To his colleagues in the Salt Lake City business community, Carl is a respected and respectable stock broker, real estate investor and part-time gem merchant. But he prefers to think of himself as "just an old fat bald guy with a shoe fetish." Considering the fact that Carl has used his spare time to scale some of the West's most impressive peaks and conquer triple-diamond ski slopes, we take issue with how he describes his physical self. As for the shoe fetish? We can vouch for that. Carl has enthusiastically tested numerous pairs of shoes and boots as a PFT tester, since we know that he'll take them out and really beat them up. "If anybody's going to get a shoe to fail, it'll be me!," he boasts. He once opened a box of test shoes that he liked so much, he was tempted to set them aside and reserve them for "date night." But he fought the urge, and duly wore them ... non-stop on a rainy, muddy camping trip ... until they were nearly destroyed. We sent him a replacement pair so he could complete the test, which he was able to do without further damaging the shoes. "So I got to beat up the first pair, and I got my date shoes after all!" When it comes time to write up his test findings, Carl prefers to keep one shoe on his foot and one shoe on his desk. That way, he can stare at the features of the shoes while asking himself how they feel when he's wearing them. One way or another, this is one old fat bald guy who knows how to keep his customers satisfied.
