Hey-Tee

Potholes

Igloo

That is all for now.  Your regularly schedule program will continue momentarily.

Things are slowly drawing down her in Haiti.  Up until the 1st of March, the US Air Force had complete control of the local airspace and airport functions.  One 1 March we handed over the responsibilities back to the Haitians.  There are still a lot of aircraft arriving with various forms of aid, but now the Haitians are in control of in/out bound aircraft as well as the downloading of the cargo.  With the recent earthquake in chile most of the remaining individuals are unsure what will happen.  Most of us are on 120 day orders and we will only at max have spent 45 days here before we completely pack up and head out.  With that said, will we be heading to Chile to aid in their needs?  Most of what the news is reporting, the Chile government feels confident that they can rise above their catastrophe without much assistance from fellow countries.  If we do not forward on to Chile, there is still a ton of work to be done for Haiti from the states.

Each day I notice another person here in the camp that I had not noticed previously.  One member that has made a presence more and more frequently is skinny above.  This little dog is everywhere.  He runs under running airplanes, over the active runways and more.  For being a little dog, he has stones of a guerrilla. Rather friendly little guy too.  I noticed a fellow airmen walking and the little dog come up behind her and tried to play with her by hitting her in the back of the legs with his front paws.  If I knew he did not contain the next deadly virus, I would entertain petting him.  Who knows what strange type of animal poo he has been rolling in.  One thing is for sure, I miss my dogs!

Day five has been uneventful, same ole’.  American Airlines has resumed flights into and out of Haiti within the last few days.  A round trip flight will run you roughly $1100 dollars.  My question is, are there actually passengers on those flights?  The military does not handle those missions, so we do not get to see the passengers.  Slowly but surely business as normal is starting to resume and this country is starting to heal.

Today we had a young girl scale a twelve foot barrier wall that surrounds the airport and our camp.  Apparently where we park our helecopters and small aircraft in the grass, she wanted to pick some type of greenery that was growing.  Luckily she was not hurt or even worse killed by an inbound aircraft, that could have been a political mess.  What I want to know is how the hell did little spider women scale the wall?  Do they not have plants on her side?  Apparently our plants taste better. Only question is, do they taste good enough to get hurt over?  She was taken off the flightline and returned to her family.  I hope they at least let her pick a to-go container for her troubles.

Other then the normal hot weather, which is still very nice compared to the weather around the US, things are not bad here.  Locals are super friendly and very willing to toss a smile your way.

As always, be sure to keep helping the various organizations with donations as it is still greatly needed. LHC will be launching a shirt in support of the cause, be on the watch for that at http://www.lefthandclothing.com. We have sent the design into the printer and shirts should be available within the next few weeks.

Remember….  Hope. Rebuild. Care.

Be sure to keep helping the various organizations with donations as it is still greatly needed. LHC will be launching a shirt in support of the cause, be on the watch for that at http://www.lefthandclothing.com.
Remember…. Hope. Rebuild. Care.

As long as I have coverage while in Haiti I will send in entries and photos from my perspective.

Also be on the look out for three new designs, one of which will be in support of raising funds to help rebuild Haiti.

Hope. Rebuild. Care.

McQueen after one of his shows in 2009. (Photo from the Guardian)

Today I send my sympathies to Alexander Mcqueen’s family and friends. McQueen, who was a well known British designer, was found dead this morning, age 40, at his London home. To honor a remarkable person let’s remember his contributions to fashion…

• McQueen started an apprenticeship at the age of 16 which resulted in making suits for Prince Charles.
• He worked for Japanese designer, Koji Tatsuno, and Italian designer, Romeo Gigli.
• After finishing a graduate program in design school, fashion icon Isabella Blow bought his entire collection.
• Under his own label, McQueen trademarked the “bumpster” trouser which showed off a person’s butt cleavage.
• For 5 years he was head designer for French label Givenchy.
• In 2000 Gucci Group bought 51% of his label which helped the brand branch out into denim, accessories, eyewear, and frangrances.
• McQueen was named British designer of the year in 1996, 1997, 2001, and 2003, and international designer of the year by the CFDA in 2003.

McQueen will be remembered for his unique creativity and his many successes. Check out the Guardian’s website, they did a very cool segment featuring his career through photographs.

“If you ask any lady they want to be taller, they want to be slimmer, you know, and they want a waist. I’m not here to make people look like a sack of potatoes.”

By: Kelsey Hagelgans

photo credit: Barbara L. Hanson

I can not recall a time since the 90’s that we had this much white stuff dumped upon us in such a quick amount of time.  This whole winter season I did not touch our shovel once… not once!  We have an AWD vehicle and truly did not need to shovel anything in order to continue with our day.  We just drove over it.  Then all of a sudden mother nature took a big white dump and forced me out of my warm house. Well now that our driveway and a few neighbors drives are clear, I can continue with life.  Left Hand Clothing never closed while in the midst of all of the winter magic.  We still pumped out orders and tried to make the best of it, even with no electricity.  If you have not taken a look at our design lately please feel free to do so by clicking here.

Hopefully since you are reading this, you too are no longer buried and have full power, electricity and water.

Stay warm my friends,

Seth A Zora – Co/Founder

]]> http://blog.lefthandclothing.com/damn-this-white-stuff-it-ruins-lives/feed/ 0 http://blog.lefthandclothing.com/google-hero-vs-apple-iphone/ http://blog.lefthandclothing.com/google-hero-vs-apple-iphone/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:42:56 +0000 Seth Zora http://blog.lefthandclothing.com/?p=181
photo credit: dailylifeofmojo

Recently I decided to explore my options with getting a new phone for the wife and I.  I have had an iPhone since the first generation phone was launched for over $600.  True be it that I am a mac enthusiast in all sense of the definition.  With the most recent launch of the iPad and the agreement for which AT&T will provide the data services, this created some internal questions.

Now let me preface with this…. I have had zero issues with AT&T in regards to signal and connection speed.  Both my wife and I loved the phones as well as the service. Now comes the let down. We were paying roughly $215 a month for service.  Nothing special added to it other than text messaging, data services and the family plan.  I started investigating around and found that switching to another carrier would save me over $120 a month.  Who in their right mind wouldn’t switch carrier to save that much loot each month.  Now mind you, this comparison is for the exact same features and minutes as AT&T gave us.  At first my motivation was simply to save money.  Then I realized that I would have access to the HTC Hero on Sprint.  At first I thought there was no way in hell a phone could be better then my iPhone.  That thing is amazing.  I can run my whole company Left Hand Clothing from the road on the iPhone.  As I was in the store the wife and I agreed we would try it.  Sprint has a 30 day guarantee.  If you do not like it, bring it on back.  So that was the premise we were going on.  I bring the new toy home and start messing with it.  Few hours on it, nothing special.  Gave up early and decided I would mess with it more the next day.  Next day came and I played with with it all day long………. (keep your minds out of the gutter).  This thing was amazing.  Not only could I get most of the same apps as my iPhone on it and those that were not the same, I found suitable substitutes for them.  Task number one…. still be able to conduct business… CHECK!  Next I wanted to see how well the data connection was.  Now in our house the signal was not that great.  Previously with AT&T we had full bars all over the house.  With sprint we had three on average.  Not bad, but not what we were use to receiving.  I started investigating and realized that sprint had a femtocell option that we could use.  The best part about this little gadget is that it will link your broadband internet to your cell and give you 5 bars of service all over the house.  Beautiful part of it, only an extra $4.99 a month to use the service after I buy the gadget off of eBay for around $50 to $60 bucks.  So the fact that the signal is less that what we were use to is fine with us.  Task number two…. be able to use the phone at home and around town… CHECK!  Next I played with the layout and themes on the phone.  This phone was amazing.  It let me only put the shortcuts of my most used apps on the screens while the remaining apps were accessible with only one button press.  It also let me add widgets to any of the screens that would give me real-time snap shots of the time/date, weather for my area, scheduler, emails and so much more.  They truly made all the items that I needed information available instantly with a simple glance.  No longer would I need to flip pages, open the program and wait for the new information to load.  Task number three… creating the phone the way that I wanted and liked… CHECK!  At this point I am really excited about the change we made.  From time to time I would travel with my small netbook and use a Cricket communications air card.  Quick recap for those of you that do not have Cricket in your city.  Cricket offers no contract cellular service for rather low prices.  Small coverage footprint but available in a ton of major cities.  When I was in need of an air card for casual use, they fit the need perfectly.  They charged roughly $45 a month for 5GB of bandwidth and you could cancel at anytime.  Now I started looking for ways to do this on my new phone.  In comes PDAnet. PDAnet offers an application that sits on the phone while another on your computer.  Once both programs are installed, it creates a link between the computer and the 3G data connection on the phone.  At first I was skeptical that this would work.  BAM!  Right out of the download and installed, it worked like a charm.  Not only do they offer a connection for Android but they offer it for Black Berry, Palm and iPhone (jail broken of course).  Task number bonus… Eliminate my $45 a month air card and sacrifice nothing… CHECK!

So in closing we are both extremely happy with our switch.  Who knows what the future will hold, eventually we may find ourselves back to an iPhone.  But at this time we do not see the need to spend more and get less.  Hopefully Apple will step up their game and create a killer new version and make us jealous that we switched.

Be sure to check out Left Hand Clothing.  We create and design Pittsburgh inspired t shirts!

]]> http://blog.lefthandclothing.com/google-hero-vs-apple-iphone/feed/ 0 http://blog.lefthandclothing.com/groundhog-day/ http://blog.lefthandclothing.com/groundhog-day/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:54:08 +0000 Kelsey Hagelgans http://blog.lefthandclothing.com/?p=169

Well, Spring is officially here. Not according to Phil, but according to retailers it is. Swim suits and sandals have hit the shelves, which means one thing to me- make room for new! And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing all day. Going through closets, yes closets, and purging. What to do with all the worn items though? I came across an organization called Soles 4 Souls that donates gently used footwear to people in need. All you have to do is pay for shipping and those shoes that you had to have but only wore once will get put to good use. They also started a program, Project: Haiti, to donate 50,000 shoes in 50 days and they’re already halfway there! Check out their website for more details.

A quote on the bathroom wall of one of my favorite places, “From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need.” -Karl Marx