A weekend to remember (for better or worse)

There are a bunch of cool baseball cards in this post, I promise! Just give me a minute to set the scene.

Sometimes my phone takes a "silent video" ("blast" [gif]) when I mean to take a photo. This was a weird one.

But anyways, yeah. We usually have a tradition of taking a weekend at the coast around Mother's Day with my wife's family.

This year we went back to Manzanita for the 3rd year in a row.

It was a rainy weekend, but we were able to strategically head down to the beach during breaks in the weather. Our dog Annie sure loves chasing her Red Squeaky anywhere, but especially on the beach.

She loves it so much, it gives her the power of levitation!

This following string of selfie attempts turned out like a photobooth strip:

Annie's a good pooch!

Last dog pic of the post, I promise.

Here's the annual photo of my wallet card meeting the Pacific Ocean.


Ok, eagle-eyed readers, time to spot the Wallet Card:

I posted a similar pic of this before, as it's the only MLB thing I've seen in this house that we've rented 3 times now. This cushion down by the pool table always makes me think of Tony L. and the other Brewers Buds in my little circle. Classic logo.

Amen to that, brother! I would be fired and likely sentenced to death.

Another wallet card pic down in the pool table room. Maybe next year (assuming we go back), I'll get a shot of the actual pool table.

Here's another picture that readers with very good memories will remember, as I'm pretty sure I posted the same thing last year or the year before that but with that year's wallet card.

Ok, ok.. I know I said no more dog pics, but this one is actually more of a flower pic, so let's let it slide. Anybody looking for a great, inexpensive family rental house on the Oregon coast, let me know and I'll point you towards this one. As I say, we've been there 3 years in a row and we love it. Even spotted a bald eagle this year.

Unfortunately it was too damp in the evenings to get much of a bonfire going outside, but I slipped out to at least make my own little fire that lasted for maybe a minute. No s'mores, but good enough.

Instead we mostly hung out inside, drinking much wine and enjoying DJ Defgav's bumping playlist of popular favorites with plenty of ELO, Steve Winwood, and Tom Petty. We also squeezed in a fun game of Apples to Apples. And hey, I didn't lose! (came in 2nd-to-last, though.)

Crap, I'm sorry, another dog pic snuck in despite my best intentions. Here's Annie taking her rightful place under the table during our game. She's a good girl (though she was bad and went potty in the house a couple times during the weekend. Not cool!)

Then after a lovely weekend, we made our way back into Portland. A highway 5 maintenance closure forced us onto an alternate route, and well, as I mentioned in my previous post, we hit a snag on our way back home...

Yep, that snarled slurry of metal, plastic, and wires used to be my car. Actually my wife's car, as I rarely drive (drove) it these days (though it was mainly my car a few years ago back when I commuted to work from SE Portland into Beaverton). It's likely beyond repair, which sucks. At least we still have my car (handed down to me from her folks a few years back, which is like our "back-up car" these days, as I take public transportation to work rather than fuss with driving and parking downtown. Believe it or not, I typically only drive once a month.. To where? The card show, of course!) Hopefully the insurance takes good care of us, but we'll see. Thankfully my wife and I are doing fine financially so we'll be able to absorb this without too much pain, but it's still a huge headache, not to mention the emotional smackdown of being in a car wreck. I suppose I'm glad I was able to keep my shit together among the scene of people freaking out. My neck was a bit tweaked for a couple days (felt like I slept on it wrong) but seems to have rebounded fine. (It was my first experience with an airbag. It was a bit surreal as it was happening. I don't know if I've just become pessimistic about life these days [I mean, the president of these great United States is unquestionably evil, for chrissake! How did it come to this?], but it was almost like I expected it to happen. Like, as I was rocketing into the airbag from the impact, my thoughts were, "yeah, this is about right.") My wife got a nasty bruise on her arm from the steering wheel and tweaked her back a little, but is feeling much better now. Annie was in the backseat and apart from trembling a little bit in the aftermath, seems to have gotten through the entire ordeal unscathed, thankfully.

Anyways, eventually we all made it back home safe (my wife took a detour to the hospital just to be safe and get checked out, driven by her folks, after I assured them I was fine and they dropped me and Annie off at home. My wife gives her mom shit for being so over-reactionary to everything [she's the kind of mom who will text to check in on you during a thunderstorm], but sometimes it is nice to have someone in your corner who puts your well-being at the very top of their priorities. Not everybody has that. I think my wife often takes it for granted.)

So yeah, what I've been getting to is eventually, later in the night, things chilled out enough to where I could take a moment to open the mail that I had waiting for me, which included 3 packages. Ready for the cards?

Here's a card I'd been wanting for a while! This Kris Bryant 1st Bowman Chrome was a key card missing from my PC and was the highlight of the "rookie lot" I ended up with in JBF's Big Fun Game. I'm still envious of the Yaz RC that Night Owl ended up with, but I can't complain about this lot graciously provided by Wes.

More rookie cards of guys I collect. Well, Buster Posey isn't officially a guy I collect, but I find it hard to part with his cards when I get them, so I almost kinda collect him, I guess.

And here are a couple more guys I collect, but I already have these 2 cards, so they're available for trade.

And here's the rest of the rookie lot. Plenty of notable players here. These aren't PC guys for me, though, so they'll be headed to my tradebox. (feel free to speak up for any of them.)

Wes kindly threw in a few bonus cards for me, specifically the most impressive lot of Gavin Floyd cards I can recall ever getting at once.

Printing plates! Feels kinda like cards that look like this are getting overplayed these days-- talking about Donruss "press proofs" and all the parallels in 2017 Bunt Physical that are basically faux printing plates-- but these are the real deal, true 1/1 cards.

Yet another printing plate for good measure, plus a 2013 mini #'d 1/5. The black border looks great with the White Sox colors.

And a Big Fun Game parallel of jbf's certified auto! I got number 69. Nice.

Big thanks for the Big Fun Game, Wes! That was awesome.

- - - --o

Next up is a trade package from reader TSHenson. He kindly let me dump much of my overflowing Indians cards and Olympic cards on him, later returning the favor with some guys I collect.

Bunch of my boy Wil Myers.

Trea Turner has been running hot and cold this season, but his Nats are rolling.

Trevor Story has been struggling to hit his weight this year, but he's still a guy I collect... for now. Hopefully he turns things around.

Finally, a nice pair of Mookies and Niekros. Thanks, man!

- -  - --o

Lastly for today, here's an eBay win. Gotta admit I wasn't really familiar with Bob Watson. But anytime a Topps Retired refractor auto pops up with a low opening bid, you can bet I'll be throwing a bid on it, and sometimes I win. Just love these cards! This one is from 2003, a set I like better than 2005, but not quite as much as 2004.

The back of the card is devoid of red stats, but still a very fine career, with his heyday being on the hapless Astros teams of the 70s. Bob was the first player to hit for the cycle in both the NL and the AL. He was clutch in the postseason, batting .371, but didn't win a World Series until 1996 as GM of the Yankees, making him the first African American GM to win a WS championship.

So there were some cool cards that helped brighten my spirits after a hectic, scary afternoon.
Thanks to those of you who've left me comforting comments, and thanks as always for reading!