If I had to give this week a name or describe it or make myself sound cool to one of the witty ironic friends I know, I’d coin it a wash-rinse-repeat kind of week.

One of the animals awakes us usually, one of the cats most of the time. The alarm goes off at some point — usually blaring the oddest song you could ever imagine waking up to. AC/DC or Linkin Park or Jimmy Buffett. The station is unknown, perhaps chosen randomly. The TV gets turned on, weather watching. Andy Avalos gives us the dilly. Eventually Decision 2008 comes around in various forms — Clinbama. Obanton. Superdelegatefrajilisticespialadocious.

Later, Where in the World is Matt Lauer? In a galaxy, far, far away.

Quick shower, throw on the kit. 12 miles, around 50 minutes door-to-door, 900+ calories burned.

Email, work, shut down all distracting communication outlets (Twitter, I’m looking at you). A few moments of gravity and depth and plenty of pointless ones to match. Lunch run or lunch made, work. Email is a nuisance. 4:30PM, time to walk the dog.

5PM: Looking at ingredients in the fridge and devising a menu for dinner. Start dinner. Two and a Half Men. Work.

10PM: Two and a Half Men.

Sleep.

Repeat.

“Why can’t they get some natural lighting in here?” I wondered to myself.

The fluorescent lighting above lent only more of a feeling of despair and dinginess to the small room that I waited in. It had some upsides though. A trash can that was wood paneled¹ that I would have loved to have taken home. The old school blood pressure gauge that is so concise and simple yet bold with its burnt amber number wheel that it made me ponder why we have to make things look so stupid and 3D these days with depth². Maybe flat is the new black.

The doctor was all business. He poked me here and there. Made sure my breathing was up to snuff and that all other bits were working well. He wrote some things down then debriefed me. The nurse would take me away to administer injections and draw some blood.

I’ve never been shy of needles or having blood drawn. It has been said that I have a relatively high pain tolerance. I’m not so sure it’s pain tolerance as much as it is a sort of resignation to getting hurt. Years of skating and now cycling have left me with my fair share of injuries and so perhaps a tolerance of some kind has built up. I don’t fight it. I like to move on, thinking about what has to be done next to get past it.

Five jabs altogether. Four had things put in me and one took things out of me. The nurse asked if I were needle-adverse. I assured her no but thought about the last time I had this many injections³ and felt confident with my response.

I was not mistaken. It was over in minutes.

¹ Makers of household items take note: make wood grain paneled trash cans. They’ll sell like gangbusters. ↩

² Gradients, drop shadows, rounded corners, et al. ↩

³ The big bicycle accident, number two in a series of three over a six-month period where I started to wonder if perhaps I was cursed for some odd reason.  ↩

Hi Ian –

I read on The Thought Kitchen about Nau closing down and at first glance I had to ask myself whether or not it was April 1st. Nope.

I’ve been really bummed and upset that you folks are closing up shop. It’s really a shame that in these turbulent times that an excellent company like Nau couldn’t survive past a year. No one else I feel is doing what you folks are doing. From the first time I heard and read about you folks in an issue of Outside — if I recall correctly — I was super excited at what I was seeing — functional outdoor clothing that gasp actually looked sexy, slick, good and that you could wear for a night on the town and no one would be the wiser. As a designer, it filled that void that I thought was missing between fashionable, modern cuts but being completely functional. To me, it’s a match made in heaven.

I put you folks up there along with Rapha, the high end cycling clothing mfg. based in London. I’m sure you’re familiar with them — given the overlap of some of the Portland cycling brethren that you both worked with — Ira Ryan, Dan Sharp, et al.

And now you’re going away. I’ve never felt so emotionally about a company whose values aligned with mine but it’s good to know that at least you were around for a while. I’m happy to have quite a few Nau pieces in the closet and yesterday I called everyone I knew who loved you folks and we all raided the Chicago store. My significant other (Jen Schuetz — I believe she’s also emailing you) and I bought what we could, happy to get our hands on more excellent pieces but not the situation with which we managed to get these items this time around. Bittersweet with with the bitter side being more prominent.

I feel that given another 6 months to a year you folks would really have found your groove and become a lasting company. I’m a fan of other outdoor companies, notably Patagonia but I rarely find anything at Patagonia that I actually buy — the clothes are a bit too drab and I’ve noticed that their sizing has grown a little (contrary to their claim to fit active people first — perhaps adopting some of The North Face populist appeal?).

Nau was my company of choice. If there ever was a company that I believed could change things, it was you folks.

With that, I hope perhaps someday Nau might return, perhaps in another form. I hope you don’t look at this as a failure — if you do, you failed spectacularly and successfully. But like any relationship that leaves a lasting impact, I’m glad you folks were around for as long as you were rather than not at all.

Godspeed and good luck in your future endeavours.

Thanks for everything,
Naz.

Ed: For further, read Treehugger’s wrap-up.

Jim Coudal kindly asked if I’d like to be guest editor for Fresh Signals for the month of May over at Coudal. Who could say no to that? Expect the usual items of fancy, delight and wonder. And perhaps a WTF or two.

When the Cable That Was Free™ went away¹, we were left with a hole². No longer did we have House Hunters and Designed to Sell to watch nor reruns of Project Runway or Top Chef during the times we ate, but instead were left to regular programming.

It was mildly harder for The Girl™ — having been used to some form of cable throughout her life, whereas I have only had cable sporadically throughout my lifetime and only then, the first time just before I exited my teenage years³. But, cable didn’t have such a hold on us that we’d actually pay for it. A quick rundown of shows we watched revealed that we could either watch them online if they weren’t on regular programming or we could download a show.

We eat at about 6pm — early. I generally start cooking shortly after 5pm. Being homebound helps in that regard and I generally have our dinner ready to go or 3/4 of the way there by the time The Girl™ arrives home. We’re generally sitting at the coffee table at 6pm and we skim the channels trying to find something to watch. Previously, this was the aforementioned House Hunters. Lacking cable, we looked for a replacement.

We found Two and a Half Men. I’d been intrigued by the show for a few years now — the combination of Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer and a kid sounded like some kind of weird Three Men and a Baby twist. However, it’s occurred to me that if a show has had some kind of staying power, then perhaps it does have some legs to it.

And who would have known? The comedy is far more riskier and clever than some of the sitcoms I’ve seen in the past — Friends really?

I’m officially addicted⁴.

—

¹ Now that TV is going all digital (have you not seen the numerous February 2009 Doomsday-esque ads for your TV not working!), our cable company that provides the Internet has switched to converter boxes for their actual TV cable and so no more cable pipes in via the standard cable cables. ↩

² Not gaping. ↩

³ I also was sans TV from the years 1998-2001, opting instead for a homemade solution of a big ass speaker, a tiny little audio receiver hooked up to a Discman as well as books, books, books. ↩

⁴ We watch the show twice daily — at 6PM and then again at 10:30PM. ↩