My great-grandfather, a prolific inventor, dreamed up the machine that’s used to this day to mass-produce men’s ties. (Not a savvy entrepreneur, he sold the design for a flat price, rather than taking a cut long-term, so my grandfather [like my own father] was born on the Lower East Side, rather than up on Park Avenue.)

My grandfather, a far better entrepreneur, ran a silk import business that sold fabric to a slew of high-end designers, for dresses, for shoes and in large part for ties.

A second generation tie guy, I remember my grandfather standing in front of the mirror, carefully forming his tie’s dimple, key touchpoint of sartorial sprezzatura. When my grandparents stayed with my brother and me at one point while my parents were out of town, he was the one who taught me how to tie a tie in the first place.

My own father provided much-needed touch-up lessons; like learning to drive a car, it’s easy to lose steps before the motor pattern is fully engrained. So tie-tying, it seemed, was sort of a family art. But I’d never given much thought to what kind of knot I was tying – four-in-hand, Pratt, half-Windsor, full Windsor, etc.

My grandfather was a believer in moderation in all things, a common-sense kind of guy. (At one point, I dropped my towel while ‘surfer-changing’ into a bathing suit at the pool near our house. Distressed, I told my grandfather I was worried a girl might have seen me. “Don’t worry about,” he advised; “If she’s never seen one, she won’t know what is; if she already has, it’s nothing new.”) From that, I assumed the family knot must have been something down the middle, like the half-Windsor.

Recently, hearing the phrase four-in-hand three times in one day, I decided to look up how to tie that knot. And, to try and make sense of the online diagram I found, I pulled up the half-Windsor, to compare to something I already knew. But neither the four-in-hand, nor the half-Windsor, were close to the knot I had grown up tying.

Instead, after some further Googling, it appears the Newman knot is a full Windsor, described by one tie instruction site as “a thick, wide and triangular tie knot that projects confidence” and by another as “the knot for special occasions”. It’s the kind of knot for a guy who takes ties seriously. A family tradition for a tie family. One that makes me think, even in today’s casual world, I should find a way to wear one more often.

Cleaning out my closet this spring, I tossed at least a dozen t-shirts and button-downs whose armpits had yellowed beyond acceptability. I went online to see if any cleaning products might help (answer: Oxiclean, though not enough to save that deeply yellowed batch), and discovered more importantly that it’s not the sweat, but rather the acidic aluminum in antiperspirants, that drives the color shift in the first place.

Still, that new knowledge presented me with an ugly Catch-22: better to scare people off with pit-stains, or with pit-stink? I had tried deodorant (as opposed to antiperspirant) a few times in the past, due to concerns about aluminum’s healthfulness, and each time had quickly sweated my way out of thinking that was an even vaguely publicly-acceptable solution.

So it was with more than a little skepticism that, on a friend’s recommendation, I tried out MenScience Advanced Deodorant. The brand name “MenScience” sounded like something out of a Saturday Night Live commercial. The fact that it was unscented seemed even less likely to work (what did deodorant even do without antiperspirant, aside from masking scent?). And ‘active ingredients’ like tea tree extract and witch hazel made me feel like the stuff might be better sold at a booth at Burning Man.

Despite it all, it works. After a few days of use, I found that MenScience Advanced Deodorant, stupid name and all, left me with less armpit smell at the end of the day than even high-aluminum-content products like Certain Dri.

Color my armpits surprised. And not, for a change, yellow.

Just over a year ago, I blogged about the search for a new laptop bag – one I could use to carry my computer back and forth from work, while traveling, etc.

At the time, I got a slew of suggestions from frieds and readers, none of which, frankly, were quite right.

Then, last summer, while we were in a high-end department store in London, Jess spotted and bought for me a great bag that fit the bill perfectly. Unfortunately, price tag notwithstanding, it was a piece of crap, and after just a few months of use, it started to self-destruct.

Along the way, however, someone pointed out that the bag was, essentially, a knocked-off Filson. So, based on that, I just picked up a Filson Original Briefcase. The style was perfect, and the company’s reputation made clear the bag should last the same decade of wear I’ve gotten out of my now retiring Ghurka.

I’ve had the new bag for only a day or two, but so far, so good. For any of the dozen or so guys who wrote in to say they were similarly on the search, in case you still are, give it a look.

For the past few years, I’ve carried a Ghurka bag to work:

Which, I’ve always thought, was a reasonably fashionable alternative to a laptop bag.

Jess, however, thinks otherwise. I’d always written that off as a minor disagreement in taste. At least until last week, when we were out with a fashion designer friend of hers, who literally burst into hysterical laughter at the sight of the bag.

So, in short, I’m now on the search for a replacement.

I already own a Jack Spade messenger bag, which is perfectly suited to weekend jaunts. But it doesn’t fit my laptop, and carrying it slung across the chest quickly crushes a pressed suit.

What I’m looking for, then, is a laptop-friendly (in case it matters, a 15″ MacBook Pro), work-appropriate bag. Ideally one with handles, and a strap I can wear over just one shoulder when needed. One with room for documents and other odds and ends along with the computer. And, most importantly, one that’s suitably fashionable – equal parts British preppy and New England outdoorsy WASP. Or, at least, one that doesn’t look like it might best be paired with a pith helmet.

Lazy-web, please let me know.

With the season sublimating from winter to summer, I’ve realized I have no presentable warm-weather clothes.

My favorite khakis have developed a blue stain over the right, habitually pen-carrying pocket. My polos have stretched far from their original shape. And even my plain t-shirts, over the course of too many washings, have shrunk down to what Jess recently described as baby t’s.

She kicked off the fix yesterday, buying me a pair of light-blue khakis, grosgrain flip-flops, and a summer-weight checked button-down. So, at least once a warm week, I can look presentable.

But, I suspect, one outfit isn’t enough to take me from here to fall. So, it’s time to purge my closet, construct a plan of attack, and start shopping. Beau Brummel, eat your heart out.