(1/11) I was ecstatic the minute I got the text. And then the anxiety started. Two full months of it. I was about to open myself up to a group of folks I met on Instagram. I was anxious and I was scared. Yes, a grown ass man with a wife and two kids…scared. Why? Even though the sneaker world is huge and full of exposure, it’s made up of factions — and I’ve never quite belonged to any of them. I know people in most, but I don’t know which one is mine. I obviously love sneakers. I love the stories. I love wearing something fresh. I love finding a gem and selling a gem I have no connection to. I like that I might have something to offer this hobby through my tech background. But mostly…I feel like a small fish in an enormous pond. I’m not the loudest guy in the room. I’m not trying to go viral. I’m just trying to share what I love and hope it resonates. I rarely draw a line in the sand, but I know they’re everywhere. And I wasn’t sure which lines I belonged behind. And…I’ve never liked showing my face: Ageism. So, a few days after saying yes, I knew I needed something to keep my mind occupied: I wanted to show up with something that felt like me. A card, of course, my sneaker cards are deeply personal. They carry my stories and feelings. So I started there. But I didn’t know where to take it. I hit up my partner @sons.inc and we started brainstorming…and then it hit me: Portland. MJ. The Blazers passed on him. But what if they didn’t? With a Blazers red/black/white palette, the shoes didn’t need reimagining — but the card did. Sons sketched it, I grabbed scissors, and cut a pair of 1’s into 1-inch squares. We built and numbered 60 sneaker patch cards — flaws and all. And I swear, it made perfect sense to me at the time. Even if it became hard to explain later… it gave me something to obsess over besides whether I was cool enough to be there. And goddamnit…I was proud of my handiwork.