I was running very low on work pants that didn't have at least one hole in the knee. A carpenter by day, I have always considered my work clothes to be as important as any other tool I own, and if pants are anything like saw blades, well those tools were getting pretty dull. So I started looking on-line to find some replacements for the old Rocky brand double knee work pants that I bought about two years ago in Virginia. Rocky went out of the work pant business, so I was looking for a comparable product. I checked out all of the big brands like Carhartt, Dickies and Duluth Trading Co. and I was still not sure what to get. Maybe it's just me, but these on-line searches of mine can go on for days before I come to any conclusion. I don't care if it's pants or boots or an MP3 player, I have to check it all out, brand by brand, feature by feature, until I know more than anyone would ever freaking want to know about whatever it is I decided that I needed that week. My poor wife.

 Everything has gone up in price these days, and work clothes are no exception. I like to buy five pair of work pants at a time, one for each day that I work, and when you ad up the cost of a weeks worth of Carhartts, well the number can be pretty scary to say the least. Then I ask the question," how long will these last"? Well the answer is that it is never long enough. So I kept searching, looking for something new or hi-tech or maybe a product that came from the NASA space program. What are mercenaries over in Afghanistan wearing everyday? I'm sure they are not running around shooting Taliban with holes in the knees of their pants, right?

 Then it happened, on about the third month of my search, I stumbled upon a site that was selling work clothes by the name Blaklader.They looked rugged, and they had these really cool utility pockets hanging out of the front of them for nails or C4 if you were over in Iraq. Kinda looked like something Buzz Aldrin or maybe even Buzz Lightyear might wear, but none the less, very different. The biggest claim that caught my attention was how well they were supposed to wear, and the fact that they had "built in" kneepad compartments. These were covered with Cordura, which I knew from my recently acquired knowledge of fabrics used in work clothes today, would be hard to wear a hole through. Blaklader is a Swedish work-wear company that was started in 1959, and had been selling clothes to the Nords for years, (not the National Organization for Rare Disorders ). Well anyway, I did all my research on these guys and they showed me on the website where I could buy their product in the USA. 

 After about an hour of looking at the different companies that Blaklader distributes to in the US, I decided to place my order for some of these Nordic, cool looking duds. I was just tidying up my shopping cart with a online e-commerce site called The New Worker.com , getting out the credit card, I was ready to roll!  But I thought to myself, I better just see where these guys are located before ordering. You know, make sure they are not in East Timur or wherever. Well low and behold, I couldn't believe my eyes, they were only about thirty miles from where I live!  

 The next morning I called them and got a hold of a guy named Jerry and told him I wanted to place an order, and I wondered if I could stop and pick it up. He was more than accommodating and said he would love for me to stop by. I visited Jerry at his warehouse in Horseheads New York the next day. He has a great selection of everything, Blaklader, Skillers (another cool brand from across the pond) and Cat brand (Caterpillar) work clothing which I really liked. The prices for these clothes are in most cases no different than any of the US brand competitors, and few of those are made in the USA anymore anyway. But the quality of the brands at The New Worker are outstanding. The Blaklader Heavy Worker is the most rugged pair of work pants I have ever seen, hands down. Jerry Jacot, is the owner and the guy that answered the phone when I called. He is passionate about his business, and being a HVAC contractor himself, really understands the need for good rugged work clothes at a good price. I think maybe this time my research really paid off. I ended up with some great work clothes and I made a new friend at the same time.

 Well Black Friday is just around the corner, and I think I've watched a few to many Oprah shows on my old 27 inch Panasonic, because now it's making her look really HUGE, so I better start searching for a new LCD TV online right away...