discovered: saddleback leather company

Readers know I'm devoted to my Belstaff Colonial Canvas shoulder bag.

But it's. . .made of canvas.

Which means it's not as durable as I'd like it to be. It suffers from wearing at friction points. It isn't what I'd characterize as waterproof. It is no friend of pointy things.

So I'm always on the prowl for well-made bags that can stand up to the sort of abuse I'm prone to subject my bags to.

Steve Derricott at Gfeller Casemakers makes lovely bags. But his range is limited to pieces that work for geologists and the like.

The nice people at Ghurka make lovely bags. But that's their problem - they're too lovely.

When Patrick Ng started publishing pictures of a bag he got from Saddleback Leather Company, I had one of those "ah ha" moments.

Go have a look and let me know what you think.

thanks: giving

I have an awful lot to be thankful for.

It has been an "interesting" year. I have had other "interesting" years before, as all of you have. This particular "interesting" year is ending on an up note, with plenty of good things to look forward to.

So it's at times like this that I come to appreciate that Thanksgiving shouldn't be all about "muttering a few words of relief that my life isn't as screwed up as INSERT INDIVIDUAL OR INDIVIDUALS' NAMES HERE." And it shouldn't be all about an organized eating festival.

Thanksgiving is a day, like Christmas and Easter are days, to be reminded of a simple truth.

It is a day that teaches us to say thank you.

We are all beneficiaries of kindness - I know I am. One of those kindnesses is your attention - for which I'd like to say thank you.

I hope you enjoy tomorrow in the company of family and friends. If you can't, I hope you will seek out the company of like-minded individuals. Because it's kindness that makes life worthwhile, and giving thanks for that kindness that makes us human.

considering: what's first UPDATED

I'm waiting.

"What are you waiting for? Godot? Mr. Goodbar?"

I'm waiting for my new job to begin. And by the way, you look for Mr. Goodbar, you don't wait for him.

"Woo hoo! Terrific! What are you going to be doing?"

"Product management."

"Where?"

Can't say. Yet.

"Why?"

Can't say that either. But I can say that I'm looking forward to starting, and I'm considering what to do first.

"What you do first is easy. You sign a lot of papers, you get your picture taken, you shake a lot of hands."

That stuff doesn't count. I'm talking about what's first.

"You've already written about that. You take a document inventory."

Well, yes. . . but. . .

"Come on, don't tell us that you're not going to take your own advice?"

The real world is complicated. Blog postings about product management make everything seem so cut-and-dry and black-and-white. Life is much more dynamic than that.

"OK, so what's first?"

I think job number one is to keep my mouth shut and listen.

"Really."

Really. When I was just starting out as a product manager I remember spending time selling the concept of product management to the new people I was working with, which was more of a telling thing than a listening thing.

"And you don't have to do that?"

I don't need to convince anyone that I know my craft. What I have to do is just do it. And that's going to take a lot of listening. And an absolute mountain of reading.

"But you like to read."

That's true.

UPDATE: Reader Matt, regretting the lack of a decent search facility on ack/nak, asked in a comment for me to cite the article in which I discuss taking a document inventory. That article can be found here.

thinking: about the blessing of mileage

A friend of mine has just started a new business - a genuine wine and cigar "bar" in Brighton, Michigan. It's already getting some great press. You should go there. But that's not why I'm writing this.

I know the guy who owns it. He is, as one of my Irish ancestors would say, a mensch. Such a man as operates this genuine wine and cigar "bar" you will rarely find, even if you lift up rocks in the search for said brand of fellow.

I know him from Way Back When, and I know a little about the trip he's taken to get to where he is today.

I don't envy him that trip.

Looking at the Facebook page dedicated to his new venture there is a picture of this man, smoking a cigar, looking quite content. When I see that look of contentment on his face, I know it's something he's paid for, and paid dearly.

Whatever joys and sorrows have come his way have created a man of substance who occupies a still point in a moving world, as Eliot would describe it.

It's not the years, it's the mileage. Sorry, Indiana, I'm going to borrow that line.

He's earned that cigar. Now you need to go buy one from him so you can reflect on the benefits of the miles you've racked up.