Wednesday, August 25, 2010

my shades are cooler than your shades: numa optics

it's true.

i pretty much purchase the cheapest sunglasses i can find: i go the $5.99 walgreens route. that is probably why i am pretty much blind as a bat without my contacts in.

a couple months ago, michael had some white shades sitting in the car that he said were too small for his big head. so i put them on. Immediately my bad-assery went up 10 points. these were cool. so i did what any wise person would do: i immediately stole them.

i wore these badass sunglasses pretty much just on special occasions on race days when i knew people would be out to take pictures. i didn't want to wear them more often, because i scratch things and stuff...

but one day, i ended up wearing them on a trip to the oaktown liquor store. now, for those of you yuppies that live in marin or the peninsula, let me tell you what a real east oakland corner store is like.
  • milk selection: whole milk only.
  • malt liquor selection: pretty much an entire refrigerator (or two) is devoted just to forties. i mean, variety is important for consumers.... you need old english, colt 45, schlitz, mickey's, country club, and let's not forget the old staple: steel reserve.
  • microbrew selection: if you are lucky, maybe 1. but i am proud to report that since we moved in a few months ago, this has slowly been increasing to now, a few different varieties! coincidence? i think not.
anyway, oaktown is a pretty solid corner store. they also stock cutie pies (the hostess fruit pie knock off), which is awesome.


anyway, one summer day a few weeks ago, michael and i walk in to stock up our fridge with a variety of malt liquors and whole milk for the week. now, i have to be honest, sometimes at the checkout of oaktown, i do feel a bit out of place. but not this day. dude in line behind us, who had a full-on grill, says to me: "sweet shades!" and my cool points went way up, almost to the point where i wanted to put my arms in the air and yell: "i got street cred, bitches!" ... but that wouldn't have been so cool. so, i played all chill and gave a chin nod, and said thanks as nonchalantly as possible.

ever since this encounter, i have been wearing these sunglasses more frequently in my neighborhood. one evening a couple of weeks ago, i decided to see who the hell made these things, as i had no clue. i saw a website on the inside of the sugnlasses: www.numaoptics.com

i went to their website thinking to see some sweet hip hop artists or something, only to be disappointed to find some lumberjack with snow on his beard on the homepage. (the dude at oak-town would not have been so impressed.)

anyway, i noticed their links to their facebook page were wrong on their homepage...so i decided to be a good citizen and fill out the "contact us" form on their website and let them know. i also thought i would tell them my story about oaktown liquor store and how much bethbikes! likes the sunglasses in general.

low-and-behold i actually got an email back! and they said they would sponsor me! boo yah! my shades came in the mail yesterday, and let me say, they are pretty sweet. i got a hot pink pair to add to my white pair. i also got some clear, and rose, & blue lenses so i can wear them on the indoor track and at night races. the optics on them are pretty damn sweet. not to mention, the badassness of them.

of note: i found out they are widely used amongst the crazy militia men, as evident here. so if anyone ever shoots a bazooka at me during a race, it is comforting to know that my sunglasses will still be in tact.

anyway, i look cool. and that is what is important. so, check out my shades at the races and check out numa optics website. i am sure lots of pictures of me in them will be showing up on my blog in the weeks and months to come (as i typically only publish pictures of myself...) but here are a few starters, so you can see the cool shades.































you know who i feel sorry for? that poor girl in the upper left side of my helmet of the above photograph.

let me zoom in.
do you see her sunglasses? ugly. straight out of 1983. get with it.


and a big thank you to pat benson for these amazing photos!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Subtle! :)

What is wrong with lumberjacks with snow in their beards?

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/photos/get-photo.asp?photoid=116614

Host Pay Per Head said...

It sounds like a pretty great sun glasses. I would love to have one like those.