I can’t seem to keep promises with this blog lately. Shame on me.
School’s out, don’t have summer school, but I do have to work full-time as California’s economic situation looks to be on the rocks and we’re not sure as to if I’ll be able to stay at my job.
Hopefully, I can keep up with blogging. I really wanna blog about some good stuff. I wanna stray away from blogging about “Oh, this is what I did today…” or “I’m at the airport terminal….” I actually want my blogs to have some substance, some meat and potatoes if you must.
I do still plan on doing some skate-related reviews, maybe even add some trick tips (to add on to the zabagabillion trick tips that are already out there). Hmm, maybe even add in a trick tip video….
Just to plug in, I am about a B- grade on keeping up with my skateboarding declaration. B because I’m really close to learning nollie flips and frontside flips (just have to get nollie flips to stay under me and to get a full 180 rotation with frontside flips). B- because I haven’t been skating everyday like I said I should be. But all in all, a B- is still a passing grade.
Well, I’ll keep you all posted, the 100s upons 1000s of readers I have (/end sarcasm).
As you can tell from the title, there’s a period in it. That period is a symbol for serious business. So when I say “Seriously bored,” the period amplifies it by the nth degree.
Anyways, as with any other day, I’m a robot yet again. Programmed to do the most mundane of tasks and objectives. Doing what I am told to do and thinking what I’m told to think. The only different thing that could happen is if a screw falls off and I chill until a mechanic puts it back in place. I digress…zombies and robots are one in the same.
Anyways, I got to thinking, and I made myself decree.
From this day forward, I’m going to skate everyday possible. I need to progress. I want to progress.
– By summer, I will have at least one new trick and one new grind/slide up my sleeve. If not by summer, then by the end of summer.
– By the end of the year, at least two new tricks and two new grinds/slides, not including those learned in summer. – I will refrain from buying new things unjudiciously and will only be allowed to when a new trick is learned or a previously learned trick is perfected or made steezy or unless a new item is extremely needed.
– I will not get lazy and choose to do other things such as sleep or play video games over going out to skate.
– Nobody is going to push or force to go skate. I will have to motivate myself.
– I will progress.
And the Golden Rule of this:
– Skateboarding will remain fun.
You silly gooses probably were about to cry out blasphemy and say, “if you’re gonna govern yourself, then it isn’t skateboarding! It’s supposed to be fun!”. Beat you silly ducks to the punch.
I vowed to continue posting. I failed. I vowed again. I failed again.
It’s like train cars. Just one train car connected to the other. One following the other. Sike, no it’s not.
I’ve been thinking about blogging again lately, but I just don’t want it to be some sort of recollection as to what I did in that day or that week. On top of that, my skating is just picking up again as the weather gets better, but it’s been really windy the past couple of days….and I hate skating with wind. So with that, I haven’t really been able to do other product reviews. I wanna do more mindSLINGs, but my mind is just so dead right now, it could be clinically considered a miracle that I’m able to go on about my day-to-day life. Regarding [bawp]’s, I’ve been bored at work plenty of times, but the state emails with friends keep me entertained.
But when I think of blogging about other things, topics such as “do we really think for ourselves?” or “Is the life you’re going leading a life that you want?”, I tend to feel that it’s me getting emo. Haha. Double-edged sword? No. Not that serious. More like a double-edged butter knife. One thing that I’ve been thinking about, however, is taking my camera with me and taking pictures and then posting them on here. Giving like comments or captions to each picture. Eh. I dunno…we’ll see.
Well, I guess, like always, I’ll go off the top of my head. Just won a bid on eBay for some vintage – get that, VINTAGE – Bausch & Lomb Ray Ban Wayfarer II’s. For so long, I’ve been on the hunt for bigger wayfarers that would look right on me and I think I may have found my salvation. Hopefully it’ll arrive soon. Oh, you don’t know what wayfarers are? In a couple of words – 1980s, Tom Cruise in Risky Business, Blues Brothers, comeback. Badabing.
Holy Camoly.
That’s the only new thing that’s really gone on with me. Haha. Wayfarers. OH, speaking of wayfarers, I’ve been getting into 1980s music. One morning, I watched Real Genius, an old Val Kilmer movie – good movie – and it’s a movie made in the 80s. Later that day, the Giovanni Reda video on the website, http://www.theberrics.com, played Joe Jackson’s “Steppin Out.” Then after that, my dad and I just got into watching and listening old 80s music on youtube. So for about a little over a week, I’ve been listening to nothing but 80s music. I’ve been listening particularly to Hall & Oates *ahem*videoatthetop*ahem* Good stuff. And that’s what drove my want for wayfarers again.
Well, that’s all I really have to say. I think? Oh well, till next time nalang.
I let too much dust accumulate on my blog again and I’ve forgotten that dust irritates the nostrils….
Anyways, what it dooski dudeeettes and dudeeeeos?! Long time, no see since November? Man, what has gone on since November???
I survived school, passing all classes with 3 B’s and a C. Not commendable, but not bad at all considering I got passing grades in two classes I was direly struggling in. But school has started up again and it looks like another trying semester../sigh.
Merry Late Christmas and Happy Late 2009!
I actually found myself slowly drifting away from skating. Like I said in one of m last posts, school and work and the combination plate of both, give it to me and I just find myself sleeping or playing WoW (yeah I got back into it, blahblah, we’ll save that for another post). But side the weather is going back to sunny days and since I spoke to one of my best buddies who also skates (who I might add also mentioned he took a break), I’ll be back on that shredstick again in go time. I skated on Friday and, let me tell you, it’s not fun trying to work out the rust…. But once I get back on, I’ll do some more skating-related blogs, like doing my review on my kostons, like I did for my Hsu’s, which actually was taken very well.
THE OFFICE. That’s all that needs to be said.
I finally took a step forward and JB’d my iPhone. I’ll attach a picture a picture sometime to show how it looks now.
And I think that may be it. Now that we’ve recapped what happened from Nov-Jan, let’s take a trip to present day and talk about what’s good in February: Mine and Rhea’s 7 year anniversary! 7 years, you think? Yep, it’s been that long and it’s been a wonderful journey of ups, downs, lefts, rights, diagonals, here, and there. I love you baby and can’t wait to see you in a couple of weeks!
Well, it’s been fun posting again. I really wanna keep this up. Hey, if any of you read my blog, bombard me with emails and comments reminding me to post so I can keep doing this! I plan on doing more BAWPs, skate reviews, MINDslings, and all that good stuff….
Time to get back to work! (don’t let the exclamation point fool you, I’m not excited…)
[bawp] stands for BORED AT WORK POST. From time to time, which seems like all the time, I’ll get bored at work, intentionally and unintentionally. In moments like that, I’ll post something, via the iPhone.
Anyways, as you can probably assume from the title that I’m at work. If you didn’t, well then I’ve failed on my part as an artist/journalist and you failed on your part as a consumer/dancer. But since a negative times a negative is a positive, we both end up winning…
I am literally bored out of my mind at work. I can totally see why those non-conformists say about being “normal” is equivalent to being a robot and go against just satisfying status quo. I see why they say that because satisfying status quo by being a robot is BORING. I go to work, go home, eat, sleep, wake up, go to school, go home, eat, sleep, wake up go to work, rinse and repeat. If I wanted to be a robot, I’d want to be somewhere along the likes of R2-D2. He was the baddest and gnarliest midget, tripod robot in existence.
As far as what else is going on with me, my laptop fried and has been on Circuit City’s repair depot for, what is going on, two weeks now. I really couldn’t believe how much I have relied on my laptop to keep me occupied and not bored. Wthout it, I find myself bored, rolling on the floor spontaneously, jumping off the walls at home like a maniac, and upper cutting things for now reason. As sad as of sounds, thus has been my life for the past couple of weeks.
School is getting pretty gnarbars. Lots of reading and homework and projects and papers, but surprisingly enough, it’s not as hard as I had originally preconceived. But don’t get me wrong, it’s still tough.
Skating and progression have come to a slump. After work/school, I find myself sleeping instead of riding the shred stick. I really should quickly jump out of my body, give myself 6 Charlie Horses, 2 open chests, and a slap to the face to wake me up and tell myself to keep skating because only the Lord knows how much time I have before i start to see skating as just a thing meddling kids do.
Well I should really get back to work…FACKKKKKKKKKKK…..
I’m normally scheduled to come in to work at 7am. Today, I woke up at 7am. Yeah…..that sucked…
Well, pretty much waking up late for anything sucks.
Not only can you not really decide if you should shower or just get ready, but you also have to suffer the wrath of leaving work late.
You do the wake up where it’s like you’re waking up from a bad dream. Heaving. Sweating. Increased heart rate. Hungry. Confused. Rushed. Maybe even a little thirsty.
There’s no other feeling like waking up late for work.
It’s like one of the worst feelings ever.
As a matter of fact, waking up late for anything sucks. Work. School. Meetings. Picking up someone. It’s just the worst knowing, “Holy hell, I’m waking up late to doing this…”
When I woke up this morning, the first thing that popped into my head was, “Fuck,” that popped up even before my brain registered it was 7am. Then I went through the mental process of “Should I shower or just get read?” or “Should I call in and not come in?” or “Should I call in and tell them I’ll be in late?” or “Should I asked to be dropped off, drive myself, or skate like a madman to the bus stop?” or things of the sort.
I’m still reeling over the fact that I had to leave late today. I hate leaving late. Anything past 330pm drives me nuts. At 339pm, I was already pulling hair off of my head. Leaving late is a cause of waking up late to get to work.
Alright, so who knew that the airport would be such a nice, relaxing place?
The many times I have been in the terminal of Sacramento International Airport, I have never been more relaxed than I am now.
Long, dragging, boring day at work.
101°F weather to skate to and from the bus stop before and after work, respectively.
Coming home to an excited dog and having to switch from petting his belly and making sure I have my toothbrush.
Trying to play some counter-strike with my little brother, 5 Death as we would call it (we switch off after dying 5 times, and believe me, those 5 deaths come quick) and getting myself ready to shower.
You can say I felt a bit rushed.
But once I got my bags checked in and went through the security checkpoint, everything seemed to slow down.
Despite the preconception of terminals being busy due to all the flights being boarded and departed, due to all the passengers who are arguing with the employees because their flight is late, due to all the little kids running around, I’m feeling really mellow.
I have no clue as to what it could be that’s relaxed me. It could obviously be that I’m not rushed to make sure I have all my toiletries as what’s done is done and if I forgot anything, I’d have to resort to buying it when I get to San Diego. It could be that my ride with my dad to drop me off was relaxing, but rides with him are always relaxing when it’s just him and I, but also quite dizzying. It could be that there are hardly any people in my gate area other than a mom talking to her husband on the phone while her 2 daughters look outside the window and talk to each other about where our plane is, but it’s a good thing I’ve tuned them out while I’m listening to the wonders of Pandora Internet Radio. Or it could be just the sun going down.
I have no idea…
All I know is I’m pretty darned relaxed, I can’t wait to get on the plane and knock out, and I can’t wait to see my B in San Diego.
To all of my many few readers, I’ll be back either sometime when I’m in San Diego or when I get back to Sacramento.
Alright so I’m back on the the blogging tip, after many months of leaving it to collect eDust. Since I got back on it (WP released a FREE app for the iPhone, which I just got), I’ve been thinking up and getting my creative juices flowing about what kinds of blogs I wanna do. Sure, I could’ve taken the route of doing the emo-sobby type blogs; the type of blogs where I tell a story, where I create some character to write about in place of me; or doing what I normally did and just recap about my week. But I didn’t want to do that. I have brainstormed and came up with some types of blogs that I’ll be doing, and this one is one of them.
I thought about doing product reviews, more particularly skateboarding products. Since I skate almost daily, I use skateboarding products daily, so I feel that I would know a little something about skateboarding products to do reviews on them. But even then, don’t expect a professional, top of the line critique – I am, after all, not one of those types of dudes.
Well anyways, for this product review I decided to review a recent pair of skate shoes that I just got through with, the Emerica Hsu (about the title, it wasn’t an intentional Dr. Seuss slip).
To give a little background about the Emerica company, the company used to be part of another skate shoe brand, etnies, and was owned by some French dude. Some years later, they launched the shoe in America, titling the company “etnies America,” but sold it at “Emerica” for short. Another couple years later, etnies and Emerica became separate shoe companies. The team today consists of a group of skaters with raw talent and undeniable, unique style, for example, Andrew Reynolds, Kevin “Spanky” Long, Heath Kirchart, and of course, Jerry Hsu. And here I am today, reviewed a freshly skated pair of Emerica Hsus.
Onto the Hsu Shoe Review (once again, no Dr. Seuss slip intended)…
Here they are when I got them back in May, brand new for $39.99 sale price at my local skate shop, Across the Board (if you’re in the Laguna/Elk Grove area in Sacramento, you should check them out)…
It’s now August, and after skating them for about 3-4 days every week for about 1-3 hours, here’s how they are now….
LOOKS (10/10): I’m starting off with looks because it’s what attracted me to this shoe in the first place. Right from release, I knew I wanted the black/white colorway. Luckily, at Across the Board, they had one last 10.5 pair, and on sale – it was probably the fastest shoe cop I’ve ever done. I could swear that as soon as these got on my feet, I got instant props for them. The comments were coming more so from skaters, saying “bro, those Hsu’s are sick!” or “Dope Hsu’s dude! Making me want to go get a pair,” but even non-skaters were giving me compliments and even contemplated getting the shoe. It was a simple colorway that could go with anything I wore…and it did. I rocked it every day, to work, to going out with friends, to family functions, etc. It was so dope, that once I started skating this pair, I got another pair just to rock and skate in the near future.
COMFORT (7/10):
Before skating in them, they were mad comfortable for vulcanized shoes. This is where the 7/10 comes in. Since this was my first vulc and I have wide feet, I thought that they would hurt and kill my feet. That wasn’t the case as it was instant comfort when I first slipped my feet into them.
Skating in them is where the -3/10 comes into play. I was used to skating cupsole shoes, which are known for their ultimate padding and bulkiness, sacrificing board feel for durability and comfort. I think the main reason for them being uncomfortable for me was the insole. The insole was so thin that it hurt my feet to even ollie. I would even hate to bail even more than I already did because I knew I’d be smacking my feet into the ground. To remedy this, I replaced the Hsu insole with an old Nike SB Team Edition insole and it made all the difference. In this picture, I took a picture of the Hsu insoles and Nike insoles:
As you can see, the Hsu insole is much thinner, provides almost no support for your feet, and is almost flat; whereas the Nike insole has plenty of arch and heel support and is much thicker. In this next picture, you can see that the Nike insole has a heel bag to protect your heel from heel bruises as well as other bodily damage that can occur from injuring your heel:
I guess it goes with the fact that vulcs have thinner insoles to provide optimum boardfeel and I felt that. But I had to go with the comfort and replaced them with the Nike insoles, but even then, there was still plenty of boardfeel.
Another thing to mention that took away some points from comfort is that the back part of the uppers, where the shoe cups around your Achilles’ Tendon, if I didn’t wear high socks, it would rub against my skin and it would blister up. I normally like to wear ankle socks, but I found myself wearing high socks more often when wearing these shoes.
BOARDFEEL AND GRIP (8/10 together): As I said above, there was plenty of boardfeel with this shoe, even after replacing the insole. Coming from a cupsole person, I felt the difference right away. I was able to feel the concaves and pockets on the board, I was able to feel pebbles/cracks on the ground, etc. It was great, but the thiness of the show that allowed for boardfeel was talking it’s toll on my feet. As for the grip, it lasted longer than I thought it would. I used these shoes to skate everyday and I would use them to skate from my house to the bus stop (to take me to work) and then vice versa. The grip did not thin out as fast as some of my other shoes did. They allowed me enough grip to stay on board without slipping, but they allowed enough slip so that I could swivel my foot around to position then for tricks. Here is a picture of how the soles look like now:
My right shoe (the one on the left) is my front foot shoe and as you can see, it hasn’t thinned out. For the couple of months I’ve had it, that’s the only thinning out of the sole. Pretty good compared to my Fallen Relapses (cupsole), they started thinning out within weeks of skating.
DURABILITY (7/10): The durability of this shoe is great. The shoe is made of suede and it held up strong. Within weeks of skating, nothing but normal wear and tear. Within a month of skating, signs of ripping. Within 2 months and some weeks, ripping and a hole. For two months with a vulc, I thought it to be great. I heard that vulcs don’t last very long and so I prepared myself for that, but it outdid my expectations and held up well. Since I’m not an advanced skater just yet, I do a lot of kickflips and I mean A LOT, and this shoe stayed strong beyond expecations. In this picture, I’m showing the wear on my right shoe (my front foot).
That’s my finger fitting through the hole I created. And just to show, here’s my left shoe. The hole on the left shoe didn’t come from nollie/switch tricks, it just randomly appeared one day. It may have been due to a weak spot in the suede that just stretched out too much and ripped:
Another thing to mention with durability is that I never had to replace my laces once. I have no idea as to what it could be, but it was strange how I never had to replace my laces on either shoe.
OVERALL (8/10): Overall, this shoe was a great introduction to vulcanized shoes for me. It was a great looking shoe that caught the attention of many skaters, as well as non skaters. It was comfortable to chill in, but in order to skate, I had to replace the thin Emerica insoles with some Nike insoles and it made a HUGE difference. The boardfeel was phenomenal compared to cupsoles (even with the insole replacement) and the grip never failed. Durability was on-point due to the suede material and far outlasted my expectations of it ripping within weeks of skating. All in all, this is a great shoe and if you have the chance to get them, get them. They also come in different sexy colors such as the blue/white colorway and the grey/black colorway.
Since these are now in RIP status, my next pair of shoes is the new Lakai Koston 1 remakes =). Back to the cupsole I go…..
Peace. Love. Skate. 
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