Animals and Dogs and Cats, Oh My

I am a big fan of all animals and a staunch supporter of anyone that combats cruelty to animals. While there are a lot of commendable organizations that try to protect animals, I wanted to recognize a Web site that not only sells the coolest animal jewelry, but also donates 10% of their sales to animal charities!

You have to check out the selection found on-line, there are dog and cat pennants and charms, rabbit and reptile jewelry and even some bling for dragon lovers. But lets get back to the charms and pennants, take a look at the enameled animal jewelry section where there are pages full of our favorite animals.

Score some animal jewelry today and make a contribution to our animal friends, they will thank you.

My Aloha Shirt Collection

There is no doubt that I am an “Aloha shirt” kind of guy, thought I prefer to call them Hawaiian shirts. Over the years I have purchased and collected Hawaiian shirts from multitudes of vendors, some being Wave Shoppe, Aloha Shirt Shop, Paradise Clothing Company and Maui Shirts, as well as Hot Shirts and even from a few of the Yahoo stores (which all look like the same Aloha shirt company to me).

While each of the stores has something to offer, I probably could have made some better decisions. While at the time I thought it was a good idea to spend over $100 on a Tommy Bahama shirt, the truth is that I have only wore it a few times. I think that’s because I am always afraid that I will damage it or something, which certainly takes to fun out of wearing my beloved Hawaiian shirts every day. Kahala shirts are also nice but again you are looking at paying close to $80 for a shirt.

I like the Hawaiian shirts I purchased from Hot shirts and Wave Shoppe, mainly because they are in my price range, which is the mid $40 range. Plus I am a real fan of shirts with button up under-collars (I am not big on the open collar tropical shirts). But the Hawaiian shirts from Wave Shoppe seem to keep their shape better over time and I love that all of the mens shirts have a shirt pocket that is matched to the design.

While my collection has a few that I purchased from Maui Shirts (I think they are Paradise Found brand), I was pretty disappointed that they didn’t look all that good after washing the crap out of them, maybe its because they need to keep the price down and do that by using lower quality materials for their Hawaiian shirts.

So while I would recommend each of the Web Stores, I cast my biggest vote for Wave Shoppe. I am also looking forward to visiting their Hawaiian store in San Diego as I hear its full of cool Hawaiian things that are not on the Web site and of course more awesome Hawaiian shirts!