The Flat Head 3001 World Tour

[aho]

lol just a joke but I guess we could always write names on the back of the original pocket as well...

[-Z-]

First big post. Today was a fantastic day in the Twin Cities. Did some stuff around the house for most of the day, but tonight we went the the annual Lantern Lighting Festival at Como Zoo and Conservatory. My wife's family (Japanese on the mother's side) and ourselves are very involved in the local Japanese community. So we were very excited to have this great event happening on such a wonderful evening. We actually arrived a bit late, so most of the food was gone already (her mom was running a sukiyaki booth at the event, which ran out of food in about an hour it was so popular...) Anyways. we got there, there was great food, dancing, music, and they were still doing archery when I wandered over...Here are pics from the early part of the evening.

Here's the conservatory. this is actually the gardens where we were married 3 years ago!

Program....

Little -S- is ready to go!

-H- and -S- similarly dressed for the occasion...

World tour jeans, Grandma, and -S-

Music...

Very busy this year, the weather helped, but it seems to draw a very diverse crowd which is always great to see...

Some of the many food stands...gyoza, sukiyaki, sushi, japanese curry, and a booth selling chinese food....hm.

continued.....

[-Z-]

We ate Gyoza and chicken curry...

met with an old family friend, this dude has the most insane garden in his back yard I have ever seen...if i have a chance i'll have to get pictures. and he works with the Japanese embassy, pretty cool guy.

the last archer of the night...she didn't hit the target once, but it was still fun to watch.

and then the sun began to set, and we made our way over to the pond where the lantern lighting would take place...

quite the crowd was assembled for this, the setting was perfect. everyone was very excited for the lanterns to begin floating on the water.

about time to make my way down to the edge for photos...

sky washed out but another shot of the crowd....

wonderful music throughout the evening. I was kneeling at the edge of the water with my camera, and I knew the mic cord attached to her setup was under one of my legs...at one point, I heard the music cut out from the loudspeakers and I freaked out a bit cuz I thought I had pulled the cord. turns out some dude walked behind me and tripped over the cord. disaster averted for this guy!

and now for the final pictured of the night...

[-Z-]

a few more...

got home, added to the tour diary

and had a beer.

ah hell, i'll throw up my EDC as well...

that just about does it...cheers everybody. enjoy.

[beatle]

awesome upate !!!

[kiya]

I'm starting to feel very strange about the fact that these jeans have been worn by so many people.

In a good way.

[ThinFinn]

great update. just love the way you shoot your pics. focus is awesome in every f***ing pic...kudos mate

must spread...

[Denton]

ah hell, i'll throw up my EDC as well...

two phones?

[riff]

I'm settling back to enjoy a visually stunning leg of this tour!

Beautiful stuff -Z-, you know I'd rep if I could!

[-Z-]

two phones?

hahaha, one for personal one for ahem "business"

Its just an iPod Touch with one of those cool incase cases that makes it look like an iPhone...

[yakrian]

Great update! Looks like you guys had a great time.

[-Z-]

Today, the jeans relaxed.................

and made some really awful lemon pudding for the little one...which she promptly stuck her entire arm in, and dribbled around the whole loft. which I was stuck cleaning up of course...

tomorrow my wife gets off work at noon, so there should be a decent post. we're trying to line up a babysitter so we can head out tomorrow night as well, which will be great if we can get one.

I will be trekking up to a cabin (typical Minnesotan thing to do on the weekend in the summer) with some friends of mine to get drunk, ride jet-skis, and have an all out night in the woods. the wife has to help her collegiate age sister move to a different apartment, so she cannot come (bummed).

[ThinFinn]

^hopefully you'll find one ...

[-Z-]

Began our afternoon here, little one in tow, looking for some stuff for the kitchen. Been in need of new knives as ours are 3 years old and not the finest quality (they're Japanese, but not very rugged and I want something that will endure a bit more abuse in the kitchen). So we went to wander Grand Ave. in our city of St. Paul. There's a great home kitchen shop, Cooks of Crocus Hill here, which supplies anything that the wealthy neighborhood it occupies could ever desire...

My wife hadn't bought any clothing for this upcoming season yet, and she wanted to check out some boutique shops along the Ave. first place we stopped was Karma, a pretty cool women's store with a small collection of local and midwest designers which are all reasonably priced, but not very good quality, didn't see anything of interest in there...

next we went to a spot called Hot Mama, which has a small maternity section (as the name implies). apparently the woman who owns the store had a terrible shopping experience at Nordstrom, while trying to shop with her young child (anybody who's a parent and reading this can agree I'm sure) and decided to open her own store complete with a children's play area, a maternity section, and really damn cool women's clothes. This is where all the thin, hot, young to mid aged married women in the affluent Summit Ave. neighborhood shop, yet the prices range from very affordable to quite spendy, a great job on the owner's part on bringing in product that caters to a wide range of wallets. the affordable side is what draws my wife, who found two great sweaters and a top for this fall. (I dissuaded her from buying a $200 pair of denim that wasn't ANYTHING special at all...told her to get a pair of Geisha's instead)

I was waiting for my wife to show me clothes when a woman noticed my camera and asked if I was a photographer, i went through my whole story about this and that, and turns out she was a 25 year veteran photojournalist from the Twin Cities, had a great conversation with her, and she complimented my wife on her "great boyfriend jeans, where are those from??" to which i got to tell the story of the 3001 world tour, what it was, how many places the pants have been, etc. She didn't really get it, but she thought it was really cool from a documentary perspective, which i appreciated.

the jeans,

my ugly mug

went to our friendly neighborhood J. Crew, they didn't have any of the F/W mens shit in stock yet, which pissed me off. and my wife didn't find anything great either, its a pretty small store...little S did find a hat she wanted,

and they had some bizarre literature,

Then we went to another cool women's shop, Picky Girl, which again disappointed, though they had a great dress that I may swing back over and pick up as a surprise for the wife!

this reminded me of the Nip / Tuck intro. for some reason...

Last shopping stop was a toy store for little S

[-Z-]

The kid in me saw the potential fun in this cool little train set....

She wanted a doll house...so we left with a Yo-Yo, I'm gonna teach her as she grows up.

On the way home we stopped at MY favorite Twin Cities ice cream shot Izzy's. I went to University around the corner from here, so i've been going here for the past 6 years. it is a great little place that has the most amazing rotating menu of flavors.

each time is a different visit. but today they did have my favorite combination, Soy Chocolate with Orange Sherbet...

H got some blueberry, and S got a strawberry kid cone

if we're up to it, we might be going to a great Lebanese restaurant which has belly dancing on Friday nights, which will kick ass....more later people.

[ranonranonarat]

picture of your little girl in the hat is real cute. i like priceless pictures like these, very nice and heartwarming. and great on telling the story of traveling pants to the woman. i wouldn't understand it either if i were her. ha! but damn she is right, those are some good boyfriend jeans! love this post!

[beatle]

seconded........

[dave28]

Nice pics there buddy.....

[tigerformula]

Hey everyone sorry I haven't been on sufu for a while, was in Budapest for a couple weeks. I just pmed z my address so I'll be getting these sometime within the next two weeks. Will post pics then.

[-Z-]

jeans are drinking this at the moment,

had this bottle last night,

love wine, can't get enough.

[salaami]

dope, dope, dope. yo Z, i forgot to write my name in the jeans, could you just scribble 'salaam' in there for me? cheers.

[joelz]

i remember saying i'd be in on this tour but I'm not totally sure I'll fit in them anymore - what are the most current measurements?

[-Z-]

sorry i haven't posted up any measurements, i'm still hunting for a tape measure. they're waaaaay smaller than either my skulls of pbj's (granted they're both size 34 so they should be)

if i find that tape measure tonight i'll get measurements up.

[PeterParker]

How was the Alamos Malbec? Had a wine tasting featuring Argentinian malbecs and they were a bit of a bust (got shown up by a Cahors), although we didn't have the Alamos.

Yes, I love the vino too (gotta spread rep)

[-Z-]

the Dona Paula might be one of my favorites, but the Alamos was intense and very lingering, with some of the best fruit aromas I've experienced, very well defined flavors. It wasn't murky like the Trapiche Oak Cask is (which I like, but its awfully intense).

[tigerformula]

hey z did you get my pm?

[-Z-]

I did indeed, the wife is gonna be on vaacation in boston beginning this Wednesday, if she doesn't pack them ill mail them out this week, otherwise they'll go out right before labor day...cool?

[tigerformula]

Sounds great dude.

[-Z-]

Going to X post this from the WAYJDT thread, as its not what the tour jeans did today, rather, what I did today. but hell, they're in my possession so this counts.

the journey begins with a great tag I found along East Hennepin and Central Ave.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4918253957_41fa741dc8_z.jpg' alt='4918253957_41fa741dc8_z.jpg'>

nothing like a bit of luck as I begin my wander through the northeast artist corridor...

as the sun began to set, again its the rail tracks that bring me where I want to go...I basically traced this line from behind my loft all the way here, so from now on, I don't need to bother driving anywhere, I can just get here the easy way...This time there's a locomotive inbound.

set the camera down for a bit of posing...

it was really fucking hot and humid today. so the dusty summer air gave way to a pretty good example of a hot looking sunset. snapped this on hwy 280 as I was driving home. focus is soft, but i was going 65mph...

the moon was up as well as I was pulling into my building.

night all...[/img]

[beatle]

cold turkey ...is you wife still wearing them ?