Amish Lambo

Today I spent the day driving through Amish country.  I met this Amish guy who let me sit on his buggy!  It was a first for me.

The guy was really nice but when he asked me to get off I stuck my toung out at him.

After this excitement I went to a diner for lunch.  When I was done eating I decided to hang out in the parking lot to enjoy the sun.

I must have been looking really good today because people kept driving past staring at me hard.  Multiple people even came up and took pictures of me with their cell phone.  

I must have been doing something right to deserve all that attention!  All in all it was a good day in The Life of My Leather.

Tobacco XL Briefcase goes to the Pocono Mountains

I took a trip to the Pocon Mountains for Father's Day 2014.  I was a gift to my owner and this is the first real trip we have taken together.  So we got to the cabin and decided to have a beer.  This Weyerbacher Blasphemy Belgian Quad was amazing. 

We woke up the next morning and decided to go on a hike around Raymondskill Falls.  I am all packed up and ready to go.

I have bug spray, two water bottles, two hoodies, a DSLR camera, a video camera, snacks, my pipe, tobacco, tripod, diapers, wipes, extra baby outfit, changing pad, sun hat, and baby toys.  I am stuffed right now, but ready for the trail.

Raymondskill Falls were AMAZING!

Photo Op!

It was a great time at Greys Towers.  They had some great trails.

I got tired and needed to rest.  This looked like a great spot to stop and relax.

Selfie!

So thanks for listen to me go on about my trip.  Stay tuned for another day in The Life of My Leather.

XL Classic Briefcase in Tobacco Brown Day 1

Happy Fathers Day to me!  2014 marks my first ever Father's Day, and my 6 month old nailed it!  This bag, like my child was made with love.

I love this bag!  I had a belt pouch already so I added that and this great bottle opener from a guy in Canada Naz Forge.  The color is great, and I can't believe how sturdy this bag is.  It is a beast!

The bag is very thick at the bottom when empty.  It gives the bag a stable stance when sitting on the ground.  This bag isn't just going to fall over.

There is an awesome mark on the back pocket!  Because this is where the bag will get significant wear quickly as it rests against the body most of the time, I can't want to see how this area looks after a few months of use.

To the left of the ring there are some really sweet scars running across the bag.

A nice little bug bite to the right of the strap.

Nice scar on the gusset.

This area should also start looking really good from the flap rubbing against it daily.

There were some cool marks on the pigskin as well.

Fits a 17 inch laptop with ease.

The bag really fits me well.  I am 6'5 360lbs and this is the XL.

Feels great in backpack mode. 

The bag isn't as heavy as people say but again I am also a beast.  

All and all I am very pleased with this bag.  I am excited to take it out and give it a real work out.  I will be using this bag as my every day work briefcase as well as my weekend bag and cary on luggage.  That is what is so great about the XL Classic Briefcase, it is versatile.  So this is the life of my leather, XL CB in Tobacco Brown.

Old Bull Belt 1 3/4

I received my old bull belt 13/4 inch width in carbon black today.  It is indeed a very impressive piece of leather.  Super thick very stiff with a solid buckle.  I was on the fence about the inch and three-quarter size but I decided to go with that anyway. I'm a large guy 6 foot five 360 pounds so I felt like I could pull off the thickness and still look good.

The belt fit nicely through my Levi jeans. I was little concerned but Dave said it would fit and it did.  

The four rivets attaching the buckle to the weather is really solid. The buckle is heavy duty and I can see it lasting a lifetime.  The loop for the tale of the belt was a little thinner than I expected it to be but it will definitely be functional serviceable I don't see it wearing out either.  Saddleback logo and made in old Mexico stamped on the inside of the belt along with the size. 

I wore this belt for the afternoon only and as you can see there's a little bit of where on the outside of the belt from putting my hand and out of my pocket retrieving my firearm and putting it back in for storage you can also see that in the inner part of the belt the inside is wearing a bit more than I expected to see after a few hours of use.  See the middle hole in the pic below.  One review on the Saddleback website mentioned this and I can see where he's going I'm not as angry as he is about it in fact it doesn't really bother me that much at all as long as the belt stay strong it won't be an issue.

As you can see from the picture above the texture on the backside about is much different than the texture the finish texture on the top side I will have to see how this maintains overtime with much use.

Now for the design issues with this belt.  As a reviewer mentioned Saddleback website the holes are shifted way too far toward the end of the tail.  Below I'm to show you pictures of what the belt looks like on the first whole second whole third hole and fourth hole.

The first hole is useless. As you can see from above the tail just flaps in the wind even at Thanksgiving if I need a little extra room I don't know how comfortable I would feel with the tail sticking out like that.

The second hole is just about as useless. The tail barely tucks under that keeper loop.  If the belt was on the I don't think it would even make it to the keeper loop.

The third hole again barely fits under the keeper loop. I don't understand why you would have the holes so far to the end of the belt.

Finally! The belt looks normal on the fourth hole. If you plan on wearing this belt anywhere between the first hole and the third hole forget about it.  The fourth hole is really the first hole in my opinion luckily I'm wearing the belt all the way down on the second to last hole and it's not an issue for me but if I'm sizing this belt up and I'm counting on wearing one of the first three holes I'm going to go up a size.

To give you an idea how thick this belt is I laid a tooth pick across that just see you could see that it's pretty darn wide. It fits perfectly in my belt loops. Overall I recommend the belt, I think it's great, just be careful with your sizing because the holes are a little funky. I don't know why he did them like that but it doesn't really make sense to me.  Other than that I think it's a great belt.  In time we will have to see how the inside wears.  The carbon color is great, I really love it, and I'm happy with my purchase.

This has been "the life of my leather" old bull belt 1 3/4 carbon edition.

 

Old Tobacco Brown iPad Mini Case (Dave's Deal 25%) Week 1

I have been on the fence about pulling the trigger on a Dave's Deal.  I was worried that the defect would be too noticable and that I wouldn't like the item.  I finally worked up the courage to pull the trigger on an Old Tobacco Brown iPad mini case that was a 25% or 10 ft discount.  The case arrived about a week ago and let me tell you, I think Dave needs to have his head checked!  I spent about twenty minutes looking over this thing and found nothing wrong with it.  I got a sweet deal on this baby!  There are some scratched on the cover but those were put there by me, as I have been toating this thing around with me all week.

I have been wanting to buy the iPad mini case for some time because I do a lot of property inspections that require me to use the iPad to document violations and maintenance items.  The idea if the hand strap apealed to me.

The fit was not as tight as some of the reviewes on the Saddleback website.  I like the new Tobacco Brown better than the old Tobacco, but I saw that Dave said it is the same leather just with more oils and waxes in it, so I decided to treat this case three times in the first week with Chamberlin's Leather Milk and it has darkened the leather a bit, and has it looking more like the new Tobacco.  For comparison purposes i have the case against the new Tobacco Brown Medium Note Pad Holder.  Remember that the iPad Mini case has been treated three times and has darkened.

The hand strap has not been treated so you can see what the origional color looked like before my treatments.

As you can see above the old pigskin lining is colored where the new pigskin is natural.  I prefer the natural pigskin to the colored pigskin.

The spine where the leather folds is lighter than the front and back cover.  This is due to the constant opening and closing.  It stretches so the leather lightens up.

You can also see that where the strap closes on the back, it gets roughed up rather quickly.  You can even see the outline of the strap imprinted on the backing of the case.

The fit is pretty good.  At first the bottom of the iPad wanted to slide to the left making the button on the bottom off centered.  I have been conciously pushing in on the corner in order to break it in so that the iPad wants to stay centered.  I am not all the way there yet however in the week i have been doing this the iPad seems to be fitting much better.

Before:

After:

Unlike other iPad cases I have had this case is super durable.  I can toss this in any bag, my car door storage area, between the car seat and center console and I don't have to worry about it getting damaged.

The case is a little wavy at the bottom where the speaker and charger input is.  The below picture shows this as well as well as the small gap between the cover and the body of the case.

I think the more I use the case the flatter the fit will be.  It is not an issue, the iPad is adequatley protected.

The stand mode is great.  I wasn't sure how I would like it but it is really much better than i expected.  The lid folds over but doesn't bend all the way.  It sort of loops which makes it sturdy and impossible to knock over.  Other cases i have had, when in stand mode they sometimes fall or close on themselves.  I don't have to worry about that with this case.

I also like the fact that you can stand it up vertically if you want to. 

I can rest this on my chest while laying down on the couch and read my book of browse the internet and it sits there with no hands required.  I love the design of the stand mode.

I recommend this iPad mini case, it is highly functional and a great design.  So this is the "Life of My Leather" iPad mini case edition week 1.  I will be putting this through it's paces as I am off to Orlando for a conference next week.  Stay tuned.