sneakers. culture. life.: 11: Salvaging a Saturday (Happy Birthday Miko)

10.2.2010 - I had a really big day planned for Saturday. Kara had an appointment with her mentorship program in San Francisco and I volunteered to drive her. Since they would have orientation and be meeting with their mentees from 9am-1pm, I had a nice four hour window to chill in the City, walk around and take some nice pictures. We woke up bright and early, I grabbed my Supremes and my North Face backpack (aka my "always be prepared" backpack) and we were off.

About fifteen minutes up the 101, I realized that I had forgotten to ask Kara for her D-SLR. Strike one. While this put a small hiccup in my plans to take pictures, I still had my backup point-and-shoot Canon in my backpack so I would just make do. After I dropped off Kara, I went to go meet a guy about a bike he listed on Craigslist. Since he was still sleeping when I called, I grabbed a hot black tea and a breakfast sandwich at Starbucks and ate at the park across the street. When he finally arrived, I checked out the bike. The Pista Concept is much prettier in real life than it is in any of the pictures. This one was no different, except for one problem. There was a crack.

During one of my many intense bicycle research sessions online, I read that cracked aluminum frames are deadly -once there is a crack, it can just give way at anytime. A quick Google search on my Blackberry confirmed what I had read previously. I wasn't comfortable picking up a cracked aluminum frame, no matter how minor the crack, no matter how beautiful the frame. I kindly asked the guy if he minded if I took a picture of it, just to see if anyone I knew had a second opinion, and went back to my car to get my camera out of my backpack. The only thing was that my "always be prepared" backpack apparently didn't get the memo -my camera wasn't there. Strike two and three, and it wasn't even 10am yet.

Bummed that I couldn't get the bike and that I had no camera to take pictures, I decided to take a stroll down Haight Street and hope for some good shopping karma. It took me more than half an hour to get there and more than half an hour to find parking. Shaky Google Maps App and weekend road construction were to blame, respectively. I Stopped by Stussy, but it didn't seem like they had their winter stuff in yet. If they did, it didn't look much different than their fall stuff we saw a few months ago. Next I hit up TRUE Clothing. While they had a lot of cool shirts, I've been trying to reduce the number of t-shirts in my wardrobe (as I already have a lot), so there was nothing good there. I saw a pretty sweet hat in TRUE Sole, but $50 is borderline a lot to pay for a New Era fitted, especially considering nine times out of ten I would probably rather wear a SF Giants hat. On down the street, I stopped by RVCA. They had new RVCA Haight/Ashbury shirts, but I didn't want to get a duplicate of the white/gold one I already have. They had some in local team colors too, but the black/orange one was drab and I don't think I'd ever get around to wearing the red/gold one (even though on second thought, it would match the Money Cats pretty well. hmm.) I crossed the street to make a stop by FTC, but they didn't have the Stefan Janoski's in my size and all the cool stuff they had on sale was in either S or XL. Kid Robot was my last stop before I headed back to my car. At least I could pick up a limited edition 2Tone and some new 2010 Series Dunnys. Ironic that I didn't buy any clothes as to not be "wasteful" with my money, but still managed to leave Haight with almost $30 in vinyl toys.

I went back to the Financial District to pick up Kara around 2pm. We headed into Union Square for some shopping for her and my obligatory stop at Niketown. After pizza at Blondies, we started our quest for Kara's new shoes. Macy's yielded few results and some pretty poor customer service. While the Nordstrom in the mall was much better in the customer service department, Kara still had no luck. Luckily, Kara struck gold when we stopped by Steve Madden. Kara got new shoes -I was happy.

My trip to Niketown yielded no such luck. I don't understand how a running windbreaker costs $90 while a track jacket of the same season costs only $65. I was looking for a windbreaker for winter and the track jacket was thicker than what I was looking for. You'd think that less fabric would equal less price, but I guess that's how Nike gets you. They didn't get me this time, though.

The drive back to San Jose was warm and gloomy, aka gross weather. I felt defeated and tired after walking away with no new pictures, shoes, jacket or bike. That being said, I was really looking forward to Miko's birthday party. Uncle Frank's boys all seemed to have come away with nicknames close to their name, but not quite. I don't know if it was adults shortening them or their sibling's baby mispronunciations, but Gabriel became Gabo, Michael became Miko and Rafael became Rafa. Just a lil tid bit in case you were wondering, "Who the heck would name a kid Miko?"

We swung by Great Mall to pick up some sweet new kicks for Michael. Being the middle child, he rarely gets the new new things. I've given his two older brothers several pairs of "almost new" shoes, but since Michael is still only a size 8, he has a few more years before I can hand him down anything. That being said, I wanted to find a nice pair for him.

It rarely happens like this, but once in a while you get lucky. I've been wanting to get a pair of Jordan Spizikes since 2008. However, their high retail price (and higher aftermarket price) always deterred me. Why buy those when I still had gaps in my quest for #1-23? I'll tell you why. Because you find them for $100 in Nike Outlet, that's why. The last size in a colorway that will add serious breadth to my shoe collection -this day was starting to turn up.

how many Jordans do you see?

Now for Miko. I went to the retro section, looking for more of a classic style or maybe some P-Rods in the aisle across. The end aisle displays didn't look to promising, but I went down the aisle just in case they had something else in the depths. Dunk CL's? Last size 8.5? These shoes were almost worth getting at full retail price, but finding them this far out from release in Miko's size was a gift. (No pun intended... ok, maybe it was.)

I laced up my Spizikes in the mall food court for two reasons 1) I wanted to wear something fresh to the party and didn't feel like wearing my Supremes and 2) wanted to see if Kara would notice that I had changed shoes (tired from the long day, she was waiting in the car). As I was lacing them up, an older brotha passing by stopped and said, "Man, those kicks are clean!"

"Nike Outlet!" I exclaimed in return.

I ninja'd the extra bag into my trunk, and we headed to Michael's party. While new shoes always brighten up my day, nothing has the power of melting away my stresses and troubles like a nice family party. Good food and good times with good people always make for a ~~good~~ great day.