CW = critiques welcome! We've had four birthday dinner in 5 days. I am a bit burnt out on the long dinners, but not the celebrating my son. I have let the new guests hod his time during these dinners. When last night's dinner was a smaller group of relatives, he came and sat next to me and we spoke about everything under the sun (READ: a lot of Dodgers... and then life). That was rewarding. Today at worked kicked off a new research project where one of my employees is conducting interviews of thought leaders for the first time. She did well on her first call! Lots of opportunities for her to get a lot better as this moves forward. It's also an interesting topic as it examines the sentiments of AI use now, and in the future, for my field. Today is almost all internal meetings, so the AI app roles randomly between (1) vest + tie outfit, (2) odd jacket and trousers combo (tie always worn in the office), or (3) a regular suit. It selected a suit, and that's what I've done. • Suit — SJ-002, SL-011 (Peter Millar): A dark blue Peter Millar wool suit with tiny lighter blue boxes, cut with rope and padded shoulders and a slight sheen finish. The full-lined jacket features notched lapels with two rear vents, paired with matching low-rise slacks that drape light but well with a medium to full break. Business formal presence ideal for video conferences. • Shirt — DS-040 (Charles Tyrwhitt): A CT slim-fit non-iron twill dress shirt in crisp white with French cuffs. The 2-ply cotton twill offers soft hand and excellent opacity, with a classic point collar. Perfect canvas for formal accessories—the adjustable French cuffs elevate the entire ensemble. • Undershirt — US-022 (Sene): White made-to-measure undershirt in Peruvian Pima cotton and elastane. Fantastic fit with excellent drape and heavy weight that won't show through the opaque dress shirt. • Tie — NT-053 (Charles Tyrwhitt): A silk Glen check tie in blue and cream with puppytooth print details. The 3-fold construction offers good body with a low sheen finish and 3.5" blade width. Pattern adds visual interest without overwhelming the suit's subtle boxes.

I have a 146 and the grand poohbah 149 Montblanc Meisterstruck pens. I love fountain pens and almost always carry one in my chest pocket. The 149 was purchased early in 2026 and I had them switch it to a double-wide pen. My 146 is a fine nib so I wanted the opposite experience. When you do this at purchase, the nib is free as is the process of changing it over. Normally, these gold/iridium nibs are about $350 and the cost can be a few hundred to change them, as they get sent to Germany and are done by their team of Meisterstruck experts. I have received the 149 back from their Germany team... twice. It's off to them again. Ink flow is horribly inconsistent. My $20 Pilot fountain pen operates WAY better than this $1300 pen. My sales' person at Montblanc pulled me aside on Saturday when I brought the pen back to the store again. She noted that nearly all of the expert staff retired, or put in for retirement, shortly after COVID. The new generation are reportedly poorly trained and she has had similar issues to my pen with 6 different customers, with pens ranging from $800 - $20,000 in cost. I cannot verify her claims, so do not take this as gospel. That said, if you are considering buying a Montblanc pen, be sure it comes with the nib you want and test it thoroughly in the store. Alternatively, go to a well-regarded pen reseller and buy a used Montblanc until this gets sorted out. This reduction in quality and skill matches with other areas of Montblanc, like their leather products. They switched from very high quality leather to horrible quality leather (there is a guy on YouTube the rips open leather products to review the quality and all of the new MB products have gotten panned). This is truly sad, as MB has stood for quality for over 100 years.

Well today I actually grabbed the right pair of brown trousers. I had only worn the pink shirt to church yesterday, so I thought I would reconstruct yesterday’s intended outfit. But then I thought that might be boring so I changed coat and tie and pocket square. OOTD Brooks brothers linen coat CT Pink Oxford Brown wool pocket square Ancient Madder silk paisley tie MTM (hand me downs from pop) herringbone wool trousers Pantherella socks Martin Dingman shoes and belt Ernest Borell automatic watch late 1940’s