After Almost 20 Years, It's New Hat Day

For those who have known me, you know I have my "Adrian" hat.  In fact, I am wearing it in this blog's author profile picture.  It's this photo.

Here is a true photograph (8mm) of me wearing my hat on August 1st, 2004 while climbing Mt. Baldy at Philmont.

And here I am wearing my hat back in 2008 while driving a semi.  

I have a number of photos from 2011 - 2014 of me wearing my hat while performing.

And this is one of my more recent photos of me wearing my favorite hat.

A lot of folks do ask me what type of hat it is.  It's actually an Australian Outback Hat by Minntonka.  Unlike most cowboy hats which are made of felt, straw, or in case of the real expensive hats, beaver, this hat is made of leather.  That makes it nice since it makes it shapeable.  Most hats aren't, so I knew this hat was the one for me.  

But after twenty years or so it was time to buy a new hat.  Now that I have the internet there are so many possibilities in being able to order whatever kind of hat I wanted.  But what kind of hat do I want.

After seeing a photo of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ronnie Van Zant, I knew I had to have his style of hat.  I learned that it was called a "Gambler" style hat.  However, there are many types on the market.  Some are crushable felt.  Some are straw.  Some are cheap, while others are pretty expensive.  

I checked out all the Western stores near me.  While they did have Gambler style hats I didn't like that they were crushable.  I wanted one in leather.  So I took to the internet.  I found a perfect one, ordered it, and when it arrived they sent me the wrong size.  So I sent it back, and found out they were out of the XL sizes.  So I waited.  I waited five months.  

When they took the hat off of their webpage I gave the company a call.  The woman there didn't seem to know what she was doing, and I finally had enough.  For months they kept telling me that it would be in stock soon, but then kept pushing back the date.  When I talked to this last woman, she didn't have any idea... well about any of my questions.  So I asked for my money back.

Back in November I was hunting out of Perry, Fl.  During one of my day's off I stopped into a place called "Michelle's Bullpen."  Her store was a half Southern/Western clothing and supplies and half outdoor building sales.  I checked out the men's section, and found a very nice stiff felt, Gambler hat.  I passed on buying it then because I had the other one on order.  

Now that I had canceled my order in January I gave Michelle a call.  I asked her to look through her inventory to see she still had a Gambler hat in an XL.  She did, so I bought it over the phone, and she shipped it to me.  

So now that I've told this long story, here's me wearing my new hat.

I have to say, it's perfect.  This is the new me.  Well maybe not 100% new.  I still need to add a hat band to my hat.  Of course, that will be it's own blog in the future.  But for now I am happy that I have such a perfect hat to replace my old hat of close to twenty years.