Big news guys.  I’m say­ing “good­bye” to Texas and “hello” to New York, but before I do, I’ve got to unload a lot of big ticket items that are just too large for me to take.

Here’s what I’ve got, prices are nego­tiable, and con­tact me if you want to take any of it off my hands.

Trek 7.2 FX20 — $450 (orig­i­nally $650)

only rid­den approx­i­mately 25 miles

comes with life­time tune-ups at Bicy­cles+ at Snider Plaza

Crate & Bar­rel White Sloane Desk — $100

West Elm Chunky Con­sole Table — $150

(2) IKEA Expe­dit Book­shelves — $75/each (assembled)

Sam­sung 7.3 cubic feet Washer & Dryer — $800

bought these in May 2010 for $1400 — so this is a steal

(2) West Elm Brown Wool Stor­age Cubes — $100/each

West Elm Metal Floor Mir­ror — $200

Brother 420CN Color Printer/Scanner/Copier/Fax — $50

Also avail­able:

(2) antique side tables (set) — $100

antique tray table — $100

King-sized Mat­tress & Boxspring — $300

ten­nis ball car­rier — $20

West Elm lad­der back chair — $50

TV stand — $50

If you’ve been hold­ing off on pur­chas­ing an elec­tric scooter, this may be the beauty that you’ve been wait­ing for. The Mini Scooter E by BMW is a retro plug-in inspired by the Mini Cooper.  The scooter designs will fea­ture the same cir­cu­lar instru­ments and speedome­ter found on the famed vehi­cle, and a lithium ion-power source.

Not just an attrac­tive ride, the scooter has a hand­ful of impres­sive add-ons, includ­ing a smart phone dock­ing sta­tion that unlocks the vehicle, GPS soft­ware that scans for nearby Mini Scooter E’s, and a hel­met with an inte­grated micro­phone and head­phone set that allows rid­ers to lis­ten to music or use their phones while dri­ving. The scooter’s GPS sys­tem even trig­gers the vehi­cle to flash its head­lights when pass­ing another Mini Scooter E on the road.

BMW hasn’t revealed exactly how much the lithium ion-powered scooter will cost, but it’s esti­mated that they’ll be priced at over $6,000–significantly more expen­sive than stan­dard scooters.

(via Wired)

As part of my day job as the social media coor­di­na­tor at the W Hotel in Dal­las, I’m in charge of stir­ring local inter­est for the hotel, craft | DALLAS restau­rant, Liv­ing Room Bar, WET, and (occa­sion­ally) Ghost Bar.

While most of my work is on the back-end, a lit­tle self-promotion doesn’t hurt. I wasn’t expect­ing it, but Elaine Liner gave The Casual Gent a lit­tle plug in her arti­cle.

That’s how we roll.

Eng­land has been an amaz­ing host.  Lon­don was every­thing I love…but spend­ing the past week in the North York­shire Dales just exist­ing is more than I could have ever asked for.

The Eng­lish weather is def­i­nitely not one to covet this time of year EVER, but today could not have been any more beau­ti­ful.  The tem­per­a­ture hit a cool 60-something and the locals donned shorts and san­dals.  I decided to live with­out a jacket…for the most part.

To top it all off, this song came on the radio and com­pleted my day.  The song is called ‘Zorb­ing by Oxford band, Stornoway.  Their LP doesn’t go live on iTunes until June 8, so pre­view this then pre-order.  Sounds like a great sum­mer album.

Tomor­row, the des­ti­na­tion is York — one of the most his­tor­i­cal cities in all of Eng­land, save Lon­don.  I won­der how much trou­ble I can get into there…

Strolling through Lon­don is a bit like strolling through New York City…with an accent.  The energy of this city is elec­tric.  Though it could never replace my love for the Big Apple, Lon­don is def­i­nitely a city to visit and to visit with some fre­quency.  The first 3 nights in Lon­don are some nights to be remem­bered.  Be sure to check back for more pic­tures, videos, and more sto­ries to tell.

Took this video on the first day in Lon­don — just kinda wanted to play around with the Flip cam and iMovie.  Turned out to be a lot of fun.

Song is “Para­chute” by Brit artist named Cheryl Cole orig­i­nally from a girl group called Girls Aloud.

The plane lands. I turn on my phone. Up pops a text mes­sage from a UK number.

“Dri­ver. Wait­ing at arrivals.”

Once I put the cus­toms desk behind me, its a quick shot to lug­gage claim then free­dom.  There’s a man in a slick black suit, dark shades, hold­ing a sim­ple piece of paper — ‘Lanier’

He takes my 2 pieces of lug­gage with a neat “Fol­low me, Mr. Lanier.”  He uses the French pro­nun­ci­a­tion — splendid.

The goal of the car ser­vice was to avoid the inevitable mis­for­tune involv­ing a sleep-deprived trav­eller, 2 suit­cases labeled “heavy”, and the Fri­day morn­ing rush hour on the Lon­don pub­lic tran­sit system.

We get to the car.  Um — is this what I ordered?  The trunk of the black Mer­cedes E320 lifts, in go my bags, the back door is opened, and I silently get in the car…exhaustingly glee­ful.  I expected at BEST a mini­van.  I don’t complain.

Lean­ing against the cool glass win­dow of the back­seat — I take in the city for the next 45 min­utes.  As we get closer to the city cen­ter, I begin to see every­thing I love and missed about Lon­don.  The busy streets.  The polite road signs.  The multi-faceted faces of the pedes­tri­ans.  Want a melt­ing pot?  Go to London.

Weary yet wide-eyed — its been a year since the last trip to Lon­don.  The air is refresh­ing.  The cool weather is wel­com­ing.  I start to melt into the city, feel­ing myself slip into the famil­iar shoes of the city.  I’ll be a local by tomor­row — tak­ing my free Evening Stan­dard at the tube sta­tion — meld­ing the ver­nac­u­lar into my conversations.

The car slides up to the front entrance of the hotel.  I wasn’t expect­ing such a sleek hotel — espe­cially for the rea­son­able chunk of change I laid down a few weeks ago for it.

Check-in.

Ele­va­tor up.

Exhale.

All is well in Lon­don town.

About to take off — clos­ing my com­puter as soon as this is posted.

See you when I land!

FYI — the video is still being processed as of 5:05 Eastern…hopefully it makes it thru by the time I land.  I’ll update when I get to some Lon­don wi-fi.

I vis­ited a lit­tle town in the south of Texas called Austin this past week­end for some­thing known as Mar­leyfest (or its for­mal name, the Austin Reg­gae Fes­ti­val).  And, of course, while I wasn’t “slap­pin’ da bass” or at least lis­ten­ing to some­one “a-slappin’ da bass” I made time for some shop­ping on S. Congress.

This is where I dis­cov­ered STAG.  I walked in and was sur­rounded by every­thing that The Casual Gent stands for.  It was a lit­tle slice of red-blooded heaven.

STAG was opened by 5 guys whose aes­thetic points of view came together to cre­ate this unique des­ti­na­tion for cur­rent fash­ion with clas­sic roots, gifts that are inspired and unique, and fur­ni­ture & other odd­i­ties for liv­ing the life of a mod­ern gentleman.

STAG rep­re­sents the spirit of style icons like Steve McQueen, Michael Caine, Paul New­man, and Willie Nel­son while look­ing for­ward to fashion’s next wave.

The prod­uct mix of STAG includes apparel, shoes and acces­sories, fur­ni­ture, gifts, and per­sonal care, and the brands embody mod­ern mas­culin­ity in a fash­ion­able, yet time­less way. Brands cur­rently include Ralph Lau­ren RRL, Burk­man Broth­ers, Oliver Spencer, Pen­field, Dun­der­don, Uni­ver­sal Works, Life After Denim, Rock­mount Ranch­wear, Civil Smith, Alter­na­tive Apparel, The Hill-Side, Patch Scarves, Tan­ner Leather Goods, Ran­dolph Engi­neer­ing Sun­glasses, Frye Boots, PF Fly­ers, Clark’s Shoes, Min­netonka Moc­casins, Hava­iana flip flops, Malin and Goetz, Jack Black, and the list goes on.

They also fea­ture one-of-a-kind vin­tage fur­ni­ture pieces, art­work, local poster design, taxi­dermy, watches, cuffs, belts, etc. etc.. Every brand we carry per­son­i­fies an authen­tic, red-blooded style.  Kick ass.

They’re not cur­rently run­ning an online store, but they do have a blog and you can fol­low them on Twit­ter @stagaustin.

all pho­tos by Eduardo A. Garcia