Night Owl Cards

  OK, I have some more time now to write about the goodies that landed on my porch last Monday.   The Orel Hershiser auto from the previous post was one of the highlights, but it wasn't the only highlight. I received envelopes from four different people. Besides Gavin's "thanks for reading" prize, I received another envelope from the great state of Oregon, from The Diamond King . Upon reflection, he said he wasn't too enthusiastic over a few of his card show dime box pick ups, but I sure was. I am an admitted mark for colored border parallels, even Panini ones, so yes I am quite happy about these cards showing Kershaw in his milkman delivery uniform. These three cards happen to be Nos. 894, 895 and 896 in my Kershaw collection. That No. 900 post is on the horizon! A needed Jackie mini from 2019 also appeared in the envelope. Another parallel that I love more than I should. The next Monday envelope arrived from the Card Stacks Blog , which has perked back up again...

  You may have noticed that almost all of this week's posts have contained card images that are photographs rather than scans.   That's because my computer died last weekend. It was the desktop computer and it has been with me for as long as I've written this blog.   Yes, I have used the same computer for more than 13 years. I know, that's insane, but I just said goodbye to a car that was 16 years old. I have patience and with a little ingenuity, you can make things last a long time sometimes. So, now I've closed that era and entered the Laptop Era of the blog. It's mostly the same except I haven't had the chance to introduce the laptop to the scanner/printer and that's why you see the pictures. I prefer scanning. I think the images look better and you don't have to play with the lighting or angles or worry about sunlight and all that. But sometimes scanning isn't the best. For example, as bloggers have known for a long time, anything shiny or fo...

  I am old enough that I don't really get modern ball players.   It just happens. You get to a certain age and stuff doesn't make sense anymore. I didn't plan for it to happen. It just did. I'm OK with baseball being different than when I grew up, it would be weird if it remained the same as it was in the '70s and '80s. Nothing else about life is the same as it was then. And although I miss the stolen base and pitchers going 9 innings and ... singles for crying out loud ... I understand. Things change.   The most difficult thing for me might be the emotional displays in the game today.   Obviously, the "histrionics" -- as I've called them in the past -- didn't happen much in the game when I was growing up. But as baseball has evolved culturally, so has players' behavior and I'm trying to keep up. I am not an outwardly emotional person. If I were to do something great on the field, I would have to force myself to do anything beyond raisi...

  Twice within the last few days I have started on a post idea -- pulled cards, done some research -- before figuring out I had already written that post. This is to be expected for someone who has been blogging about cards for more than a dozen years, at least five times a week. But it's getting more and more frustrating. I'm not frustrated because it wastes time. I have the time to post because I make the time to post. It's frustrating because it's happening more often and I feel like the new ideas aren't as reachable as they have been in the past. Maybe I'm blogging too often. If I blogged less, I'd be able to create more thoughtful content and have more time to create posts like that. Perhaps if I cut down to blogging four days a week, I could do that. This is just a thought right now. I've prided myself on blogging as often as I can (because I need to write). And if there are people out there who read this with their morning coffee every day, well, ...

  Don't you hate it when someone asks you a question in the comments of your post and you can't answer it? By the time you're able to find the answer, it's the next day or whatever and it seems pointless to answer in the comments, unless that person has that notifications thing going (I don't). John asked me a question about the Bob Bruce '67 Topps card I put at the top of last night's post, was it the error version or correct version? I was at work when I saw the comment and the card was at home. So I'll just post it here: It's the regular version, John, not the "RBAVES" error. Now that's service for you!   I'm also going to show off the cards that he sent me just the other day. It was mostly a bunch of newly released Dodgers, particularly stuff from this year's Panini Donruss offering. These were all also pulled for me in a Nachos Grande group break, which is the perils of being a popular blogger who enters a group break. But...