This blog is about Logan’s sixth grade year: learning about his country, about skateboarding, and about putting dreams into action. Please, buy our T-shirts and spread the word! This CBS interview tells the whole story. Watch for Logan and Mike V on Fuel TV – The Daily Habit on February 15 and 16! Thanks for visiting our site!
Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles is well worth the trip. Plenty of interesting and educational exhibits to see (for our favorite price: free), including an infrared camera.
We come from New Hampshire, where some small towns don’t even have a police officer. So, Logan was shocked when he almost got a ticket for skating outside the ASR convention in San Diego. We actually watched the cop write out a ticket for the unlucky skater (out of hundreds of people skating nearby, all day) who got touched. Logan found the whole situation absurd. This video sums up the feeling.
After hearing the stories about Skatelab across the whole country, Logan finally got a look at the museum of skateboard history and a chance to skate this storied park.
This question came up a lot, as we met new people at the ASR and Crossroads trade shows. We don’t have an answer, yet, but we’re investigating a few options. It seems self-evident that a personalized education must be better (for the student) than a standardized one. Logan is halfway through an online English course, and this format has worked well for him. He works at his own pace, sets his own schedule, manages his own time (under my supervision). We’ve talked about finishing the remaining six years of school much like this year: focused on skateboarding and hands-on learning, while completing academic subjects online. Maybe 50skatekid will ride on, next year.
At the ASR show, we saw some amazing new products! Motorized skateboards, decks spangled with LED lights, your photo on your grip tape, and so on. Back in September, I blogged about the costs of skateboarding equipment, and I was excited to see a new product that solves a big problem of recurring costs. A new skateboard deck costs at least $40 and immediately starts wearing down at the tips. Logan can wear one out completely in a month. As P.SK8 says on their website, “when your tips are new, maximum pop is achieved and as your tips wear down, the deck’s performance (and yours) declines dramatically. This is why pro riders replace their decks every few days.” The solution is a wooden tongue at each tip that slides into a plastic end-cap. So when the tip wears down, you just replace the plastic end-cap ($8), instead of the entire deck. Now if only I could re-sole Logan’s sneakers…
We are here at the San Diego Convention Center for the ASR conference. There are over a hundred booths, where big and small companies are showing off their merchandise. Retailers can see the samples of new products and meet brand representatives, while business seminars are held upstairs throughout the day (“merchandising,” “digital retailing”). Across the street, the Crossroads event is an open air maze of booths with a carnival atmosphere and a giant skatepark. Logan has been getting a first hand introduction to the complex links between retailers, wholesalers, factories, brands, and athletes, while collecting some cool giveaway items! As usual, we’ve been very encouraged by the response to our 50skatekid story. Who knows? Maybe one of these companies will be Logan’s first industry sponsor…
This interview offers more evidence for the dream of accidental celebrity, and there is a risk of instilling false hope. While I’m thrilled that Matt has made the most of his stardom, even if he only returned from his original six month trip with a clearer sense of himself, that in itself would have been enough. Lucky for him, he hit the jackpot of viral web video success and a new career.
This is a clip from my handheld video camera. On the audio, you hear Pat Parnell recommending a museum to me, then he kicks off the interview with Logan. You’ll have to tune in to The Daily Habit on February 15, when the show airs, to catch the entire interview! Again, many thanks to Paul Schmitt for reaching out to the folks at Fuel TV, who picked up our story. This week sets the high water mark for our trip (and goes a long way toward validating the seemingly crazy decision we made in September). Where do we go from here?
Trivia: Logan got to meet (and pet) the famous Tyson the Skateboarding Bulldog, who was also in the studio!
