TECH & TRAVEL TIP: BudBuckets™
There’s a very specific modern anxiety no one talks about.
You’re listening to music or a podcast. Someone starts talking to you. You pull out one earbud…
You’re listening to music or a podcast. Someone starts talking to you. You pull out one earbud…
…and suddenly you’re holding a $200 piece of technology with nowhere to put it.
Tray table? Risky. Pants pocket? Deep dive expedition. Balanced on your knee? Bold. Not smart.
Tray table? Risky. Pants pocket? Deep dive expedition. Balanced on your knee? Bold. Not smart.
This exact moment, yes, that one, is why we created BudBuckets™.
On many SCOTTeVEST pieces, you’ll find two small, almost invisible pockets near the collar. They’re designed specifically to hold your earbuds — wired or wireless — when you need them out, but not lost.
They’re perfect for:
When the flight attendant asks what you’d like to drink
- Going through airport security
- Grocery checkout
- A quick conversation
- That moment when someone says, “Can you hear me?”
Your AirPods case isn’t replaceable mid-flight.
And digging through a cargo pocket like you’re on an archaeological expedition isn’t ideal.
BudBuckets are tiny. Intentional. Field-tested.
They’re one small example of what we call Pocket Science™ - hundreds (okay, thousands) of hours obsessing over the small daily frustrations most brands don’t even think about.
You might not notice them when you first try on your jacket.
But once you use them?
You’ll wonder how you ever lived without them.
That’s how pocket science works.
BEHIND THE SEAMS: UPS, USPS, FedEx, which is it?
Shipping isn’t sexy.
But not getting your package on time?
Very sexy to complain about.
Over the years, we’ve tested just about every major carrier:
- UPS
- FedEx
- USPS
- DHL
- SmartPost
- OnTrac
- Regional carriers promising the moon
We don’t switch carriers on a whim. We test. We measure. We obsess. We analyze real delivery data by region.
Let me give an example. Recently, we tried OnTrac, a service offering weekend delivery. Sounds amazing, right? In reality, we learned something important: Consistency beats novelty.
We implemented OnTrac in select cities on the East Coast. What did we see? More delivery issues than before. More complaints. Not good. Not what our customers deserve.
A predictable, reliable week day delivery is often better than a flashy promise that doesn’t always land.
A predictable, reliable week day delivery is often better than a flashy promise that doesn’t always land.
Today, our fulfillment center selects the best carrier for your order based on your location and performance data, not guesswork.
The goals are simple:
- Get it there fast
- Get it there reliably
- Keep shipping costs reasonable
- Continue offering free shipping on orders over $200
The logistics world is constantly shifting. Routes change. Service levels adjust. “Next Day” doesn’t always mean what it used to mean in every zip code.
As carriers evolve, so do we.
Just like our garments, we test, refine, optimize, and repeat. Because Pocket Science™ doesn’t stop at design. It continues all the way to your front door.
MY TRAVELS WITH STRANGE MEN - Part IV: The Strange Man Who Already Knew Me
The early Strange Man trips were simple. Entertaining, but simple. Read about them all here.
I picked men I barely knew (sometimes didn’t know at all) and hit the road. The magic was in the unfamiliarity. The risk. The awkward question of whether we’d still like each other by the end.
That was the formula.
Then came Andrew.
It was November 2022, and the goal was to chase neon signs from Arizona into Palm Springs. By this time Andrew Peterson, known publicly as the photographer Thomas Hawk, was not a stranger.
He already knew me.
He knew how I think.
How I overthink.
How I accelerate.
How I chase.
How I accelerate.
How I chase.
And yet he remains one of the strangest men in my life.
Not strange because he’s unfamiliar. Strange because he’s wired so differently.
Steady. Disciplined. Calm. Highly intelligent. No drama.
Where I bring rocket fuel, Andrew brings gravity.
If Laura is the anchor in my personal life, Andrew is the anchor in my financial life. Laura trusted him before I did. And if Laura trusts you, that’s about as serious an endorsement as exists in my world.
Andrew manages our investments. I don’t micromanage him. I don’t second-guess him. His approach is conservative and methodical, which is fortunate, because when I pitch something risky, he refuses. Calmly.
He has talked me off more than one ledge. Not by telling me to slow down, but by presenting logic so clearly that I can’t argue with it.
That kind of friend is rare.
This particular trip was entirely his idea. Andrew is on a mission to photograph America. Every state, every major city, every fading neon sign before it disappears. His Flickr archive is staggering: hundreds of thousands of edited images, tens of thousands already published, thousands more queued. He preserves what the rest of us drive past.
You can see thousands of the photos he’s taken of me here:
I contributed one thing to our trip: a Mustang convertible.
So we drove, top down, desert wind in our faces, chasing GPS pins like we were on a preservation mission.
Pull up.
Reposition the car.
He runs across the street.
“Stay there.” Click.
“Now get out.” Click.
Move the car.
Reposition the car.
He runs across the street.
“Stay there.” Click.
“Now get out.” Click.
Move the car.
Drone up. Drone down.
Next stop.
It felt like a race against time.
And I never feel ridiculous in those moments. I feel iconic.
When we arrived in Palm Springs, it was just one more destination on his carefully researched route. We stayed in an Art Deco hotel. Photographed Sinatra’s grave. Elvis’s honeymoon house. Ate well. Debated politics. He leans libertarian, I lean heavily Democratic, and somehow we maintained mutual respect.
As we enjoyed the desert, not once did I think, “I could live here.”
But I did think it had a certain energy.
A vibe.
A design language.
A desert confidence.
A design language.
A desert confidence.
I didn’t know it then, but that stop would become a quiet bookmark in my life. A place I would return to, this time not for neon, but for permanence.
Andrew has been behind many of my biggest decisions, including the Ferrari and, later, the Palm Desert house. He never pushes. He lays out the math, the risk, the options. And occasionally he says something simple:
“You can afford it. It will make you happy.”
That sentence carries more weight than it should.
I’ve built a company. Taken risks. Made bold decisions. And yet hearing someone I deeply respect calmly say, “You deserve this,” matters.
He’s one of the very few people who reminds me to pause and appreciate what Laura and I have built. To enjoy instead of chase.
Somewhere between that first random photo he took of me years ago and this neon safari, the photographer became something much more.
And that “first random photo” wasn’t metaphorical. You can see it below. This is the very first image Andrew ever took of me, before he even said hello. There aren’t many friendships where you can point to a single frame and say, that’s the moment we met. I often look at this photo and think about everything that followed - the road trips, the debates, the investments, the quiet counsel. Note to self: make friends with professional photographers. The added benefit is they document your life long before you realize how important that documentation will become.
Andrew has photographed more of my life than anyone outside my own phone. Cars. Homes. Trips. Laura. Random Tuesdays. Thousands already public. Thousands more coming.
If I disappear tomorrow, there will be a visual archive of who I was.
Andrew created that.
On this trip, I finally convinced him to embrace drone photography, something I had been nudging him toward for years. He resisted. Then he flew it. Then he loved it. Today aerial perspective is part of his creative language. Take a look at him fly the drone once he got the hang of it here.
It made me oddly happy to open that door for him, just as he has opened doors for me.
The early Strange Men tested chemistry with strangers.
This one was different.
This was about choosing to travel with someone who already knows your flaws, your excesses, your ambition, and still shows up.
Andrew may not be a stranger.
But he is rare.
A friendship that holds both balance sheet and brotherhood.
Americana and asset allocation. Mustang convertibles and measured restraint.
He preserves America. He preserves balance sheets. And he has preserved a great deal of my life.
And like Laura, he keeps me grounded without ever trying to hold me down.
