last mailday for a while is a good one

Heading to Hawaii this coming week, but had a nice sendoff of cards show up at my door today.

Here's a gorgeous card I need for my 2004 Topps Retired auto set. Down to 8 left to go.

Bip plate auto! Thanks again for the trade, ARPSmith!

A Topps shirt! Call me a dork, but I'm excited to wear this and broadcast to the outside world that I'm a baseball card collector. Maybe some old guy will see it and be like, "oh yeah, I've got some old Mickey Mantles in my attic that aren't doing me any good.. Want 'em?" and I'll be all like "Shuu-YEAH!" (No, but more likely some guy with a ton of 88-93 junk will ask if I want to buy his collection for a grand.)

Finding a baseball card shirt wasn't easy (this was secondhand off eBay). I think Topps and Panini are really dropping the ball with potential merchandise cashflows. (I also looked into finding a Rated Rookie logo shirt, but seemed to be sold-out everywhere.)

Finally, Rod from Padrographs is another Padre fan in Portland, and he graciously swung by my house today with a big-ass box of Padres to gift me.

Very excited to spend some time going through this stuff. Already took a quick look at some of the good stuff, including a few Jake Peavy jerseys and some various autographs. Awesome! And cool to meet a blogosphere buddy in person, if only for a couple minutes. Huge thanks again, Rod.. Please just let me know if I can ever return the favor with anything!

So that's it for today. I have something big planned for the blog tomorrow (contest, mayhaps?), if I can find time between packing and other preparation activities.