I never really explained having an off-year on my website and it’s about time to do just that.
First of all many thanks to everybody that reached out asking me how I’m doing. Some of you noticed I was taking a break. It’s nice to feel needed. Thank you for that!
This website has been my “second” job for sooooo long. It’s almost 13 years now. Turns out it’s still online. That’s a nice break after being hacked multiple times in the past. I lasted nearly 12 years without much of a break. It’s been super time consuming… as I develop everything myself. It’s not a beautiful looking website, but I’ve done multiple makeovers to sustain some level of aesthetics. Not to mention gathering content etc. The overall sacrifice was very often unbearable. When Nike did the LeBron Watch 1.0 I watched like 40 live games in a row and in my timezone it means staying up in the 1-6 a.m. range. But I’m not here to make any excuses.
There are four reasons that contributed to me being so passive. Let’s get into the details.
No 1. reason is my family. After my son was born two years ago it was really difficult to keep my priorities straight. And frankly I’m glad I finally put my family at an uncontested #1 spot. This was not so obvious for me in previous years. Now I can honestly say… it was the right call.
No 2. reason was Google. Google Photos changed the way their share pics. All my pics were hosted there so once they rolled out this breaking change… I was f*$#&ed. Some of my resources had an alternate source (releases, timeline) but all the albums disappeared within a day. Re-writing my album engine would take weeks.
No 3. reason was financial. There was a time where the ad money covered my hosting expenses plus allowed me to buy a few pairs every now and then without reaching into my pockets. This pretty much ended 3 years ago but I still kept going. I was loosing time and money without taking on other projects. Additionally, Nike used to help me in the past a little bit. That ended when I gave out two pairs for free to my readers. I was too proud :(. They reached out over a year ago once again but nothing has materialized, which kind of let me down. Now I can barely cover server fees. Posting on Instagram is not as lucrative as it would seem, but I never claimed I’m smart for business opportunities. Maybe I should have done a gofundme or something.
No 4. LeBron has never reached out, which was always my #1 goal. This is heart-breaking for me, really. Maybe it’s that little boy inside dreaming about meeting his idol. I come from another world when I never expect anything for free, but I did what I thought I could best to get noticed. Hard work should pay off, right? I know he knows I’m out there… he just never… well… did anything. I don’t think he even liked a single post on my profile. And I know he saw them… cause he reposted without credits on several occasions. It would take one DM to get me starstruck like a little boy on Christmas. I would like to say I’m too old to care… but I’m not.
One thing has never changed and never will… my passion and love for LeBron. Hopefully no one will question that. Meeting Jason and Tim in Berlin last year was the highlight of my sneaker career and hopefully I will never retire as a fan. I just wish there was another way for me to get involved with Nike and/or LeBron. I always wanted to contribute to the Nike LeBron projects. I just live in the worst place for sneakers. I guess I never stood any chance.
That was personal so if you’re here to sneaker updates… I’ve just updated all the releases and the timeline will soon be complete again. I might do regular updates there. I might do a post from time to time… but there are other better places with real writers. I will probably keep on dropping info on Instagram on a more regular basis. But there might be a day when I pull the plug on all of it. It’s not today… not yet.
Here’s my son wearing a LeBron t-shirt. My best pickup.
