Night Owl Cards

  Today is a big moment in my personal life. While I'm not shy about sharing personal details here, some stuff people just don't want to read on a card blog. But the occasion has me feeling thankful. And since this is the week to give thanks, I thought I'd devote a post to it. Consider it my entry in the Give Thanks Challenge , offered up by Trevor of the Bump and Run Football Card Blog. As always, I am thankful for finding the card blogging community a dozen years ago. Life hasn't been the same, and might I add, it's been all the better. I am thankful that I have an everyday writing outlet. Back in the day, if you wanted to write every day, you had to buy one of those girly diaries with the lock and pour out all your hopes and desires. Screw that. I just found a school notebook I wasn't using. And I mostly wrote about baseball stuff. Oh, and girls. I wrote about girls I liked. Thank goodness those notebooks are long gone. I am ever grateful that this blog led t...

I have been a fan of the Canadian band The Tragically Hip since 1992. That was the year the band released its landmark album, "Fully Completely," and '92 was also the year that a co-worker handed me a copied cassette tape of the album with his handwritten list of the songs. It is one of three personal moments I think of when someone mentions The Hip. Steve was from Buffalo, like me. He walked with a slight limp, the result of being pinned between two cars in the first few months of working his new newspaper job. Steve enjoyed alternative bands like The Hip and Pavement. He said I'd like The Tragically Hip, who hailed from across the river in Kingston, Ontario, and gave me the "Fully Completely" copy and a cassette of an earlier Hip album "Road Apples". The second moment I think of is walking into the Clarkson University hockey locker room each time after a game from 1993-95. After most games, music played loudly in the new, spacious room. ...

  One of the greatest highs in this hobby, the reason why I think it can be called a drug, is set completion. For me, nothing in collecting baseball cards will exceed the rush that I receive from finishing a set. Completion, to me, is what elevates this hobby above simple accumulation. The ability to assemble a set by the numbers on the back or the uniforms players are wearing on the front, and actually complete it, is an achievement that I think even collecting outsiders can appreciate. Completion means that this is no longer just a bunch of cards but the resolution of a pattern. The full puzzle. It's point A to point Z with all of the letters (or numbers) in between. It is an accomplishment -- however easy or difficult. Let's face it: the loan might not have gone through, or your kids might not have turned out how you wished, or you're off your diet again, but daaaaamn , look at that set in the binder!!! Don't they all match up? Don't they all look lik...