Night Owl Cards

  Before I get to the main theme of the post, I wanted to poll the card bloggers -- at least the ones who use Blogger -- and ask, in the last two weeks or so, what time does your post show up on blog rolls and Blogger's reading list after you post it?   I'm asking because it's been very frustrating for me, hitting publish -- both here and the 1993 Upper Deck blog -- and then not seeing that post pop up on blog rolls/reading list for hours, sometimes a day ... or more.   A couple of examples.   My last post on Saturday, " Going to the Files ," didn't show up on either of those two Blogger notification systems for hours. I published it around 5 p.m., early for me. But it didn't show up until the next day after I got up in the morning -- then there it was, saying I published it 12 hours prior.   On Sunday, I made a post to the 1993 Upper Deck blog. I published it around 2 in the afternoon. At 8:30 p.m., my blog roll, which includes both of my blogs, said thes...

  I am in that wonderful between period in which I've opened Christmas gifts but there are more to come. So I hesitated writing this post as there could be more cards to come. But I can just write another brag post later! All the cards I received so far came from my sister-in-law. You've read about her before. She's the one with the magic touch when it comes to selecting items in the card aisle. Two years ago she sent an Archives blaster that yielded a George Foster autograph , which I still have. There were many instances before that, too. This year I received two hanger packs of 2024 Update from her. These are the first packs of Update I've opened as I've purposely avoided them, simply hand-picking the Dodgers.     Upon opening the first pack I felt like I made the right call, probably right around pulling that Padres' duo rookie card. "Why am I opening a pack with Padres rookies?" was about the exact thought I had. These cards seemed meaningless.   ...

  Since my first packs of 2023 Heritage back in late May I've bought plenty of the product but have spent very little money.   I purchased just one blaster with my own cash, from Walmart, in early June. Everything else has been "free" due to three key avenues:   1) A stockpile of gift cards 2) A well-timed birthday 3) TCDB transactions   That and $24.98 (plus the price of some stamps) has landed me around 425 cards of the 500-card set. I'm not one to open multiple boxes of a product (or even one box) and I rarely chase current sets anymore, so doing all that in less than three months' time is an achievement for me.   Recently, the Heritage had been arriving so quickly that I was struggling to keep up with what came from whom. Two separate TCDB trades involved Heritage and they arrived about the same time that a couple other blog- and reader-related packages with Heritage goodies showed up, too.   So, what you'll see here are cards that I've shown before, i...

Greetings, readers! I have been on vacation the last several days, roaming free during my birthday week. For the first time in a long time, I did not celebrate my birthday at my home base. I don't know why my birthday always seems to end up at my house. It wasn't like that when I was young. Since my birthday is in the summer, I always seemed to be celebrating it at the park or the beach or at some relative's house far away. But as I got older, the gift-opening usually happened here at the house. Probably something about me wanting to be as close to the TV as possible with the All-Star Game usually occurring somewhere near my birthday. So, anyway, I spent my birthday with my daughter in her new digs several hours away. It was very nice, even though I didn't receive my usual birthday cake. Also, both wife and daughter happened to buy me blasters of Topps Series 2 as birthday goodies. It's a bit of a coincidence that both were blasters of Series 2. I did giv...