Card show adjacent

I got covid-19 vaccinated today (1 of 2) with a leftover dose that might've gotten thrown out otherwise. The story there is my mother-in-law is a recently retired medical professional who has been volunteering at vaccinating events. My wife and I were totally fine waiting till whenever, but her mom was really pushing to get us on the stand-by list for any leftover doses. We got a call in the late afternoon letting us know that there were some spots open if we could get our butts down to the place ASAP, and knowing that her mother wouldn't let it go until we finally got it, we hopped in the car and headed down. Everything was winding down for the day by the time we got there. I'm not great with needles, but the whole process was completely painless and I thought the guy was joking when he said he was done, as I was expecting a nasty pinch that never came. (My arm might be sore tomorrow, but it's fine at the moment.) We heard them say they still had like 9 doses left after us, and I only saw like 2 or 3 other people bringing up the rear behind us, so I'm glad we didn't take a dose away from any more deserving folks, rather we just took doses that would've been wasted otherwise because the stuff doesn't have a very long shelf life and wouldn't be usable tomorrow.

Now we just gotta wait a month to get the 2nd shot and we should be good. After that, I think I'll be confident enough to venture back to the card show for the first time in a year. From what I hear, Portland's monthly card show has been as packed as ever lately and great bargains are getting harder to find thanks to the sportscard bubble pumped so big these days. So I might have to be a bit more restrained with my purchases, but the lure of thumbing through fresh cards again is strong. My wife is more excited about returning to the gym again.

Oh, anyways, when I came home, I opened a package of cards from fellow Portland-based card collector Kenneth of the blog Cardboard Hogs (which is active again after being dormant for a while and you should be sure to check it out if you haven't recently).

Ken attended the little blogger meet-up I helped organize a few years back and it's cool bumping into him at the card show once in a while. I feel bad that he had to pay postage to mail this recent package rather than a free hand-off at a show, but hopefully we're running into each other again in person soon.

Stamps and stickers?! Impressive.

Nice bunch of Gavins here, especially the bottom two, both new to me. I have a ton of pre-rookie Gavin Lux cards but almost no rookie cards of his, probably because I didn't buy much 2020 cards (or trade that much last year either)... so this one is extra appreciated.

An assortment of Padres plus a Hoyt.

And finally, some '75s for my setbuild. Nice! J.R. Richard was a need and the others are upgrades. I've become a bit disheartened about vintage setbuilding recently (think I'm gonna have to pull the plug on my short-lived run at 1959 Topps, for example, as unless there's a big bubble burst coming up, the likes of the Mantle and Bob Gibson's RC might be too much of a financial commitment for me to sign up for under current prices).. but at least '74 and '75 Topps shouldn't be too hard to wrap up one of these days. Ninety-six 1975 cards remaining for me, and I've got both big rookies already.

Thanks again, Ken! Much appreciated. I'll try to round up a return for you soon.