thought…
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Canada Rockies

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I enjoyed one of the best visits to Canada I’ve ever had. Now that I am back home, caught up on the laundry, restocked my fridge, and took care of other things I had to do, I thought I would show you where I was and what I did.

I have visited every province and territory in Canada during my working career. My husband and I enjoyed celebrating a long-delayed honeymoon in Toronto in 2019.

I returned after the pandemic restrictions were lifted last year to the Canadian Maritimes.

This year, I ventured to the west and spent most of my time in the province of Alberta. What a stunning and scenic place!

My trip began with a return to …
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Which Boots to Bring on a Trip to Canada?

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I have the great fortune to be planning a two-week trip to Western Canada in July. The tour will begin in Vancouver, then a train will take me to Jasper. There I will transfer to a small group that will go on a photo tour in the Canadian Rockies, and includes Lake Louise and Banff. The tour will end in Calgary where I have tickets to attend and watch two days of the Calgary Stampede — described as “the greatest outdoor show on Earth.”

I have a “boot dilemma” on what boots to wear while viewing this event that perhaps my readers can help me with.

Three pairs from my cowboy boot collection are staring me in the face. Each pair is screaming, “wear us! wear us!”

Here are my conditions of wear, and three choices:
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Great Alternative to Unavailable Chippewa Harness Boots

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For many years on this blog and on my website, I have been very enthusiastic about the quality, durability, and function of Chippewa Harness Boots. Boots of this style are classic and ageless. Bikers have been wearing harness boots for decades.

Unfortunately, Chippewa brand harness boots were discontinued a few years ago, and it seems as if the company (Justin Brands, the owner of the Chippewa label) will not bring them back. Such a pity and a loss…

There are literally dozens of makers of harness boots out there, and I have tried and worn many of them over the years.

What I liked most about Chippewa harness boots included…
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Catching Up

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I know I have not written on this blog in quite some time. Since I last wrote on March 17 (almost two months ago!), I have completed two trips, and have four more trips planned this year (Los Angeles, Canadian Rockies, Arizona’s biker highways, and winter holidays in Puerto Rico.)

I spent three weeks in Puerto Rico in April. One week for fun, one week for “work,” and another week attending and speaking at a conference. The “fun” part of this journey was not as much fun because someone I had invited to join me was unable to come. I felt let down, but made the best of it.

I visited my friends, swam in the Caribbean Sea with my husband’s spirit at our favorite secluded beach, and tolerated daily interruptions for virtual meetings that seemed to interrupt my free time right in the middle of each day.

While I am retired, I consider my participation on academic and professional groups that I lead and on which I am heavily engaged as “work.” Constant meetings, tons of email, writing papers, and preparing presentations were soul-sucking.

I returned home during the last week of April with a medical …
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