Monday, August 04, 2014

A different game

Time for yet another infrequent post. To be philosophical or strictly factual? How about a little of both?

Marissa started to sing for the first time today. Shocked the heck out of me! Did NOT expect that, but she started to sing along with the Lion Sleeps Tonight or as she calls it "mumbeway". She also likes Shake Sanora-Jump in Line, Baby Beluga and Upside Down by Jack Johnson.  Anyway, she only sang about four words or so, but it was pretty adorable. Then again, just about everything she does is adorable.


Marissa visited her first "splash pad" and had a great time. She needed her face wiped off once when a burst of water surprised her and she took a short time out when she scraped both knees. She wanted no part of ending the day with the scrapes though. 






On August 1, I went to my first Bears training camp. It was okay, due to large crowds, but not bad. The picture above was tweeted out by the Bears! Ha! Yes! That's Martellus Bennett, aka The Black Unicorn, signing an extra hat. Very nice guy!


On the way back from camp, my car turned 150,000 miles. It's an '02 and still runs pretty well.


LL's aunt Jean passed away last week. No only was she her aunt and a pretty fun woman, she had a big influence on LL going into nursing in the first place AND provided her a mentor in college to help her become even more successful in the field. She was only 70, but her health had deteriorated over the last year. 

Quickly on the philosophical side now: baseball card collecting has changed for me. At least, it feels different. It's a different "game" now. It used to be about buying packs, buying packs and buying packs until you got close enough to having the set to trade for the final few cards. Or, if I were collecting an older set, I would go to one or two card shows a year and try to make as much progress as my finances would allow. 

Earlier this year, I decided to start collecting the 1965 Topps baseball set. Part of the reason is that next year it would be 50 years old. Originally I wanted to collect back to 1966, the year I was born. The 1965 set is pretty cool though, they call it the "flag year" or "pennant year" due to the style on the front: 

And now I find myself 4 or 5 cards away from completing the set after going to only show and opening no packs (obviously). Now it's all done on eBay. It's not about finding the card, it's about finding it at the right price. Granted, maybe 2 of these last few cards I need are about actually finding them in good shape, but generally it's just about how much/little are you going to pay. At the shows, you could negotiate. If you had $50-$60 in cards and it was the last day of the show, you offer $40 and be ready to walk away. That's tougher to do on eBay because there only has to be one person out there online who is willing to pay a little more than you. If it's a tough card to find, it's harder to walk away (from the keyboard). Still, you have to be willing to walk away when the price gets juiced. 

That's not the same game that it used to be. Not quite as fulfilling, but still pretty awesome.

1 comment:

Michael Podolny said...

Wow, 70 is not that old :(

Always love you reveling in being a Father :)