Windows Phone Thoughts: Summer With SCOTTEVEST: Reviewing Performance T-Shirt, Hidden Cargo Shorts, & TEC Hat!

Torture Test 1: Lawn Wars
Anyone who has ever read my blog in the summer (very very few people, I know) would notice that I occasionally post about "Lawn Wars" (a.k.a. cutting my grass). If there is one thing I hate in this world, it's cutting grass. Because of this hatred, I always have either a Pocket PC or an iPod along to provide music or downloaded podcasts and talk radio while I cut. It makes the hour(s) go by quicker and lets me catch up on news that I've missed during the week or check out an album that I just downloaded off of URGE to my trusty K-JAM.

Normally I wear a T-shirt and shorts plus my faithful University of Akron hat while cutting the grass. The problem here is that I'm not completely comfortable putting my $300 - $700 devices in a flimsy pocket on the front of the shirt. Dumping the bag out can give me nightmares of falling devices! So I resort to elastic-Velcro armbands and holsters (which occasionally cut off circulation, but at least give me a protected device) or clipping a belt clip onto the chain around my neck (nothing says "religious" like a cross next to a Pocket PC!). Neither of these solutions work well, and even with Bluetooth headphones, I'm still worried about losing things while I cut.

But back to the clothing: A normal cotton T-shirt can quickly turn into a masochistic endeavor when out in 85 degree heat. My brow quickly turns wet with sweat, and so the bill of my hat must soak up much of it. In short, clothing can really stink as far as cutting the grass goes, and wearing nothing isn't that good an option when neighbors are around and you're working next to a giant rotating blade. Because of my frustrations, the SCOTTeVEST Performance T-Shirt and TEC Hat sounded like a good upgrade to my current grass cutting attire.

First impressions of the T-Shirt blew me away. The material was a drastic change from cotton, the 3M Quick Dry fabric felt slightly rougher than silk in between fingers, and was a far cry from the roughness of cotton. The pattern on the material and the single vertical zipper on the front added nice accents to the shirt that easily make it stand out among stock Ts. The pocket in the shirt has a small hole that allows you to easily route headphones up to the headphone loop in the left side of the collar, however the routing process is something I'd encourage users to do before they put the shirt on - it's a lot easier when you can use both hands and hold the shirt in front of you. No worries though - after putting the headphones through and zipping up my device into the pocket, I didn't have that moment of fear when putting the shirt on that my device would go flying out of that pocket - the zipper kept it nice and secure, and the pocket didn't flap around too much on the inside either.

Next came the hat. The TEC Hat has a wide leather band encircling the cap under the bill, designed to fit up against your forehead and the sides of your head. The bill contains a pocket (leading many to joke about having a bill within the bill) which amazingly isn't visible when looking at someone wearing the hat (I had assumed you'd see some sort of bulge, but you don't! The hat features two ear bud loops on the sides to keep your ear buds secure, however when the loop built into the shirt, I found these unnecessary. I'm sure that if I hadn't worn a SCOTTeVEST shirt, those would have been nice additions. Additional to the bill pocket, the hat includes a zippered pouch on the right side of the hat, perfect for a small item. I immediately thought of things like hotel keys or a single house key for these pockets - perfect for lounging around a hotel pool and taking the occasional dip. Simply don't submerge your head, and you can just take your key & money with you, no sweat.


Figure 3: The bill in the front of the hat may look obvious in this shot, but when worn, it isn't noticable by those looking at you straight on. The interior lining and leather band are also shown.

With hat + shirt + music + pants (just regular jean shorts) + appropriate undergarments + shoes, I confidently walked out to my garage to get the big hulking Toro and begin cutting.