Thankful

I don't know if it's still the same with today's kids or not, but when I was growing up we were still taught that this was the time of year to reflect on the things that we were thankful for. I'd be lying if I said that younger me ever spent even a single second doing this, but it is something that I try to remind myself to do more often as an adult. And while I personally don't believe that such reflections should be limited to just a month or two at the end of each year, this post will probably make it seem like I do.

Sometime during this past summer, my laptop started showing signs that its end may not be too far off. Before going too much further, I should probably mention that it is around twelve years old at this point, and still operating on Windows 8. Its been very good to me over the years, and I've developed more of a rapport with it than I ever would've thought possible. Anyway, after the initial troubles, things seem to have improved, enough so that I, as a non-computer person, started to think that maybe it had just been a temporary hiccup. Unfortunately, recent events have proven otherwise. Seemingly out of nowhere, its operations became considerably more wonked three weeks ago. My mom is more computery than me, and after she told me that its end was nigh, I started scrambling to get all of the important things off of it while I still can. Most of my photos/scans, and more importantly, most of my obscene amount of newspaper related downloads were moved to flash drives (provided by my mom), and the one's that wouldn't transfer (something about them having properties that couldn't be transferred to a flash drive?) have been temporarily moved to an Adobe account that I created. And since I don't trust any of these things, I've also spent a bunch of time printing out hard copies of all of my genealogical research; which is quite considerable at this point. 

I'm done with all of the above as of this writing, which I'm very thankful for, as it took even longer than I thought it would. I feel like I should apologize too, to my fellow bloggers for the lack of comments left on your posts in recent weeks. I can only do so much. I have been reading posts on my phone at night, but it's much more difficult for me to type out longer comments on that little keypad.

I was kind of hoping that my laptop would outlive me, but since clearly it isn't going to, I'm thankful that A). It held up as long as it has. B). That it waited until this time of year to start dying, as sales on laptops are plentiful right now. C). That despite not wanting to have to get a new (and probably inferior) one, I at least have the money to do so (still a bit of a stretch though). If all goes well, I should have a new laptop, or at least have one ordered, by the time this post goes live. Hopefully it won't take me too long to figure out how to start using it.

In other news, the vertigo that was causing me so much trouble at the beginning of the year, that had been mostly under control, has returned. Not quite as bad as it was, but still enough to start making a few things more difficult again. I've already talked about this in multiple posts across two blogs, so I won't be getting into it again; other than to say that since this issue might be permanent now, my posting will probably continue to be highly irregular going forward, as computering seems to be the quickest way to trigger it. I've been told that the vertigo coming and going like this isn't uncommon, and when it's here, blogging is not easy. As an example, the previous post on here took me almost six hours to put together (spread out across eight mornings). That's a long time to work on what to most people was probably consider a throwaway post (after nine years though, I probably should've known better than to spend so much time on a non-sport card post). As sucky as my bouts of vertigo have been, I'm thankful that they haven't been worse, as they very well could be (and might be in the future).

Now that I got the boring, and depressing, things out of the way, I'd like everyone to know how thankful I am that folks still come around here. My posting has dropped off considerably this year (see the paragraph above), but that doesn't seem to stop a few people from showing up and supporting my efforts when I am actually able to get a post out there. Heck, people even still send me stuff from time to time. Unfortunately, because of the lack of posting, I've really really fallen behind in giving public thanks for the items that have shown up in recent months. I won't be able to get caught up by year's end, but hopefully I can get to a decent chunk of it here today.

Chris, aka The Collector, has gone MIA... again! Unfortunately, it looks like it might be permanent this time. His blog is gone, his TCDB account is gone, and as I found out last week, his email address is no longer valid either. Chris and I have had a good relationship over the years, and have spoken many times away from the blog about non-blogging things, so this turn of a events has come as a bit of a surprise. The last time we spoke, which was probably around the time of his last post, he relayed some very good news about the situation that his family has been dealing with, so aside from his losing interest in blogging (join the club), I was under the impression that all was well in the world of Chris. Something's obviously changed though. Since there's no other way for me to contact him anymore, I put a letter in the mail the other day; hopefully he'll reply. 

I received an envelope of odds and ends from Chris right around the time we last spoke, stuff that was held out from the large batch of cards he was sending to another friend to sell for him. 

I think that this was the third copy of this Jim Brown reprint that a blogger has sent me over the years. I'm not sure why exactly, but everyone seems to think that I need many copies of this card.

I like getting sent SLU's, unfortunately I already have a really nice copy of the Boggs (it's currently sitting in a draft), and the Lathon is from one of the sets that I'm not collecting. I've found out recently that it's near impossible to give away free cards on the blog anymore, but if anyone needs either of these, please say so. As for the Bo, that was actually a need. I could've swore I already had it, but apparently not.

Optic is one of those modern sets that's not really something I ever look for, or even think about, but both of these cards are fairly nice for what they are.

The Thomas sticker was a dupe too. The David Robinson Patriarchs was my favorite of the envelope, mostly because I'm working on the set, and didn't already have this one.

I completely forgot to ask Chris about this card when I thanked him for the mailing, as I have no idea what it is. I know what it isn't, and that's an original Philadelphia rookie of Bob Hayes. You can't tell from the scan, but the coloring is right, on the front, and back, but it's got a slight gloss to it, which original Philadelphia's don't have. There's no "reprint" anywhere on the back, and after searching around online, I don't see people selling reproductions (i.e. counterfeits) of this particular card on any of the usual sites, so at the moment I'm at a complete loss as to what its origins are.

Chris, if you're out there, come back... if only so you can tell me what the hell the Bob Hayes is! Kidding aside, I very much hope that you will return to us at some point; the blogs will be a much poorer place without your presence.

Despite having them on my want lists, which are sometimes public, for a lot of years, Bo, he of the always present, Baseball Cards Come to Life!, became only the second person to ever send me a Hostess card. I don't know if it's because I rarely talk about them, or what, but despite all the one's I see exchanging hands on the blogs, they just don't ever come this way. I'll live though. One did, and it was a very nice one at that. I don't think most folks normally associate Bo with basketball cards, but if you collect them, he does send them from time to time. My 1989-90 Fleer set build was helped along with this addition of Chris(tian) Welp.

I've talked about Larry Johnson, and why he was my favorite non-Blazer as a kid, multiple times on this blog, so I won't bore everyone with that again here today. Needless to say though, I still have a strong affinity for him, and his cards, all of these years later.

Many years ago, don't ask me how many, I came across this exact 1977 Argentinian Zorro card on COMC. I can't remember if the price was too high, or if I just wanted to look into the set more, but I put in my watchlist in the morning, and by that night it had already sold. That always sucks when that happens. Fast forward some years, and I had pretty much completely forgotten about it until a semi-recent post of Bo's where he was offering some unwanted stuff from a lot that had been bought; one card of which was this one. Needless to say, I couldn't reply soon enough. My mom and I use to watch the old Disney Zorro series when I was growing up, and over the years its remained a favorite of mine. This card makes an excellent companion to the couple of cards that I have from the Topps set.

Many thanks to Bo for this eclectic mix; those are usually the most exciting for me.

Not too long after I received Bo's mailing, Jim, he also of the always present, cards as i see them, became only the third person to send me a Hostess card, and the first to ever send multiple Hostess cards. And if anyone's gonna have an extra Steve Garvey to send, it's gonna be Jim. Rounding out the Dodgers trifecta was a needed, and greatly appreciated, 1961 Post. Despite it being on my want list, this Roseboro is another one that I could've swore that I already had, but I didn't. I guess I've come across it so many times during my Post searches, that I just assumed that I already had it.

Jim followed up this solid trio with another PWE not more than a week later. There was only one card in the second envelope, but geez was it a fun one...

Jim mentioned that he had found this wonderfully mis-registered Play Ball reprint, and decided to take a chance and see if it met my criteria for such cards. It did. Staring at it too long makes me want to puke, which is usually a good way to tell if it's "off" enough for my collection. As much as I enjoy the card, I appreciate Jim even more just for remembering my little collection of wonked up cards. That's not the sort of thing I expect anyone to ever remember, so when someone does, it gives me the warm fuzzies.

With Chris gone, I think Jim is now the leader of the pack when it comes to active bloggers whom I've exchanged the most cards with. Hopefully he won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

I've mentioned more than a few times that I'd love to participate in Matt's, he of the Diamond Jesters, Time Traveling Trades more often, but stuff that I'm interested in just doesn't show up very often. And even when something does, I'm usually too late to claim it about 50% of the time. A few months back though, I was a bit earlier than normal to the most recent update, and was able to claim what I thought were two very nifty cards.

I already had two copies of the Ed Charles, but it's a card that I really like and could see myself trying to fill a page with, so while I technically didn't need it, I did very much want it. The Butkus game card was new to me though. I only had one other playing days card of his, so it was neat to be able to add another one.

From what I've seen the TTT has been a bit lean recently, but I think that a number of folks are thankful for Matt's willingness to power through the temporary slowdown and keep what's been a very popular blog series going.

I just recently got a surprise envelope in the mail from Randy, who most blog readers probably know from his comments as RJ Sahl. He's not a blogger himself, but can be found on the TCDB as rjsahl.

I've mentioned more than a few times that my original card collecting run stopped around 2000, but it very nearly stopped a few years earlier. I want to say that I didn't buy any packs of cards, or at least any new cards, during all of 1997. I don't remember why exactly, maybe I was done collecting and just hadn't realized it yet, but whatever reason, I went through a brief stretch there where I stopped buying cards and stopped paying attention to any of the new releases. Then, for reasons also unbeknownst to me at this point, I bought a basketball repack at the Lloyd Center (former mall in Portland, OR) Toys "R" Us in 1998. My friend Nate was with me at the time, and even though he had never collected anything up to that point, that repack sparked an interest in him (he was obsessed with basketball), which in turn, renewed my interest in cards. His collecting story is one for another time, but long story short, it only lasted about a year. I hadn't had a friend who collected cards in a number of years, so even though it didn't last very long, it was pretty fun to have one who did, again. As for that repack, I can only remember one card from it, and that was a 1997-98 Hoops Antoine Walker rookie. It was my first time seeing that year's design, and I immediately fell in love with it.

There were a number of shops still around at that time, but I think I was only able to find a couple of packs of Series 2, and with singles being even harder to find in the pre-internet era (that is, the internet as we now know it), I never got very far in my late attempt to build the set. Whatever I had was donated along with the bulk of the rest my collection in the early 2000's (yet another story I've told on here more than once -- I really need to mix in some new stories!). I did acquire a few singles from dime boxes a few years back (an MJ, Kobe, Duncan RC, etc.), and that those set aside, but it wasn't until last year that I decided to try and build the set again. I know that it would be infinitely cheaper to buy as a whole, but I know me, if I did that I'd look at it once, put it away, and then never take it out again. My new build hasn't gotten very far yet, but thanks to Randy, I am now five cards closer to completing it.

My mom bought our first VCR in 1987. And one of the first videos that she bought was Creature from the Black Lagoon. 1987 was also the year that I got chicken pox. And for whatever reason, it hit me hard. Considerably harder than most kids. I was pretty miserable for a couple of weeks, and about the only thing that brought me any relief was watching Creature; which I did, over and over again. I don't remember much from that time, but my mom says that I watched it 3-4 times during that entire stretch (for those that weren't alive at the time, or for those who were, but have forgotten, videos were still terribly expensive at that point, so we only had a couple for the first year or two). Even though she's a big fan of the film to this day (as am I), I still don't know how she dealt with a very sick me, and having to watch/hear the same movie over and over again for multiple weeks. I guess that's moms for you. They're made from better stock. 

It's also worth noting that the set that this card comes from, 1994 Topps Universal Monsters, is one that my mom (she collected cards too) and I were collecting back when it was new; though we never were able to finish it.

These six cards really packed a wallop. As the kids might say, they hit me in the feels. Thank you, Randy!

The most recent surprise envelope to arrive came from, Matt, the rising star across multiple platforms, whose probably best known, at least currently, for Cards Over Coffee. 

A pair of serial numbered Bo's led the way. Unfortunately, both have a mirror finish, so neither scanned particularly well. These are not the sort of cards that arrive on my doorstep very often, as it seems like any slightly rarer Bo Jackson, new or old, usually carries a premium; one which I'm not usually willing to pay.

I have a few of Bo's A&G cards that show him as a baseballer, but never knew that he had gotten in there as a footballer as well. It sure is a neat little card.

The two serial numbered Bo's probably would've been the highlight of the envelope for most folks, but for me it was this pair of needed Golden Age Playing Cards. I just posted about this set not too long, and Matt was the only one to inquire as to which cards I still needed. I appreciated him doing so, but didn't think that he, or anyone else reading for that matter, was gonna have any of my remaining needs laying around. Turns out I was wrong. With these now in hand, I just need seven more to complete the set. I was hoping to get a few more during COMC's Black Friday sale -- which hadn't started yet at the beginning of this post, but now is -- that plan hasn't worked out very well so far, as the discounts on my needed cards haven't been as large as I was expecting.

And speaking of being thankful, only Matt would know what I'm talking about here, but I'm thankful that he and I were able to repair our friendship (quick synopsis: I was an asshole, Matt forgave me, thus proving, not that I had any doubt, that he's the better man), it has been one of the better parts of my year. As much as the cards were appreciated, they pale in comparison to the renewed friendship. Many thanks to Matt for both though.

And with that, I'm about 75% caught up with thank you's now. I have two more people to get to, one that has sent multiple envelopes (too much to fit in here), and one that deserves their own post just because of the sheer magnitude of what was in the bubble mailer that they sent. I'd like to think that I'll be able to get to both before the end of the year, but judging by the way things have been going, I'll be thankful if I can even get one of those posts completed by year's end.

This post is going live a few days later than planned. Now that its going out when it is, I just wanted to wish all who celebrate it a Happy Thanksgiving. And for those that don't, I still hope that you day is awesome too!