Birthday blues

According to the Blogger, we're just a few days shy of two months since my last post.

I hadn't planned on the June 24th post being my last new one for almost two months, but I also hadn't planned on falling into my now yearly birthday funk weeks earlier than normal either, so...

[Not me.]

I could go into a long diatribe about me using my birthday as a time to reflect back on the previous year, and take stock of how little I've accomplished. I could also talk about my not dealing very well with this whole getting older thing, both of which are the primary cause of this now yearly depression, but I won't. It won't do any good to do so, and you're not here for that kind of talk anyway, so I will spare you the not so gory details.

I will mention however that in previous years this depression usually starts to show itself about a week before my birthday, and then begins to abate within a week or two after my birthday has passed. This year however, it hit me pretty hard, and fast, during the last week of June, and even though it has eased off to some degree, it's still with me to some degree here more than halfway through August. I'm not sure why it's lasted so long this year, I mean I haven't really done anything of note in the past year, but I didn't do much of note the previous year either, and it didn't last this long, so what's so special about this year? [rhetorical question]

I realize that this is a me thing, and is just something that I have to deal with on my own, as even if it's well-intentioned, advice from others doesn't help, and talking about it doesn't help either, I'm only doing so to try and explain my absence.

My one solace is that moping about is not an option, at least not where I live, there's just too much that needs to be done on a daily basis, so no laying around for this sad sack. The storm damage from earlier this year has taken up a great deal of free time, so projects that should've been tended to months ago have really piled up, I've been trying to get to as many as I can, but it seems like every time I finish one, there's still a dozen more waiting to be started, and those are just my projects; I'm not even counting all of my moms, whose stuff I usually move to the front of the line. She's still considerably more active than most people her age (and judging from what I've seen online, more active than most people half her age), but does need help with a few things, most notably things that require heavy lifting. I never gripe about helping her with anything, if only because her being around to help, is much better than the alternative.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before or not, but my mom has a keen interest in stained glass. We converted a shed into a studio for her a few years ago, which has worked out really well, but it has become apparent as of late that she needed more storage for panes, especially those of the larger variety -- the only problem is, there isn't a lot of extra money right now for supplies. It didn't take long to come with a solution though, as I had been saving a bunch of leftover wood (scraps is more of an apt description) from an old project, and after taking some measurements, was able to come up with a relatively okay idea for a storage unit. My mom wasn't entirely convinced that it was going to be doable, but gave consent to give it a go, so I did.

Now I don't have a fancy shop full of expensive power tools, nor do I have a lot of know how, but I am stubborn, and did want to see this through, and am proud to say that after screwing up once and having to sort of start over, not to mention all of the weather delays (we've had jungle weather here this summer, hot sun followed by an afternoon thunderstorm then more hot sun, which is good for the plants, but not for someone who's trying to work on a project outside without cover), the project is done. It's ugly as sin, but is crazy sturdy, and will hold quite a bit of glass, upwards of 100 large panes. My design was also modular, so in theory more could be added on to the unit in the future if need be.

My mom is happy with how it turned out, which of course is all that really matters, and has now mentioned trying to come up with something else for some of the extra small stuff that is currently without a home. She has two three-tiered wooden shelving units that she saved from the dump, and I still have some more scraps, so it's looking like those units are going to get reinforced, chunked up if you will, and get a few dividers added, so that they can be converted to hold smaller pieces.

I'm thinking that I'll be done with all of her stuff sometime next week, which will then free some time for me, meaning that I should start trying to figure out what's next on the to do list, anybody feel like flying (or driving) down for a working vacation? :)

After enduring all of this life talk, I should probably try and balance it out a little by giving ya'll some collectibles talk too, and maybe even photos some photos to accompany said collectibles talk.

Since I mentioned my birthday at the beginning of the post, I might as well show you what I ended up getting to celebrate the "special" occasion. I grew up watching the original Star Trek series, but for some odd reason never bothered to get any of the figures from the mid 90's Playmates line. At this point, I don't feel the need to get all of them, but there were a few that I'd like to have, like Mr. Mugatu here, who now joins the Gorn that I got a few years ago. I just need to find a cheap Harry Mudd, and then I can probably call it good with this set.

This came from my mom, who at this point is the only person that I get birthday presents from anymore (which is okay by me), and although I would've been completely fine if this had been the only thing I had got, she did add a little something else to the birthday card...

My coin collecting days are many, many, years behind me, but even so, I can still appreciate the greatness that are Morgan silver dollars, and am more than happy to add this piece of Americana to what's left of my former collection. Apparently she bought this for me about ten years ago, misplaced it, and only just recently rediscovered it -- better late than never I suppose.

I also bought something a little bit before my birthday, which for blog purposes could be called a present to self.

I knew of Panini's adding buybacks to their 2019 Score release, and knew that Reggie Roby was on the list of newly stamped cards, but hadn't seen one, and honestly, I wasn't so sure that I was going to bother trying to add it to the collection. Some may recall that I was all about the buybacks a few years ago, but have since grown to dislike them quite a bit. I sold the contents of my partially built frankenset earlier this year, or at least most of it, I did keep a few that fit into player collections. For the most part though, I really have no interest in them anymore, that being said, I saw this Reggie on the eBay, and couldn't not bid on it. Since you're seeing it, I obviously won it. The auction was for the original '89 Score and the buyback, which was cool, since I didn't have a copy of the original either. Now if Panini would just do me a solid, and not create any more Reggie buybacks (or any 1/1's), I'd be most grateful.

Other than finally finishing the sorting that I've been working on for over a year, I haven't been doing much card stuff. These Reggie's are my first purchase in months, but with all of the great packages that I've received from fellow bloggers this year (including a few while I've been away), I haven't really felt the need to buy much, which has worked out well, cause I don't have the money to be buying stuff at ten times the normal going rate, and that's how pretty much everything is right now, but I'm good.

I got an envelope in the mail from Israel (yeah, that Israel!) the other day, which was kind of neat unto itself, but the real prize was inside:

I know that there aren't a lot of stamp collectors reading this, but I couldn't help showing off this block of Latvia #1's. Latvia isn't among the countries that I collect, but the first two issues of 1918 are probably my favorite stamps of all-time. The design isn't overly interesting, but since no one buys these for the fronts anyway, it doesn't really matter.

You see the backs are what most folks care about, what with these two issues being printed on the backs of unfinished German infantry maps and all. I got a nice little block here, although I'll have to remove the hinges (the blurry spots in the scan) sometime soon, probably when the weather cools off a little bit.

The block from Israel came right on the heels of another small purchase, this time from a U.S. dealer. I was able to get a few more #1's, perforated and imperforated, for like $2.50 shipped, which was just too good of a deal to pass up. I though about given these (as well as the ones I already had) their own post, but didn't know how much interest there'd be, so I won't. However, if anyone does actually care, you can read all about the history of these stamps over on the apsit website.

Two things. First, I've been stopping in at the nearest Dollar Tree a lot more in recent months, usually once a week. I don't have the good fortune to live near one of the locations that gets DVD's and Blu-Rays, but this particular store has been getting a lot of books as of late. And second, I have been reading... a lot! I've read seven books during my nearly two-month absence, and have just started on my eighth. I can't remember when I last read so many books in such a short amount of time. This renewed interest is also partially to blame for my absence, as the want to read at night has been much stronger than that of writing blog posts, and I don't see this changing anytime soon, which means that if I want to get back to blogging (and I'm not so sure that I do), I'll have to start working on posts in the morning again, there's really no other time to do so.

This is apropos of nothing, other than me waiting for the second John Wick to come down in price, and finding out earlier this week that it finally had... obviously I bought it!

Even though I have little desire to do so, I'm gonna try and get back to blogging on a semi-regular basis, which will hopefully lead to me getting back to reading (and commenting on) everyone else's blogs. I feel a little guilty about not supporting the endeavors of others in recent months, I mean I have read some posts here and there, but just haven't felt like I've had anything important to add to those posts. I've heard some about the new Blogger interface, and I suppose if it's as bad as everyone says, I might be calling it a day, as I don't know if I'll be wanting to learn some new complicated system, especially when it's replacing something that to my knowledge, wasn't broken. But we'll see, my blog screens still looks the same, so obviously it hasn't changed yet. Maybe they'll forget about me, and I can just keep using the one I know (sort of)...


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.