The World's Best: "The Best Shoes Ever!”
THE GUCCI LOAFER
By
Keith Lathon
Their are few things in a Man of the World’s
rights of passage, hitting a homerun, making love to a beautiful woman, driving 100 mhp, a Championship fight and your
first pair of Gucci Loafers. My father was a Renaissance Man who had the power to walk with Nobility and the understanding
of the common man. That ability shows the range of wisdom, I try to strive for each day of my life. One of
his life lessons was to "always put the best shoes on your feet" and there is none better than a pair of Gucci loafers. Formfitting
and incredibly soft like a Brazilian woman's butt, it’s truly one of life great pleasures. Now days they come in more
than one style, I really enjoy the tire-tread inspired soles, which are indestructible. With the price of admission over
$350 dollars they have outlasted many of my underwear, which all men know they last forever. A suit usually last 2-3 years,
Jordan’s a year and a good pair of jeans a year or so, this is probably the
best value on the market. The one’s I own, I have been through 10 times the amount of girlfriends and other seedy things
I care to mention. Atlanta is a Gator City where bling is king, but you can’t ever go wrong with a pair of Gucci Loafers.
The World's Best: "The Best Wood
Floors in the World.”
Carlisle Wide Plank Floors!
For nearly 40 years, our family
has been carefully selecting, custom grading, air drying and handcrafting wide plank flooring for fine homes, just like yours.
It’s a traditional manufacturing process that we’ve continued here in the small New Hampshire
village of Stoddard.
And we ship our handcrafted old world flooring worldwide!
Over the years, we’ve built a reputation for the highest
quality flooring and best customer service the only way we know how; one satisfied customer at a time.
Each plank of our flooring reflects our family's New England heritage
of pride in honest hard work, attention to detail and a desire to make you, our customer, happy. These are basic values that
we simply refuse to give up! Like our floors, these traditional values have stood the test of time.
Selecting a floor is very personal because it becomes a part of your family. At Carlisle, we understand how important this choice is to you. That's why we take the time to really understand
how our flooring will be used in your home.
The World's Best:Scotch; Macallan
"The Rolls-Royce
of single malts" is a label often bestowed upon this persistent winner of competitions. From its unusually small stills to
its insistance upon sherry ageing (always in dry oloroso casks, shipped unbroken from Spain, Macallan is a purposefully traditionalist distillery. There has probably
been whisky made on the Macallan site, on a small hill overlooking the Spey near Craigellachie , since the late 1700s. A manor house from this period has been restored as a place at which to
entertain private visitors. An illustration of the house is used on the box that accompanies each bottle of The Macallan.
It is intended to convey the sense of a whisky "Chateau" and perhaps to offset the harder lines of what is a functional-looking
distillery.
The first
licenced distillation at Macallan is said to have taken place in the earliest days of legalised production, in 1824. In 1892
the business came into the hands of the family who still manage Macallan and have a major share in the company.
Macallan
went public in 1966-8 and was thus able to finance the laying down of large stocks of whisky for maturation and a decade of
expansion. Each extension involved the building of a new still-house so that the company could increase production without
altering the size of its stills.
The company
was already renowned among blenders who use its malt whisky as a "top dressing" but in the 1960s Macallan as a bottled single
malt was available only on Speyside. Although the larger share of the malt continues to be reserved for blending, a new generation
of family management decided to market seriously a bottled single malt. The Macallan, stressing the definite article, was
launched nationally in Britain in 1980.
Like other pioneers of singles, Macallan has tried to limit independant bottlings. There nonetheless used to be one well-known
example, quaintly labelled "As We Get It" and marketed by J.G. Thomson, the spirits and wine subsidiary of Bass in Scotland. This name is now used to describe an Aberlour.
The launch
of The Macallan was steered to success by then chairman, Alan Shiach, a member of the family, and a successful screenwriter
The World's Best: Champagne;
“The
Legend of Cristal”
The
Roederer House, Founded in 1776 by Louis Roederer, one of the largest Independent Champagne in France. In 1776 on a requested by Russia’s Czar Alexander
II, a Special Champagne was made to toast his Imperial Court. The champagne
was poured from a distinctive “Crystal” bottle-hence the name (in French “Cristal”). The bottles
were made till 1920 till the champagne was widely marketed, but the name stuck “Cristal”.
Roederer
house owns 494 acres in the best of the Country’s champagne region and produces seven types of wines. With 55 percent
pinot noir, 45 percent chardonnay and aged five years in French Oak barrels gives it the one of a kind, dry clear taste.
With
quality over the years is has kept the brand one’s of the World top brands. In the ‘90’s – ’91,
’92 and ’98 – Roederer stop production of Cristal after poor harvests. Quality does not come cheap $200.00
a bottle and $500.00 a bottle at fine Restaurants and Clubs.
Keith
Lathon
The World's Best: Watch;
Rolex
Rolex is a brand of Swiss wristwatches and accessories renowned for their quality and exclusivity, as well as their cost (from a few thousand to more than one hundred
thousand U.S. dollars). The watches have become status symbols of the rich and famous — as well as the upwardly-mobile
career-minded individual. Although a symbol of success, Rolex has earned its strong reputation through innovations in design
and function over many decades.
The Rolex, SA company was founded in 1905 by Mr. Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law, Mr. Alfred Davis. Contrary to popular belief, Hans
Wilsdorf was neither Swiss, nor a watchmaker. Wilsdorf & Davis was the original name of what later became the Rolex Watch
Company. They originally imported Hermann Aegler's Swiss movements to England
and placed them in quality cases made by Dennison and others. These early wristwatches were then sold to jewellers, who then put their own names on the dial. The earliest watches from the firm of Wilsdorf and
Davis are usually marked "W&D" – inside the caseback only.
Hans Wilsdorf registered the trademark name "Rolex" in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland during 1908. The word was made up, but its origin is obscure. One story, which was never confirmed by Wilsdorf,
is that the word "Rolex" came from the French phrase horlogerie exquise, meaning exquisite watch industry.
The Wilsdorf & Davis company moved out of Great Britain in 1912. Wilsdorf wanted his watches to be affordable, but taxes and export duties on the case metals
(silver and gold) were driving costs up. From that time to the present, Rolex has been headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, though the company owns facilities in other cities (Bienne, etc) and continents (North America, Asia, Australia,
etc).
The company name Rolex was officially registered on 15 November 1915. It is thought this change was part of a drive to popularize wristwatches, which at the time were
still considered a novelty largely for women (pocket watches were more common). Wilsdorf was said to desire his watch brand's
name to be easily pronouncable in any language. The company name was offically changed to the Rolex Watch Company during 1919. It was later changed to Montres Rolex, SA and finally Rolex, SA.
Among the company's innovations are the first self-winding watch; the first waterproof watch case; the
first wristwatch with a date on the dial; the first watch to show two timezones at once; and most importantly the first watchmakers
to earn the coveted chronometer certification for a wristwatch. To date, Rolex still holds the record for the most certified chronometer
movements in the category of wristwatches. Another little known fact is that Rolex participated in the development of the
original quartz watch movements. Although Rolex has made very few quartz models for its Oyster line, the company's engineers
were instrumental in design and implementation of the technology during the early 1970s.
The first self-winding Rolex watch was offered to the public in 1931, powered by an internal mechanism that used the movement of the wearer's arm. This not only made
watch-winding unnecessary, but eliminated the problem of over-winding a watch and harming its mechanism. Rolex was also the
first watch company to create a truly waterproof watch — another milestone from novelty to functional timepiece.
Wilsdorf even went so far as to have a specially made Rolex watch attached to the side of the Trieste bathyscaphe, which went to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The watch survived and tested as having kept perfect time during its descent and ascent.
Rolex has also made a reputation in watches suitable for the extremes of deep-sea diving, aviation and mountain climbing. Sports models include the Oyster
Perpetual Sea Dweller 2000 in
1971. This watch featured a helium release valve, co-invented with Swiss watchmaker Doxa, to dispense helium during decompression. Another is the GMT Master, originally developed at the
request of Pan Am Airways, to assist pilots in transcontinental flights. The Explorer and Explorer II were developed
specifically for explorers who would navigate rough terrain — such as the world famous Everest Expeditions.
On the more glamorous side, Ian Fleming's James Bond character wore a Rolex Oyster Perpetual in the series of spy novels. In the early EON production
Bond films, Commander Bond was seen to wear a Rolex Submariner.
Among modern Rolex watches are the Air-King, Datejust, GMT Master/GMT II, Submariner, Sea-Dweller, Daytona Cosmograph, Day-Date, Oyster Perpetual and Yacht-Master. Most Rolex watches have a case design called the
Oyster. Dressy designs usually fall under the sister brand called Cellini. The third line in the Rolex empire is the lesser
expensive, but high quality, Tudor brand. The primary types of Rolex bracelets include the Jubilee, Oyster and the President.
Like many high-priced, brand-name accessories, Rolex watches are often counterfeited and sold in markets
around the world that cater to tourists. These fakes are mainly produced in China and Taiwan — and retail anywhere from $5 to an upwards of $1000 for replicas fabricated with
solid gold. In July 2005, in Rome, it was possible to buy
a replica Datejust for 20 Euros. By some accounts, over 75% of all fake watches produced annually are copies of Rolex designs.
Even the self-winding mechanical design is often replicated using standard, high-quality swiss-made movements (most often
those of ETA[1]), resulting in fakes that laymen will find difficult to distinguish from the originals.
Rolex, SA, the current company name, is not a public corporation. In fact, it is a foundation initiated
and originally funded by Hans Wilsdorf and the Aegler family. According to foundation documentation, the Rolex, SA company
can never be sold, nor traded on any stock market.
The World’s Best: Watch;
Breitling “Don’t fly home without it”
The breitling watch family tradition for quality and accuracy in timekeeping has continued for nearly a full century.
Historically at the breitling watch company the achievements of L. Breitling (watch maker), who along with his son and successor
Gaston Breitling, developed and built the very first wrist chronograph, to Willy Breitling, the founders grandson, who modified
and improved the modern chronograph.The early breitling watch chronographs featured both center chronograph seconds as well
as a 30 minute totalizer. Breitling watch company were founded in 1884 in Switzerland & breitling watch company have been
famed for their work in the field of aviation timepiece, breitling watch company fell upon hard times, until it's rejuvenation
in the mid 80's. With breitling watch company new ownership and design team the breitling watch marque has enjoyed a meteoric
rise to it's present position as the aviation fraternity's preferred watch. The breitling watch-aerospace model is standard
issue to RAF pilots. The dial is embossed with the eagle and wreath, and each one is individually numbered. Special squadrons
receive unique issues. For instance, Harrier, Tornado, Red Arrows, etc. The breitling watch-Chronomat model was designed in
conjunction with the Italian Air force in 1984, strength of design and reliability see it still in production today, in fact
one of their best selling watches.
The model for which they are most famed is the Navitimer. Originally a manual watch it has been updated to automatic.
This watch is a legend among pilots, the first to be fitted with a slide rule to calculate fuel consumption; rate of assent,
air speed, distance, the list is endless. Also having a chronograph function, supplying the pilot with minute and hour totalisers,
it made the watch the complete aviation timepiece.
Breitling Emergency
The Breitling Emergency was originally design for pilots and aircrews. It is a watch with a built-in micro-transmitter
broadcasting on the 121.5 MHz aircraft emergency frequency and is designed to complement the distress signalling equipment
of any aircraft. Following a crash the 'Emergency' will broadcast a signal on which rescuers can home in.
The transmitter
is activated (for 48 hours) by unscrewing a protective cap and pulling the antenna out fully. Over flat terrain or calm seas,
the transmitter signal has a range of about 160Km (assuming the search aircraft is flying at an altitude of 6000m).
