Trying to get back into the swing of things

I hadn't intended on going over a month without posting, but the proverbial "real life stuff", has really been getting in my way.

In case anyone didn't see my last post, I had to move out thanks to a fairly extensive remodeling project (not of my choosing). I know it will all be worth it when it's done, but in the meantime it's been pretty stressful.

Because of the project start date being earlier than originally planned, I spent two straight weeks packing like a madman, and we still just barely got done in time. We have been moved for almost two weeks now, and even though we're only going to be here for a few months, much time has been spent trying to arrange things so that those couple of months can contain some sense of normalcy.

When trying to find something to rent for a couple of months, it was found that there weren't whole lot of options, what with being in the middle of nowhere and all. Even though there are a few apartment complexes in and around some of the nearest small towns, by all outward appearances (and online reviews), these don't appear to be the sort of places that one would even want their worst enemy to have to live in. There also wasn't a lot of options when it came to house rentals either, but we did end up finding one (the cheapest one available), about forty minutes away from home. And it just happens to be on a golf course in a retirement community:

This was by far the cheapest rental home available, which is funny because I remember back home in the Portland/Metro area, you had to pay quite the premium if you wanted to live on a golf course. Apparently not in Tennessee though, probably because you don't have any land to put things on... You know like, broken down cars and old sofas, that sort of thing. The cheapness of this particular home also probably stems from the fact that it has been for sale for a couple of years and vacant for over a year, after being here for a few weeks, it's easy to see why -- It has more problems then our house that is being renovated!

And I can honestly say that after living where I have for the last two years, with the woods and no visible neighbors, it isn't very fun being back in a neighborhood. I had forgotten how much noise people tend to make, even when their just going about their daily activities. I know for a lot of folks, this is probably a dream location, but at this point in my life, I really prefer the seclusion that our regular house provides.

The after moving I spent two days in a place called Smithville (80% of the towns here end in "ville"), which is about an hour and a half drive from the temporary house. [side note: I really need to get into the habit of taking pictures while I'm out, as I would imagine it would definitely make storytelling more enjoyable more for anyone reading]  Anyway, unless you absolutely have to be there for some reason (like I did), I wouldn't recommend Smithville as a fun place to visit, mostly because there really isn't much to do there. For me personally, I found exactly one place of interest, in the form of a junk/closeout place called Pedigo's New and Used, which ended up being pretty disappointing.

Their prices were crazy high, on pretty much everything. There were so many items that were just plain dirty and/or in boxes that were just beat to s*>%, that were more expensive than their brand new counterparts on Amazon. I got kind of excited when, from across one of the rooms, I spied a glass counter that was full of vintage video games. But after approaching said counter, my enthusiasm quickly faded upon seeing the condition of the games. I don't think I have ever seen games that were that dirty and faded from what I'm assuming, was sun damage, before. Which was a shame because there were some decent N64 games in there, but I wasn't willing to take chance on them still working or not, so there they remain. Even with all that said, they had a surprisingly large selection of DVD's for $2 each. Since these actually appeared to be in decent shape, I spent about twenty minutes looking through them, and managed to find two that wanted to come home with me:

[I know this post is starting to get a bit rambly, but it's been a while and I have much words to put on the screen, so if anyone wants to stop here I completely understand]

Besides the packing and moving, the other main reason for me not posting in a quite a while, has been that I have been dealing with a bout of depression over the last couple of weeks. This isn't an uncommon occurrence for me, but in recent years, to have a stretch that lasts this long, is a bit uncommon. Usually it's just a day (or two) here and there, and then I'm back to my normal self (no jokes, please!). I know this has been caused by the stress of the move, but knowing the cause doesn't always help when trying to come up with a solution, as it usually just has to play itself out.

Whenever I have down days, I tend to get really nostalgic, almost painfully so. Like a lot of people, this means cycling through childhood memories, when times tend to remembered as being happier. As such, most of my purchases during this funk have been mostly non card related, because even though I collected cards as a youngster I don't really associate childhood with card collecting. In fact, I have even started re-collecting a few things (namely M.U.S.C.L.E. figures) that I hadn't thought about much since my mid-teens. Which brings me to another thing. I realized during moment's of attempting to write a post and then not being able to come up with anything, then contemplating more than a few times about deleting the blog out of existence -- that in order for me to continue doing this, I am going to have to start doing considerably more non card posts, as it just seems like I'm having way too much difficulty in trying to put together primarily card posts... especially when I collect so many other things. I'm sure the views are going to drop off some, but hopefully a few people out there will stick around, even if only every other post is card related.

I am happy to say that I believe the funk that I have been in has passed, thanks in part to three things, all of which occurred last week. 1). A pretty good thrift store trip  2). A really great eBay purchase  3). A super amazing, brain fog clearing antique mall excursion (seriously, it was that great). Most of the items gotten from these three sources will appear in upcoming posts.

And lastly, now that I have been feeling better mentally for the last week or so, I have been pursuing another recent interest:

Last year my mom got me this shortwave radio as a present, and with the free time I have had recently, I am just now starting to explore it's awesomeness. I have spent an hour or two each night for the last week experimenting with simple homemade antennas that I found via YouTube, attempting to improve the radio's global reach. Although there is only so much I can do, antenna wise, while living in a rental. In a couple of months when I'm able to move back home, I'm going try and build a better, and possibly more permanent antenna. This has also spurred me to finally look into getting a HAM radio license, which is something that has been in the back of my mind for probably close to fifteen years now.

I guess I will end this post here, even though I'm sure that I've forgotten to mention more than a few things, but after having not done this for over a month now, I'm worn out from all this typing.

On an unrelated note. I was very saddened to wake up this morning and read of Chris Cornell's passing. He truly was/is one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time, for me personally, he would easily make my top five. This seems to be yet another example of someone who still had so much to contribute to the world, leaving way too soon.

On a second completely and less somber unrelated note. I heard this song for the first time a couple of days ago, and have had the hook stuck in my head ever since -- so maybe if I share it with everyone else (like in The Ring, or Ringu for the purists), it will leave me alone:

               

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.