I've switched to a friends only journal.

http://www.yarnsprout.com/

Thanks to Mactavish, the link button now works!

The Olympics starts today. Think about Tibet.

Students for a Free Tibet

International Campaign for Tibet

Thanks to PoMo Golightly for this reminder

I've been riding in jeans and work boots for years. My workboots are falling apart, and the soles (while literally coming off the shoe) were also way too thick when I started riding by myself. So I decided to get some new gear. In the meantime, I have always worn a denim jacket in summer and a leather jacket in cooler weather, jeans, a pair of leather gloves, and (of course) a full face helmet.

I decided that while I was at it, I would get one of the mesh jackets now that they seem to come in women's sizes. I bought a pair of boots that I adore (and they were on the cheap since the reincarnated version has now been released). I also bought some gloves. *sighs* I hate ordering online.

I got my gear from newenough.com. Due to their system, it took a month (I searched for women’s boots and ordered a size 8 then a few days before it shipped, I looked at the page and realized that they were unisex boots and that I’d ordered a MEN’s 8 because it said “size X” and then if you scrolled way down it had “women’s X.” Instead of switching the one item, I had to cancel the order and start from scratch. You can either have each item ship as its ready or ship the entire order at once. In this case, that meant $12 shipping per item. You can't combine some items and hold the remaining items, so even the jacket and gloves had a 2 day turnaround, the boots with their 10 day turnaround held the whole order up. Some items on their site say that they'll take an order (every item has the wait time next to the size, so you know before you place the order how long the wait will be).

The boots are a perfect fit. They are really great boots (Icon Super Duty 2). I am extremely happy with them. However, the rest of the order sucked.


The Teknik Sevilla Jacket jacket that I ordered was huge. Their website said that their “office ladies” tried the clothes on and found them to be true to size. I had ordered the size 14 since my leather motorcycle jacket is an exact fit (PERFECT) and is size 14 (FYI, I've got a size 18 leather jacket and didn't realize that I could fit into the one I bought years ago and that I wore on my wedding day, I was SUPER happy when I discovered that this morning). The customer service woman at newenough.com told me the Sevilla jackets were actually sized a touch large. I figured that was fine because I could put a sweater under it come winter. Well, it’s HUGE. Not "a little large." My hands are an inch from the end of the sleeve. The torso portion is AT LEAST two sizes too large. My only guess is that their “office ladies” lie about what size they wear because I checked my other size 14 and size 16 jackets, and I most definitely fit somewhere in between 14 and 16 depending on the brand! Not one size 14 in my house is anywhere near that large. In fact, some of the size 14s are too small.

I was able to try on the Joe Rocket Cleo Mesh 2 jacket in a local store, and it fits nicely. However, the store sells it for $250 and the cheapest I can find it online is $135 (AWESOME price for that jacket, FYI but still above my price range). We bought a total of three motorcycles in my house this summer. We have zero wiggle room in our budget unless we want to be dumb asses and dip into emergency funds and, um, no. The sleeves on Cleo 2 are too long, but everything that doesn’t come in petite has that problem (and it’s not like my arm is completely lost in the sleeve like in the Sevilla jacket) so I can accept that. It doesn't come in a color I wanted, but there are colors that I like (truthfully, I tried on and adore the purple, but I own one red motorcycle and one orange/yellow motorcycle and I'm too vain to wear a purple jacket with them ;-)

The Cleo Mesh 1 Jacket is on discount of $99 at newenough.com (the Sevilla jacket was on clearance for only $72). Cleo 1 is not as pretty as Cleo 2, but it seems to have the same types of armor and general protectiveness. This jacket comes in red. I do so love red. I wanted a brighter color, but I have a white helmet, and they say there's reflect strips on Cleo even if I can't actually see them in the pictures.

Now I need to decide what jacket to get. I did like the Sevilla jacket. It’s price was incredible, and it’s got great features, but there’s no freaking way I could ever figure out what size to get! I mean, the size 14 is sized like at least a size 18! I’m also considering the idea of re-ordering the Sevilla in size 10.

Any thoughts? Does anybody have either of these jackets and have something to say about their sizing?


The gloves were also a disappointment. I got the Cortech HDX gloves. The first two fingers fit great, but the ring finger and pinky fingers were almost as long as my pointer and first finger so the gloves were way too long. Since they had protection on the knuckles, the protection was dragging along on my pinky and was seriously uncomfortable and making me not want to bend my left hand (and that was before I got on the bike) so they’re also going back.

I really did get a live person.

Give Patterson your support of gay marriage.

I'm posting this early because, well, I'm going to be busy on my anniversary! However, I'm post dating it for 3/14 in the hopes that it won't show up on your friends pages until then :-) Lucy Kaplanski, Pi, and Tom Leher. What more could you want?