Yearly Archives: 2011

Fitting of Leather Breeches or Jeans

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Someone from Russia sent me an email recently telling me that he had decided to purchase a pair of leather jeans from Northbound Leather of Toronto, Ontario, Canada after reading this blog and how I have complimented the store’s quality and service.  However, he was confused by the sizing chart on Northbound’s website.

Here are my thoughts about how to determine if you should order a stock size of a pair of leather jeans or breeches, or order them custom — and how to determine the proper sizing.  (Note, I refer to U.S. measurements.  Use a conversion chart if you do not use U.S. measurements in archaic inches.)

1.  Well-constructed garments made of high-quality leather do not stretch at the waist very much, such as a pair of cloth jeans.  The leather used for the waist, as well as double-stitching with thick thread, makes the waistband much less “stretchable” than other parts of a leather garment, such as the seat and thighs.  So if you are torn between two stock sizes, such as 34″ and 36″, go with the larger size.

2.  The older you get, the easier it is to put on weight in the middle.  If you get leather pants that fit tightly now, you may not be able to fit into them in a few years.  It is easier to reduce the size of the waist by using a belt (or by having the pants altered professionally) but you cannot add more to the size if it is not there in the first place.  Again: go with a larger size if you’re choosing between two sizes.

3.  My experience with custom-made leather garments from Northbound has been that their products are a bit more tight than leather garments I have had custom-made from U.S. vendors such as Mr. S or 665 Leather.  I have kidded Northbound about Canadians measuring things differently. (Only a joke!)

4.  Do NOT use the measurements from a regular pair of blue jeans!  Sizes and people change.  In fact, Consumer Reports did some testing last year and indicated that men’s jean sizes can vary as much as two inches in the waist.  You cannot use a pair of jeans that fit you to determine the proper size of a pair of leather pants.

How do you determine if you can purchase at stock sizes or require custom work? It is simple: have your measurements taken, and determine if your measurements at critical areas (waist and inseam) are the same as the measurements to which stock garments are made. If the measurements are the same, then buy pre-made, stock jeans or breeches. If not, then you will have to buy custom.

5.  Even if you can wear stock sizes, I still think the best way to go is to have leather breeches or jeans made custom to your measurements.  That way, you know that you will have garments that will fit you perfectly.  I have said this before, such as in my “Complete Guide to Leather Gear,” but I should emphasize once again:  do NOT measure yourself!  Have a friend use a tailor’s tape to measure you.  Use the form in my Leather Gear Guide to note your specific measurements.  Not only is it impossible to get accurate measurements yourself, you have to realize that you’re human, and may not want to accept the results that the tape shows.  You may pull the tape a bit tighter on your waist to get the results you want — and then end up ordering a pair of leather jeans that are too small and will not stretch to accommodate you.  Believe me, quality leather garment vendors like Northbound want to get it right the first time, and they’ve seen it all.  They don’t care if your jeans are a size 36, but the tape shows a waist size of 39.  They will make what fits you best, so get the measurements done correctly with a friend’s help.

Well-fitting leather jeans will last a long time.  I have worn leather jeans and breeches regularly for decades.  I admit, though, that leather jeans that I bought in the 1980s would not fit me today, 30+ years later.  Those garments are gone.  But once I got past age 40 or so, where my “middle-age spread” settled, I ordered some leather garments that still fit me well today — and I wear them often.  (Though I must admit, I appreciate that with a recent 40-pound weight-loss, I have lost three inches at the waist, so now I have to wear a tighter belt than before — and, I don’t feel squeezed such that my gut rises up above the waist of the pants and hangs out prominently.)

In summary, my recommendation is to consider your age and lifestyle, as well as how often you plan to wear the leather.  If you are like me and want to get a good return on your investment by wearing leather regularly — not just to a once-a-year fashion show & gathering of the leather clan — then choose to have custom gear made to your actual measurements.  If, however, you may wear the leather jeans less often, then go with stock sizes, but if you have to make a choice between two sizes, go with the larger of the two.

Gear in the photos:
1) Leather shirt and breeches with LAPD markings from 665 Leather of West Hollywood, California, USA.
2) “Sailor Leather” pants from Northbound Leather of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
3)  Hunter green leather shirt from Mr. S. of San Francisco, California, USA.  (Pants are the “sailor leather” shown in #2)
4)  Blue-striped leather jeans from Northbound.

Life is short:  wear leather!

Boots On My Partner’s Mind

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That’s a switch, isn’t it?  My partner is not the Bootman in our family — far from it.  He will wear them for me on special occasions, but I digress….

My partner truly is “Mr. Neat-Nick.”  Everything has a place, and everything should be in its place, or it goes.  His “Rule #1” for our home is, “volume in = volume out.”  If I come home with something, then I have to pick something else equally as large and dispose of it … somewhere, somehow.  That includes boots… well, at least, the boxes that they come in.

Over the last couple of years since we last configured my boot display and storage options, my boot collection has grown a little (um… define “a little,” he asks…LOL!)  While I have sold or disposed of five pairs of boots, another 20 pairs have shown up at my door and have managed to get onto my feet.

Last week, in the period between Christmas and New Year’s, my partner was off work.  I was working, but working from home.  Every few hours, I would hear my partner rummaging around, then huffing and puffing.  Finally, last Thursday night, he said, “we have to do something about all those boots!” (emphasis added.)

But rather than argue, he said, “look, you’ve built a boot room in the basement, and I have my model train set up in there.  Let’s take down the train and put it away for now, and build some more shelves.”

Of course, that plan sounded more simple than it really was.  In order to make room to store his model train setup in the utility room, we had to remove a bunch of junk that wound up in there.  Mostly — boot boxes.  But there was some other stuff, too, including an old chair that we had always intended to have reupholstered, but was lumpy and uncomfortable.  Out it went, along with all that other junk … to fill the back of my truck and take it to the dump (which here in snoburbia, we call it a transfer station) … but I digress!

We went to a local home supplies store on Saturday to buy the supplies that I needed to build more shelving.  It has wood sides, but wire shelves.  The wire allows air to circulate and keep down any potential problem with mold that loves to grow in dark places on collagen (fiber) products (i.e., leather soles of boots).

We built the shelves, then arranged my boots, from tallest on the bottom to shortest on the top.  Now, 30 more pairs of boots have an official “home.”  My partner is happy to clean up the place, get rid of junk, and get my boots off the floor of the bedroom closet (and other places where they found themselves to be).  I am happy to use my boot storage room for the reason it was designed.

While the shelves are adjustable, it is unlikely that I will change the distance between them.  I have one row at 14″ for additional cowboy and mid-size motorcycle boots; two shelves at 12″ for shorter work, combat and skydiving boots; one shelf at 20″ for patrol and equestrian boots; and one shelf at 22″ (bottom) for my real tall motorcycle boots (mostly custom Wescos.)  I had a small shelf “left over” on which I store miscellaneous boot supplies, such as boot hooks, boot jacks, shoe/boot polish, furniture polish (for plastic-coated boots like stock Dehners), rags, leather conditioner, lug-sole scrub-brush, and the like.

I also have a laundry sink in that room which makes it easy to clean the lug soles of my boots when they get dirty — gotta keep those dirt clots out of the soles so I don’t drop them everywhere else in the house when I walk around.

Life is short: put everything in its place!

Leatherdude and the Queen

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What happened yesterday at home during a delivery was amusing to me, so I thought I would share.

Yesterday, while working at home, I had a new mattress and box spring set delivered.  The old set in our master bedroom had seen better days, and had become lumpy and miserable to sleep on.  After 20 years, the old set was overdue for a replacement.  We did our research, shopped around, and got what we thought was a good deal on a new set.  We had to do the routine of “go down the street and get a better offer,” then bring it back and get an even better offer.  Damn, I wish buying mattresses wasn’t so complicated — sorta like buying a car.  Negotiate, negotiate — but with that back-and-forthing, we saved $320 off the original “sale” price.

But I digress….  The delivery arrived, and as promised, the new mattress and box spring were carried by two very-efficient Hispanic guys up the stairs, and they carried away our old box spring/mattress set, which was part of the deal (haul-away service is great, because those things are heavy and hard to lug around.)

A minute after the delivery truck arrived, a guy showed up, driving a late-model luxury automobile (lest I offend drivers of Audis, I’ll just refer to it as an automobile)… and he was dressed-to-the-nines in a suit, even with a pocket square.  Coif-du-jour, shined dress shoes, smelly cologne… the works.

There are a lot of different kinds of gay men in the world.  Some of them are rather effeminate in observable behavior, and some of us refer to those who act that way as a “queen.”  At least, that’s my partner’s frequent appellation. It was one of these guys who got out of that car and came to my door.  The suited-guy was obviously gay.  My Gaydar may not be 100%, but in this case, there was no question.

So there I was at the door… decked out in full leather (shirt, jeans, boots; no hat.)  When he saw me, he looked at me up and down, then stepped back.  He asked, “is this your home?  Are you (name)?”  He was pleasant enough, but it was amusing to me that he had not (yet) been met at the door by someone decked out in full leather.

He bustled in, and introduced himself.  He said that “he was here to please.”

Then it was like he had an attack of ADHD — he let out a slew of statements like, “oh, what a gorgeous home!  What a nice view!  Is that a park in your back yard?  What an enormous kitchen!  Aren’t those flowers on your table beautiful!  That’s obviously a home-made table cloth on your dining room table with that lace.  Those oriental carpets are fabulous!” … on and on… I tell ‘ya, it was tiring to me to keep up with all this banter.  He didn’t even let me try to answer him as he kept babbling on more and more.

He offered to make the bed.  That’s part of the “set up” that is offered with delivery service.  I told him that we didn’t need him to do that, and that my partner and I have it all covered.  I further told him that we had to wash the mattress protector that came with the bed before putting on the sheets and blanket, and that it wouldn’t be a problem to make up the bed later.

… then I couldn’t resist and said, “after we make the bed, my partner and I are anxious to try it out… can’t wait!”   His eyes widened… but he got the message and politely excused himself.

I shouldn’t laugh at such encounters, but it’s all part of my life, as a work-at-home leatherdude.

Life is short:  say Grrrrrrrr!

This Says It All

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I have blogged a lot about where visitors come to my website, and I have also blogged a lot about an obsession by many about whether men wear pants inside their boots or not.  I have also blogged on occasion about how fellow residents of the United States have lost their ability to spell or write in American English.

The following image says it all.  If the image is hard to read on your screen, click on it to enlarge it.  Then read what was typed into a Google search.

Then laugh or cry, or both.  Oh for Pete’s sake. I know getting “their” and “there” mixed up is common, but this is a typical example of what I see in hundreds of searches every day. It is so sad that so many people have not learned fundamental English writing and grammar skills — and this is for those who were born in the U.S. and educated here.

And this example does not hold a candle to the garbage that I see the kids in my own family write on their Facebook status updates. Yikes!

Life is short:  lurn hw 2 writ

Statement of Limits

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I have received some messages lately that caused me to think that I have to restate my limits clearly:  I am committed to my partner as my one-and-only man.  I do not meet other guys who are interested in my boots, leather, or (ahem)… other activities.

I am flattered in a way that people are interested in me that way.  I appreciate it.  However, my limits are very strict.  While I do not wish to disappoint anyone, these are the facts of life when it comes to me:  “I’m Taken.“

If someone may be traveling my direction (i.e., to the Washington, DC, area) and IF I may be available, I may arrange to meet for an early dinner.  I’m definitely not a night-owl or weekend bar-hopper.

Or if someone lives locally and wants to go for a motorcycle ride, let me know. 

But that’s it.  My partner and I do not host guests unrelated to us (and if my partner had his way, we wouldn’t host anyone at all … but his mother and my family always have an exception to that rule.)

I don’t give tours of my boot collection or let others come over and try on leathers.  That may be innocent enough, but my partner doesn’t like visitors (he is very antisocial) and I love him, so I don’t force the issue.  He doesn’t want it and therefore, I turn down such requests.

I know that it is hard to find someone who shares similar interests in the rather narrow intersection of being gay and liking boots and leather.  But I’m not your guy, and I won’t be.

I have had temptations, and I’m human.  The only way I can affirm my enduring commitment to my one and only man is to state, publicly and privately, that he’s the one, and the only one, with whom I share intimate activities.  I adhere to that statement by my behavior: I don’t stray.  Even when I travel (which is not often), I may meet someone for a friendly meal, or “for coffee” (though I don’t drink the stuff), but that’s that.

I truly wish that everyone could have the relationship that I have with my beloved, one-of-a-kind man.  Our relationship is built on trust.  Trust is earned every day by everything that I do — or in some cases, do not do.  I will not betray the trust my partner has invested in me by doing anything that will cause him to question my commitment to him, as he does not do anything that causes me to question his commitment to me.

I realize that I am among those whose limits are most narrow, and for that I have no apology.  It is how I am wired, and how I behave.  After all…

Life is short:  show those you love that you love them (by how you behave in all actions you take).

In Case You Tried to Reach Me

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… and you cannot … or you think you sent an email to me, but I have not responded…

It turns out that my web hosting provider is being subjected to a huge distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack … and as a result, it has made all domains that they host on all of their servers out of reach.

In case you tried to send an email to me, I regret that I will not see it nor be able to respond until the provider restores service.  This includes email to “BHD” and “the other” me that some of you know.  Both of my web-hosted email accounts are unavailable for me to view and respond to until this situation is resolved.

Nonetheless, I’ll be switching web hosts soon, since this is not the first, and probably will not be the last, that their service isn’t working.  Even though it is not their fault, their reliability is not as good as it once was.  Further, I can get larger amounts of storage and data transfer for a lower cost elsewhere.  So this week, when I’m not on-the-clock for my job, that is what I will be doing:  migrating files to a new host and then “making it go live.”  I sincerely hope it does not result in more downtime for my website visitors, nor my email.

Life is short:  … well, it just is…

The Light of My Life Enjoys Her 96th

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I had the wonderful opportunity yesterday to orchestrate a birthday celebration for my lovely aunt for whom I have spent so much time caring, and enabling her to remain living in her own home despite some medical and cognitive setbacks.  She really is doing well, all things considered.

She turned age 96 yesterday.  We celebrated her birthday with cake, ice cream, funny hats, and noisemakers.  A couple elected officials who serve in our state General Assembly came over to share the festivities with us.  They presented her with a House Resolution recognizing her birthday.  That was sweet, and much appreciated.  (Not thinking these Delegates may wish to have their images appear on this blog, I cropped them out.)

A few of my senior pals came over and sung A Capella in perfect pitch and harmony one of my aunt’s favorite songs, as well as “Happy Birthday.”

I share joy, contentment, and happiness in knowing that my aunt is doing well, has good care, and is safe in her own home.  That’s what I promised to her husband, my Uncle Charlie, and am pleased to fulfill my promise by doing what I do.  I am also pleased that I can fulfill my faith, and deep commitment to service … because, after all:

Life is short:  show those you love that you love them!

Happy New Year

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Sydney, Australia  NYE 2011

This is a short post, with more to follow, to wish all of my blog visitors a Happy New Year!  I have enjoyed getting to know some of you who have read my various musings, and contacted me.  I am especially grateful to all of you for putting up with my various ramblings and occasional rants.

I hope you had fun last night.  I know I did (though at the time I wrote this post, it was before my evening shenanigans).  My NYE plans included my usual visit to my brother’s to enjoy NYE with the fam, then return home right after the ball drops to enjoy an intimate welcoming of 2011 with my beloved partner.

Photo above is what my partner and I viewed as the year changed from 2002 to 2003:  the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia.  We were there; what a great sight with such warm and friendly people (and it was warm, too!  Remember, it’s Summer Down Under!)

More later!  Read on, and thanks again for visiting!

Life is short:  show appreciation for your friends in the blogosphere.