Rain, Rain, and........ More rain.

I'm thinking of building an Arc soon, water levels at the lake are past flood stage... these photos are from my friend Noel:






Yeah, it's been wet. During the winter I don't mind because that wet translates to snow, and snow is good to go snowboarding. During the summertime I skateboard, and skateboarding in the rain usually means your wheels slipping out from under you and you eating shit pretty hard, which I did last week on this guy:

I can honestly say that I am looking forward to the summer and long skate days and nights, working until 8pm throws a wrench into the night sessions, but if it's warm and there is a spot to skate I don't mind skating at night. There is something about being on a board whether it's in the middle of the woods in some fresh pow, or in a parking lot under some street lights that feels so liberating. I can never get bored with either one of them because there is always something you can do, endless fun and freedom. That endless fun and freedom however has been hampered by non stop rain. Water is not good for your skateboard, it dulls your griptape, seizes your bearings and overall sucks to skateboard in. After trying to dodge puddles pretty unsucessfully last weekend, and slamming hard a few times due to the wet concrete and ramps I headed out to go skate this past Saturday only to find to my dismay that my bearings had gotten enough water in them to not want to spin at all. What's a fella to do?

You head over to this place :



Five dollars later I left with some bearing lube, to which a smartass behind the counter said "That will make you skate faster" with a sly little grin on his face, to which I just laughed because I was once that little smartass. I went home popped my bearings out, cleaned and lubed them, and they were just like new. Bones swiss bearings are the way to go. What a great skate sesh, the Essex park gets crowded on sunny days but it's not bad if you pick one area and just skate that until it thins out. For me it was that bastard spine again, trying to teach myself a few tricks that I could do in my sleep back when I was a skate rat. It's fun starting over again, but frustrating not being able to do something that used to come so easily to you, but overall I'm enjoying learning again. The cool thing about being an older guy at the park is getting hyped up by the young guys, the kids at the park are nothing but balls of energy unleashed on an awesome playground. As I'm hunched over sucking wind these guys are flying past me doing every trick I want to try, on their fist try. Pretty humbling. It was at that time that I noticed a kid who had been trying to kickflip off a low ledge for what seemed like hours finally land his trick, only to snap the nose off his board. You could tell he was a mixed bag of emotions, nothing can relate to how good it feels to finally land a trick you've been trying over and over again, but if you snap your deck that's when you ask yourself, was it really worth it? This is also where being an older guy at the park comes in pretty handy,I have a job, it pays pretty well, when my board starts losing it's pop, I go out and buy a new one. I don't thrash my board so most of the time when I buy a new one my old one is better condition than what 90% of these kids are riding at the park. This kid, about 12 or 13 was pretty bummed, and I over heard him telling his buddy he had three more hours at the park until his mom came and got him and how he only had 20 bucks saved up to buy a new deck (skate decks usually sell for around 50). It was at that time I remembered I had a board in the trunk of my car specifically for an occasion like this one. I didn't say anything to him, I just walked over to my car, grabbed the deck and my skate tool and walked back in. I handed him the deck and the tool and his eyes lit up, he honestly couldn't believe that someone would just give him a skate deck. After about 15 minutes of putting his new set up together he tried his kickflip again, and nailed it first try, he skated over to me, gave me a high five and thanked me again. Funny how something little like an old skate deck can make someone's day. Speaking of which, my deck is losing some pop, more than likely time to pick one up at Maven this weekend.


What else.... hmmm.

Kate and I cut my hair and because I wasn't paying attention, it's really short. It's awesome though!



Kate found an abandoned sneaker rack on the side of the road with a "free" sign and brought it home. The plan is to strip it down and paint it an awesome color, the funny thing is that it only fits about three to four pairs of sneaker per shelf, and it's got I believe four shelves. I already have more sneakers than it can hold, but Kate says "Only the dopest ones get put on the shelf" to which I just smiled, it's nice to have someone in your life who supports you in your weird little endeavors and thinks that they are awesome.







I am really convinced that she is the right girl for me, and that my move to Vermont was meant for me to meet her, fall in love with her and marry her. She also bought me a pair of shoes that I have been pining over, these guys:



They are known as the "Hartford Whalers" which being from Connecticut I can confirm that they are indeed a match of the colors. I cannot wait for them to come in. Also a while back I posted on how much I really wanted the Cheech and Chong Nike dunks, much to everyone's dismay they were actually canceled due to "copyright infringement" or something like that. They were supposed to be released on 4/20 this past month only fitting for a shoe titled the Cheech and Chongs. Well I got good news apparently they were not canceled just pushed back a month. While no official word went out about why most people(including myself) came to the conclusion that Nike didn't want the bad PR of releasing a stoner orientated shoe on a stoner holiday. Maven confirmed that they are indeed getting them into the shop and will let me know when they do! Now it's just a waiting game, some of my buddies have already picked up a pair, and I am now like one of those kids eagerly counting down the days until Christmas morning.....



There they are in all their glory. The concept behind them? There is green suede underneath front, the white is supposed to symbolize a joint, and the green suede, which you will wear down to after skating them is supposed to be the weed inside of your joint. Each shoe has a different print, One red bandanna for the one Tommy Chong wore, and one is a red ribbed material for the red hat that Cheech wore. Pretty freaking awesome. I cannot wait to grab my pair.

I want to leave you now with a video I just came across, this is a video a guy made about how shops try to really price gouge you on shoes. These shoes box price I believe are 112 dollars. The fact that they were canceled and now brought back and being released has increased the "hype" around these shoes. Many shops will jack up their prices so they can make double the money off the product, most of the buyers are resellers on ebay. They will then drive the price up to double or triple that. It's a shame that mostly these resellers are the ones who get their hands on the shoes first, only to make some quick money and the people who are actually into shoes (what you would call a "sneaker head" if you will) more than likely won't be able to get their hands on a pair for a fair price. I can understand shops marking up the shoes a little bit, I mean I want them to make some money but charging almost double is just terrible. Throw in the fact that most of these shoes are limited editions often times only 1,000 being made and you will find shady shop owners looking to exploit their daily customers. Here's this dudes video, it's not that high quality but it shows the shittier side of being a sneakerhunter.