This fat knot was worn to Westminster Presbyterian Church on New Year’s Eve (12/31/2006).

Here’s Fat Knot #4…. the Christmas Eve FAT KNOT.
The tie is a Jos A. Bank Signature tie (from the sale table of course). The shirt is a Traveler and it even requires cuff links! (I might post images of those later!)

Jason Gilmer is a sports reporter for the Herald-Journal. (The local newspaper for Spartanburg, SC) Jason primarily focuses on covering High School Athletics. Jason has started to be regularly featured on the local CBS affiliate in Spartanburg, WSPA-TV I’ve been capturing each of the episodes that features Jason with my Linux server running MythTV. I was emailing the clips out to a group of close friends each week. This ran into a few problems with folks running out of space on their email accounts and not being able to acquire the appropriate media player to view the clips. So, I’ve decided to try out a new feature of Google Video. They are now allowing folks to upload clips that will go unlisted. This allows you to use Google Video as a distribution channel without having to worry about folks searching on the videos. (Even though I call Jason: ‘Gil ESPN’, I don’t think he’s ready for everyone to be Googling him!) This will (hopefully) solve my problems of bouncing emails and unrecognized video codecs… just click the links and enjoy all of the Jason ‘Gil ESPN’ Gilmer Episodes.

• Jason Gilmer Episode #1
• Jason Gilmer Episode #2
• Jason Gilmer Episode #3
• Jason Gilmer Episode #4
• Jason Gilmer Episode #5
• Jason Gilmer Episode #6
• Jason Gilmer Episode #7
• Jason Gilmer Episode #8
• Jason Gilmer Episode #9
• Jason Gilmer Episode #10
• Jason Gilmer Episode #11
• Jason Gilmer Episode #12
• Jason Gilmer Episode #13
• Jason Gilmer Episode #14
• Jason Gilmer Episode #15
• Jason Gilmer Episode #16
• Jason Gilmer Episode #17
• Jason Gilmer Episode #18
• Jason Gilmer Episode #19
  All of these clips are Copyright News Channel 7 (WSPA-TV) and Jason Gilmer appears courtesy of the Herald-Journal. I’ll post links to future Gil ESPN episodes right here on rockthefatknot.com.

Katy got a Santa hat for our Pit Bull Pup, Pinky. While most people relate pit bulls to fighting and attacks, Pinky is one of the best puppies I’ve ever been around. She really just wants to snuggle up on the couch and watch TV (or sleep while I watch TV). Don’t be afraid to get a pit bull. They can be some of the best dogs out there. Merry Christmas!

This fat knot was worn to Westminster Presbyterian Church on 12/17/2006. The tie is a ‘Stafford Executive’ and was acquired for about 13 bucks from JC Penney. I like this tie’s material since it’s a little thicker than most. So, it makes for a really FAT knot. The shirt is a ‘Traveler’ spread collar shirt from Jos. A. Bank.

Check out the second fat knot. Sporting some dominant colors for Advent. This was actually a really good fat knot. I really needed a spread collar shirt to show it off, but the purple shirt matched up well with the Advent season, so I went with it… Next week, I’ll be sporting a spread collar shirt so you can really see a dominant Fat Knot. The tie worn this week was from the ‘sale table’ at Jos A. Bank. Most of their ties are really good for Fat Knots. They also offer extra long ties so you can get even closer to the high-caliber type of Fat Knot worn by Michael Irvin.

Steven Levitt (Co-author of Freakonomics) was on The Colbert Report the other night. Levitt has analyzed a ton of data so far. Some of his analysis has been related to whether or not your name makes a difference in how you’ll do in life. This got me thinking about the names we give computer software. I love to give programs I write crazy names. This is for a couple of reasons:

• Can help make simple programs more fun/interesting
• Can excite other developers about working on the program
• Fun to hear people that are serious all the time talk about the program

But can you take this too far? Can you give a piece of software or a business a name that it can never live up to? Can the proverbial Silver Bullet ever exist?

Every Sunday that I wear a different Fat Knot to church, I’ll post an image of it here. Here’s the image from 12/03/2006. It’s not nearly as FAT as Michael Irvin’s knot on Monday Night Countdown, but it still exudes confidence!

Sometimes I just get excited about the strangest things. I’m a big fan of College and NFL football. So, I’m always watching games/commentary when I have time. I especially like watching to see what kind of suits Michael Irvin will wear when he’s doing pre-games and such. In particular, I love the fact that he always wears his ties with a modified Windsor knot. I was sitting on the couch with my wife before one Monday Night Football game and I just said, “Man, that’s a FAT KNOT!” I repeated it a few times. Then I started talking about it at work, etc and the next thing you know, I’m going around advocating that everyone wear ties with a Full Windsor knot. This is referred to as ‘Rocking the Fat Knot.’ And there you have it… go out into the world and ‘Rock a Fat Knot!’

The blog is dedicated to educating others about the importance of the Fat Knot. (A Windsor Knot and its variations) I’ll also post commentary about other stuff when I have time…