My search for a pair of pants, and what I learned.

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a very fashionable person. I just want to wear what’s comfortable and looks good for the occasion. My work uniform for the past four years has been a polo with Lulu ABCs. Then, about 10 weeks of the year, I wear suits from Men’s Wearhouse that I don’t like.

A few weeks ago I looked in the mirror and I hated my normal work outfit. The same things I hated in my suit fits, I was now noticing in my go-to polo and pants. It’s too slim. Why does it look like I’m wearing skinny jeans? Maybe I’ve gained a few pounds? But I’m still relatively the same weight. Anyway, since then, I’ve been going scorched earth trying to find some new pants.

I started looking on the Lululemon website for different pants, but they were all either the same cut I already had, or the wide leg trousers with no belt loops. Didn’t want either of those. That led me to looking at all those other brands I see advertised on instagram, like Quince and Vuori. Didn’t find anything I liked there either.

I thought maybe I needed to go back to the basics. I tried on pleated pants from LL Bean. They don’t sell these in my waist size, 32, so I had to order a 34. Obviously these didn’t fit and swallowed me. Still determined to give the pleated classic fit a shot, I ordered some pleated Dockers. I actually liked these, but they felt too much like the quintessential old man pants. Then I decided to go for what I thought was a similar style but from a more modern brand, Bonobos. Despite the tags reading the same size as the Dockers, they felt completely different. They were huge in the crotch and all throughout the leg.

Between the Lulus, LL Beans, Dockers, and Bonobos, these 4 pants would fit 4 very different people.

Through some posts online, I find out about eBay thrifting. I start noticing on eBay that lots of sellers include pictures of other measurements besides the waist and the inseam. They are also taking pics of the front rise, the thigh width, and the hem width (all terms I didn’t know at the time). In order to find out what I liked, and what I didn’t like, I pulled out every pair of pants from my closet, a tape measure, and a spreadsheet. It turns out, I’m not a 32x32. I’m a 16 1/4 x 30 1/2 x 11 7/8 x 14 5/8 x 11 1/2 x 7 3/4 (laid out waist x inseam x front rise x back rise x thigh width x hem width).

Back to eBay, I found a pair of Ralph Lauren Classic Cotton Twill Chinos in a 32x32 that was close to all of those measurements.. boom perfect. Little long but that’s good, I’m just gonna get the hem taken up to a 30 1/2. After shipping, these pants costs me like $40. After the $10 hem alteration, I’m still coming in like $70 below a pair of Lulus.

I think what originally drew me into the athleisure brands was the stretch, but they are solving a problem that doesn’t need to exist. The only reason you need the stretch is because our pants are getting slimmer and slimmer. What you actually need is well fitting pants. But you can’t rely on the tag. The tag’s measurements is only a couple pieces of the puzzle.

Due to current fashion trends, it seems very difficult to find what I’m looking for.. at least without paying an arm and a leg. I’m about to fill my whole closet with this thrifted stuff. It’s better fitting, cheaper, and is made with more premium materials. Instead of plastic, I’m going to be sticking to 100% cotton, wool, linen, or some blend of the three going forward. I did my measurements for polos and suit jackets as well. I’ve already got a couple polos in the mail and I’m waiting on a J Press blazer from Japan. Im completely addicted to the process.

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u/CactiRush — 5 days ago

Low Pressure Help on Basic System.

Okay so i have an irrigation system made out of 3/4” poly. It is on my deck and hooks into my spigot. My spigot has 65 psi at and 4.6 GPM and then goes through a bhyve timer and vacuum breaker before going into the poly.

The poly snakes down about 6 feet off the deck and curves underneath and eventually below ground where it hits 3 eight inch popup sprinklers fed by like 1 foot of 1/2” funny pipe each. Each head is about 20 feet apart in a straight line. The first and the last head are spraying 180° and the middle one is spraying 360°. The poly pipes runs for about 20 feet before getting to the first head. My yard is 40 feet long and 36 feet wide. The heads are Hunter mp 2000s.

Why aren’t my heads shooting the entire 36 feet? There’s like 3 feet on each side that isn’t being touched. From my math it seems like each head should have a 20 foot radius, not a 15 foot radius.

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u/CactiRush — 22 days ago

The Norm Pleated Trousers Regular is a perfect fit but wrong material

Ordered these off the site when I saw them. I’ve been looking for some modern looking pleated pants that are roomy throughout the waist and glutes but aren’t made of cotton. These fit like a dream.

I would like the a lot more than my ABCs, but… they’re rain pants?!? I did not realize these were gonna be rain pants material.

Anybody have any recs for the type of pants I’m looking for? I would try the classic daydrifter, but I need some belt loops for the office.

u/CactiRush — 30 days ago
▲ 4 r/excel

How do I help improve the efficiency of my data transformation in PowerQuery?

I have 3 folders (not sure why there's only two listed in this screenshot: SEE EDIT) that I'm using to store one or more excel files in for my data transformation. Basically the point of this PowerQuery workbook is for matching current year receipts onto prior year AR accounts.

 

I have one folder thats for the prior year AR detail, another for the current year AR detail, and another that has 12+ monthly collections reports. The AR Details just have some basic data transformation steps on it. The collections report has some basic data transformation, then a pivot column step, then a groupby step. There is a 4th query that references the prior year AR detail, then a join step to match the collections from the collections report to the AR accounts in the prior year AR detail, and then another join step that matches the PY AR account to bring over the current year AR balance. After that its just a couple more basic data transformation steps to clean up the query before it is loaded into an excel sheet.

 

Each of the AR details are probably like 100k rows (9MB), and the 12 collections reports combined are probably like 2M rows long (>1GB with alot of fluff that I don't need). I cleanup all the columns that I don't need at the very beginning of the data transformation steps to help cut down on size, but loading this workbook still takes like 15 minutes, and I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Is there something wrong with my relationships, am I performing steps out of order? Why does this take so long?

Relationships pasted below:

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EDIT: I see why only two folder were in the relationships screenshot. They were both pulling from the same folder. That’s now fixed and the relationship diagram now has 3 folders on it. Question still stands though, this takes forever.

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u/CactiRush — 2 months ago

What Wax/Sealant/Ceramic gives the slickest hydrophobics? My car vs Tiktok video.

I keep seeing this ad on Tiktok where the guy has water on his hood and blows it off seemingly instantly and cleanly. I’m jealous, how can I make my car (first video 0:00 - 0:30) as slick as that guys’ (second video 0:30 - 0:40)?

Two weeks ago I applied one coat of Jescar Ultra Lock Plus+ using a DA polisher with a wax pad on it. I applied it one panel at a time following the instructions, waited the 30 minutes, and then buffed off with a microfiber towel. I don’t have a garage so the car stays outside in the elements. But even after only 2 weeks I can tell its durability is waning.

In this video I’m using a M18 Blower with a Forge 8.0 battery on it. I would think that using this blower with a ceramic infused sealant would give me results closer to the guy in the second video, but it doesn’t.

Is there some trick that the guy in the second video is doing? Is my wax not good enough? Was my technique off?

u/CactiRush — 3 months ago