Bulling Shoes
Every once in a while, I like to bull my shoes. Bulling refers to a shoe polishing technique that results in a high, glossy shine. In the States, they call it spit shining.
To bull shoes, start by stripping down the leather with Lexol leather cleaner. This will give you a clean, new surface to work on. Next, go through the regular routines for any polishing technique - apply leather conditioner, buff them out, let them sit for thirty minutes, and then apply cream polish before buffing them out again.
Now, to get the high shine, you need to use a bit of wax and water. I find Saphir Pate de Luxe Wax to be the most effective. Wrap a soft cotton cloth around your fingers, swipe it in the wax, and then dab it in some water (or, if you’re an old-school American, lightly spit on it). Lightly rub this on your shoes using small, circular motions. Keep doing this until you feel the paste starting to get dry, and then add a minimal amount of water again. After a while, you’ll find that a mirror shine will start to appear, and the leather will feel very glassy and smooth. The key here is to only use a minimum amount of polish and water. You don’t want too much of either. Do this to the toe caps, heel cup, and back quarters, but not to any areas where the leather bends. If you do, you’ll get unsightly cracks in the wax.
The whole process takes a long time. Three to five hours, depending on how well you work and how finely grained the leather is. This isn’t something you want to do if you just want smart looking shoes; you have to enjoy the process. I recommend putting on some music, sitting back, and just enjoying yourself.
Above are three photos. I shot the top one at night, right after I finished bulling my left shoe and before I started on my right. You can see the effect it has when these two are placed side by side. The other two photos I took in the morning, after I was done polishing both of them.
i get really embarassed when any of my cousins posts on my facebook wall. they’re my only facebook friends who don’t use proper grammar.
in other news, i got a truck today. yaaaaay. sigh.
you’re a surgeon (obviously, in this imaginary world, you are much smarter, studious and better looking). you’ve just finished mucking around in someone’s head, successfully removing a tumour. but you’ve come across a complication and you know that the patient will die quickly and painlessly in the very near future. what do you say to him?
one of the harder things to deal with in the world of pharmacy is: how much do you tell the patient? do you explain to them that a medication may decrease their lifespan, but will improve the quality of their life? or do you withhold that information?
in the past month in our town, there have been two deaths and one major injury due to motorcycle crashes. motorcycles are a constant reminder of mortality.
one of the ironies i see every day is that while my life is thoroughly awesome, but (at the risk of sounding naive or emo) i’m not all that afraid to die. i’m just afraid to die in a van. just kidding.
however, i’m surrounded by people who are constantly angry, constantly sad, whose life highlights are watching hours of awful tv and eating mcdonalds, who are married to people they hate, who are unsatisfied with anything and everything, who steal to pay for their drugs, who drink to forget their day. but the thing tying them all together is a desperate need to survive. these people waste their lives but when they get cancer or have a heart attack, their shit lives are so precious that they’ll go through any means to get a few extra minutes.
i waltz through life trying to do unto others as they do unto me and i derive a lot of satisfaction from it. meanwhile, it feels like i’m surrounded by non-contributing leeches who are still unhappy. the irony is that those who hate life are also the most likely to fear losing it.
looking for a roommate who is:
- “interesting” enough to probably stay single for a very long time
- but not “interesting” enough to murder and eat people
which is how i see myself
arai corsair carbon edition - $3995! holy cow! even out of my price range
there was a time when i had to decide between two cds because i couldn’t afford both. now i can afford to buy both, but am i really any more content?
my sister and i have vastly different opinions on art. for example, our ideologies on photography:
my sister takes dozens to hundreds of photos of a subject (literally), carefully composing and altering the scene until she gets the perfect results. she then saves everything. for example, she wanted to capture a scene of a very young merchant pedaling to work against the morning sunrise. two problems: the girl was usually in a crowd of other bicyclists and also the timing had to be immaculate. she camped there for days, waiting for a moment when only the girl was visible, then got the award winning shot.
i believe in intimacy and slices of life. when i buy my cameras, i only worry about two things: how long it takes to turn on and how fast it can take pictures. i rarely take more than two shots of the same subject. i never compose my pictures, i prefer to leave to chance whether i get the perfect picture of not. if necessary, i’ll photoshop everything afterward.
even despite the photoshopping, i believe my pictures show much more humanity than the pictures my sister produces. rather than an ideal but manipulated and staged scene of happiness, i prefer a photo showcasing an unfettered burst of joy.
i’d like to think that when people saw me on my bike, they didn’t see a bad-ass or an idiot or a racer or a prude, but instead a boy riding a pony with unbridled joy and passion
i know i'm overpaid, but... c'mon!
- patient: i need these medications filled.
- me: sure, name please?
- patient: joanne sivvers.
- me: is this your first time filling here?
- patient: no, i fill here all the time!
- me: alright, could you spell the last name please?
- patient: <stares at me> joanne. sivvers.
- me: yes ma'am. please spell the last name please.
- patient: JO. ANNE. SIVVERS.
- me: i heard you, ma'am, please spell the last name for me please.
- patient: SIVVERS. SIVVERS. LIKE THE COLOUR.
- me: you mean, like silvers?
- patient: SIVVERS!
