Goodbye 2015 and my employment

The whole "new chapter/fresh start" aspect of New Years is very much underscored for me this year, with my job coming to an end on 12/31. As I've mentioned before, the company is packing up and moving to the Atlanta area. I'm just a temp, and there were a few times when I almost parted ways with the company during my time here, but somehow stuck around for nearly 3 years. In that time, I've moved into my first house (renting, but still), got married, and started this blog.

I kinda loved the job, as it was close enough to ride my bike to work, it's chill enough to where I could wear jeans to work, listen to my iPod for a few hours, and have enough downtime to read & write baseball card blog posts. Plus I had relaxed hours where I didn't need to come in until 9, allowing me to sleep in reasonably. That was pretty great. I hope my next job has those same perks, but I know it's a longshot. This really was a golden age for me. Sad to see it pass!

I don't have anything new lined up at the moment. So for the foreseeable future, I'll be hitting the job search hard. Probably aim for a low-hanging data entry job or some entry-level claim analyst thing. Any remote/work-from-home jobs you guys know of? Hook a brother up! (And as always, any card companies willing to hire a remote worker for anything, let me know. Topps/Panini/UD/Leaf-- I'll start at minimum wage! What have you got to lose?!)

I'm going to celebrate tonite by drinking opening my last Xmas/bday hobby box: 2014 Tribute. Stay tuned for that recap post tomorrow, most likely. Follow me on Twitter for more immediate updates, if you simply need to know what I pull ASAP. I'm trying to hit the 200 follower mark by the end of the year (PST) and have a little contest going to advance this goal, so throw me a follow if you want.. I'm just a few short. @breakdowncards

My card room is a freaking mess right now, mostly crap I've taken from work. Don't worry, nothing stolen-- they're just trying to clean the place out, so there's lots of free stuff available to grab.

So many envelopes! I'm set for PWEs in 2016. I'm also planning on stepping up my TTM action this coming year, so these will be handy. I won't need to buy envelopes for a long time. I've got like a couple thousand of them now, probably. Sure, some of them have clear address windows or my work's return address printed on them, but it's not too hard to work around that.

Of all the "free stuff" I got from work, I might be most excited about this professional-grade paper cutter. One area of my hardcopy custom cards I'd like to improve are the rough edges. This should help me out with that. Clean, smooth cuts!

Ok, this wasn't from work, but as long as I'm talking about improving my hardcopy customs, here's the legit new printer my wife got me for my birthday. I'm excited to set this badboy up and start cranking out some neat cards. Should be a nice upgrade over the $38 printer I've been using.

Some more random crap from work. Can always use more shipping tape. Not pictured, but plenty of pens, Sharpies, post-its, etc etc.

You guys know I'm an autograph collector, right? LOL. No, I didn't grab this for the signatures of a bunch of former co-workers. This is actually kinda old, so the majority of these people had already left, several of which before I even started working there. Many of my co-workers aren't on here because they had yet to come on at the point this was made. But I was in the market for a nice frame for a card display project I've got in the works (Stay tuned!), so I was happy to see this find its way into the "free stuff" area for the yoinking. Still though, I'm sentimental enough to where I probably won't trash these signatures. I remember walking past this in the hall many times. Oh dude, I'm totally going to sign it myself! I'm gonna do it! Wait for it...

Snagged three different cork boards from work. Gave one to my wife and the others will likely be used for me to display cards (safely out of direct sunlight, of course).

I can't have a post without featuring at least one card, so here's a random recent pickup: my first Vogelmoster auto!

Finally, here's a photo of my dog Annie obsessing over light reflecting off my laptop as I type up this post. I started the draft at work on my last day and am now finishing it at home. Man, I hope my next job is cool!

Happy New Year, you guys!