Small highlights in a rather poor day.....

So, I missed going to the post office Friday, which resulted in me having TEN, yes, TEN, total envelopes/packages waiting for me, all eBay purchases.

The poor part of the day? My wife and son flew back to the states earlier today (about 8 hours ago) and I won't be seeing them in person again until around the end of January/beginning of February. I knew this day would come, but still, it is tough being in what is now a basically empty full house, ya know?

I guess I could post some of the highlights of the mail day (ok, some of these are from last week, but I didn't scan them in until today):

Some pretty awesome Javier Vazquez personal collection stuff:

2007 Topps Series 1 Yellow Printing Plate

2001 Donruss Class of 2001 Diamond Aces 3 Color Logo Patch #ed 3/3

2002 Donruss Best of Fan Club League Leaders Auto #ed 85/300

2004 Playball "Green" Parallel #ed 07/15

2009 Bowman Chrome Red Refractor #ed 1/5


A few Richard Hidalgo things (thanks to some good deals from Syndicate Sports Cards on eBay and COMC):

2004 Sweet Spot Sweet Gloves Auto #ed 10/15

1996 Fleer Ultra Golden Prospect Gold Medallion - This looks really awesome in person, as it is a see-through "gold". Pretty sweet.

2003 Donruss ReCollection Collection Auto "2001 Donruss" #ed 2/9

2003 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Auto Plaque #ed 66/135

1998 Pacific Revolution Rookies & Hardball Heroes "Gold" #ed 14/50

2004 Leaf Limited Threads "Russell Laundry Patch" 1/1

1997 Bowman's Best Mirror Image "Atomic Refractor", "Refractor" and Inverted


I also picked up an 82 Topps Ripken RC, a 2001 Topps Ichiro RC and a few Bryce Brentz USA autos.

A great mail day to kind of sweep away the clouds from a rather dreary day (quite true also, as it did/is raining as well).

I did get to watch some soccer though (saw the Japan upset and part of the Italy tie). Now I am just burning time until I have to go up to work and issue out M4's to all the soldiers headed out to Afghanistan soon (I will be there in a few weeks as well).

A Century Old

Of course by century, I mean 100 posts, but you get the gist.

Two posts ago was my 100th post, which actually came at a much slower rate then I would have thought. Then again, I haven't been able to keep a passion for writing in me.

I feel like it has just been a ton of things that have been keeping me back. Stress from my upcoming deployment, stress from my wife not being back in the states yet, stress from the Astros terrible season so far and my overall lack of motivation to write, though I always have something going through my head.

I changed the way the blog looked. That didn't help. I recently came into a little bit of money to help feed my collecting. Hasn't helped much (but maybe the mail days I have will).

Hell, I didn't even notice my 100th post until BA Benny's Baseball Card Buffet had his 100th post contest (which, by the way, happened at a much quicker rate than mine did) and posted a little link to it, which happened to be my 101st post. And then, not even that encouraged me to post.

Maybe it's the fact it has been tough for me to put my words into action since, well, since I drank my way through two semesters of college? I was a brilliant (well, I thought I was brilliant) writer all throughout high school and even in my two semesters of college, but then I stopped writing. With no assignments (and no blog at the time) I had no reason to write. I spent all of my free time (IE: time not working) wooing girls, playing video games, drinking, experimenting with plants (it was short lived, but still, it happened), playing sports and hanging out with friends. Not to mention, my collecting habits stalled because A) less funds available (it's a lot tougher blowing money when you are no longer living with your parents) and B) busy having a social life, with not much room on the side.

So now, it seems the only time I feel like writing (when I am not tweeting randomness) is when I drink. Since I drink a lot less often then I used to, I blog less often than I used to. Which sucks, because I need a way to get whatever pops into my head out of there.

Ok, enough with the ranting randomness.

I've hit two round numbers recently: 100 posts (which you know) and 40 followers (which you may not know). Yay me, I supposed. More importantly, I am closing in on two big collecting goals for this year: my total number of cards in each of my primary personal collections, Javier Vazquez and Richard Hidalgo. Thanks to Check Out My Cards, Sportlots and a rash of cards on eBay, both of my goals (400 total Hidalgo cards and 300 total Vazquez cards) are within reach and may be surpassed by July 31st.

Which leads me to my next point: I haven't shared much of my recent maildays, but I am scanning more often, so I hope to show them soon. I have new autographs, low numbered parallels, a 1/1 or two (or three, maybe), a little prospecting (which I will talk about soon) and even random rookies and a nice hall of fame autograph or two.

Since I sold off all of my game used and autos from my non-p/c, I have decided everything I buy will either be PC or prospecting, so I haven't strayed from that. Add in that I came into a decent sum of money for collecting purposes only and you have a recipe for success.

Uh, if you have made it this far, thanks for letting me rant and ramble. I try not to do it often on the blog, but it seems to be happening more often than not lately. For your dedication to this post, I leave you with my latest eBay win that brought a super big smile to my face:

When disaster strikes....

It strikes hard.

Had quite an eventful latish night last night.

I was headed home from Frankfurt, travelling on the autobahn. Due to the rain and construction area, I was going around 80kph, when I came around a blind curve. Much to my dismay, there was an eighteen wheeler that had slowed down to 40kph. This meant I had to attempt to slow down to half my speed in a short distance, without hitting the truck. So, instead, I hit the guardrail. As I attempted to slow down, my car fishtailed in the rain and I lost control of it. I struck the guard rail a total of three teams, causing quite a bit of damage to the car, as seen in the following pictures:

 That fifth and final picture is the bumper and grill from my Jeep Liberty, that was salvaged from the road.

The car is now located two hours away. I had to finish my drive home at 1130 at night, in a rented car, in the rain. Needless to say, I was scared shitless on that part if the drive home, but I made it out of the whole ordeal with no injuries, so I am definitely blessed.

Luckily, my insurance should cover the rental car (quite expensive out here) and most of the damages (not sure if I have a deductible or not, so maybe I should bone up there, huh?).

This means I will be tapping into my card money, which caused me to miss out on a few auctions I REALLY wanted, but I was lucky enough to get something sweet as a belated birthday gift, so I guess it makes up for that:

May have overpaid, but I don't really care, as it was my birthday money and I really wanted a Gwynn auto (knock that off of my 2010 goals list :D).

Anyways, I am off of work until June 1st (thank you pre-deployment leave), so I plan on getting myself back on track with a bunch of posts and comments on other blogs.

Thanks for checking me out guys!!

When a Volcano explodes.....

Now, I understand hundreds of thousands of people were/are stranded and over a billion dollars was lost in the air line and produce industry, but this fucking volcano is costing me my damn mail days.

I'm not just talking cards, either. DVD's, books, my Nike+ running tracker...a whole boat load of stuff.

But the reason you are all here: baseball cards.

I have around TWENTY auctions I won before the volcanic auction that are lost somewhere between New Jersey, New York and the German side of the Atlantic.

What does this create? One pissed off blogger. Now, none of these cards are super rare or crazy expensive (I hardly collect anything expensive anyways), but they are cards I wanted to add to my collection. It's tough going an entire week with NOTHING in my mailbox.

Hell, i'd give my left thumb for a bill, spam mail, fuck, someone ELSE's mail.

Is that really asking too much? I mean, Air France for god's sake got a plane up in the air, through the smoke and onto the other side -- with no damage. So why can't British Airways, American Airlines or someone get a damn bird in the sky and give me my damn mail?

Alright, ok, i've got that out of my system.

Maybe I should end this on a good note, no? I won this last night, my third 1/1 in the past two months of Hidalgo: