Shü

Many of you are aware of my aversion to pants, long pants to be more specific.  I think about my pants problem (The Problem with Pants) often enough that I actually wrote a post about the traumatic experience of buying a pair of pants back when I did just that.

I still own those pants, and I've worn them to at least one school function, a wedding... and mebbe enough times that I can no longer count the occasions on one hand's worth of fingers.

Anyways, those pants will celebrate their fourth birthday in February '19.

So, I've had another issue with a certain type of clothing.  Shoes.  I don't like them.   As someone who has put a pair of SPD shoes on my haggard feet almost every morning for over two decades and worn them around like normal shoes for nine to ten hours a day, I hate the concept of shoes outside of the workplace.  I was a sandle-man from just about the winter of '95, and from there, I slid into the lazy world of flip-flops.  Easy on, easy off... especially "easy off" when walking backwards down the driveway hauling the garbage and recycling to the curb.

I know they're not super-practical, and in an effort to wear something more appropriate for colder times, I bought a couple different pairs of slip-on, very casual shoes over the past half decade or so.  Too tight for socks and not terribly well insulated.  They were better but still stupid.

I have bought running shoes in that time period, but like most exerciser dabblers, I didn't wanna waste them on non-running type perambulations.  I still have one pair (for mowing and other toe-endangering yard work) and another saved for when I forget that I hate running.  They're both the closest thing I have to normal people footwear.

I've been considering the purchase of said "normal people footwear" a lot lately, even more so ever since I put flat pedals on my beer fetcher bike.

This idea was super-reinforced when Bill Nye and I were out in Bend for SSWC '18.  A night out and about in flip flops in the high 30s was no buenos.  My resolve to end this problem was hardened.

Back in Charlotte, decide to look at Vans.  Too many friends swear by them for comfort and general pedestrian tasks.  Closest place to my house to buy them?  The mall. 

I made it into the mall, found the Vans store, was immediately overwhelmed with the options and the general feeling of being in a mall... left as quickly as possible.

Fail.

A month goes by.

Another night out with friends and low temps and I'm determined to stop the madness.

I found myself in a stand alone shoe store with my daughter.  I figured she's be better at this kinda stuff.  Tried on a pair of Vans, and I felt like a (almost) fifty year old grandpa in a pair of Vans.  Because my only experience on a skateboard was in rural Ohio on a board I made out of a 3/4" slab of maple that I could only ride if I walked a half mile to the church to the only paved lot nearby, it felt way to poseur'ish to appropriate the skate culture at this juncture.

I settled on these:

I can't remember if we're not supposed to buy Nike because of Micheal Vick or we're supposed to buy them because of Colin Kaepernick... or we're supposed to buy them and burn them because of Colin Kaepernick.  Although I like yellow riding shoes, I tend to like to blend into the furniture when being a normal human.

I'd say I'm getting closer to that status everyday.