2020: A Year In Review

The image above should look familiar as it dominated the news and social media for much of 2020. COVID-19 has affected everyone on the face of the planet and turned some of our lives upside down. I'm used to grabbing my hat, keys and wallet before I headed out the door, now I have to remember to grab a face mask as well.

Shortly after the virus hit things started to shut down. I remember driving home from a couple of days of meetings out of town back in March and hearing of the first NBA player to come down with the virus, effecting halting games. Then there was rumors starting up that the Men's NCAA basketball tournament being cancelled outright. Crazy. Spring training was still weeks away so I was hoping the baseball season would get underway without too many issues. WEll, we know what would follow...the season would be horribly delayed.

Local governments started shutting things down, people were being asked to stay at home. Many school systems sent kinds home to learn towards the end of the school year. I think most of us though this would only be for the interim and in 60 days or so things would get back to normal. Nope.

As a result of the lockdowns and quarantines, people found themselves at home with more time on their hands than normal. Some people got out and enjoyed the outdoors, camping, hiking and the like. My family tried the tent camping thing again after we found mice had ruined the canvas on our pop up camper. Others started home improvement projects while others were looking for a hobby or in some cases re-discovering a hobby. That's where cards come into the equation.

With sports shutting down people were looking to get their sports fix in anyway possible. ESPN helped with the likes of the Michael Jordan documentary among others, but a lot of people rediscovered the trading card hobby. For many, many years you could find sealed boxes of cards, especially from the "junk wax" error...but things were about to change. Nostalgia is very real and was (and still is) running strong. This lead to the prices of older boxes of cards on the secondary market to rise. Then retail started to dry up. Prices across the board, sealed boxes and singles, started to skyrocket. Boxes of NBA Hoops and Skybox basketball cards that I grew up collecting were now effectively out of my range and it seemed as if everything else was to follow.

Collecting cards in 2020 was changing. I think a lot of people who were already collecting took the time to get their house in order. I've seen a lot of blog posts/tweets/Facebook threads of people getting their collections organized. That may have included cataloging their collection with the likes of Google Sheets, MS Excel or using a service like the Trading Card Database. I was one that did the latter, loading up my TCDB profile with my collection/want lists for various sets I was/am working on. To date I've completed 212 trades with 6 transactions currently in the works. This has helped me tremendously enjoy this great hobby that much more. I love helping others fill holes in their sets or collections and of course I enjoy being able to fill my own holes. I may have bitten off more than I can chew when it comes to new sets I took on trying to build in 2020...I'm going to have to scale that back in the new year!

If you've not yet signed up on TCDB I highly encourage you to do so. Not only is it a great resource (checklists, etc) the trading aspect of the site is fantastic. Some people think you have to pour hours and hours into the site uploading their collections and what not, but that couldn't be more wrong. I haven't uploaded my team collections of Braves, Panthers or Hornets and I'm not sure I ever will...but it's easy to add wanted cards of players to my want list. I also super collect Rey Ordonez and the site has been instrumental to make sure I have accounted for every one of his cards and have them on my want list. It may take a little time to upload your cards you're willing to trade, but once the trade offers start coming in it's almost addicting to keep listing cards so the trades keep coming.

2020 also saw a return of my Affordable Group Breaks. Longtime readers/followers may remember these from years past. Because these breaks do generate a lot of work for me I eventually grew tired and retired from my hosting services. However as I found myself with just a little bit more time on my hands, I decided to fire up the breaks again. This time around however I tried a new format and even launched my own Facebook group. 

I've had a great year hosting these breaks and in the process have met a lot of new collectors, whether that be through this blog, the FB group or on Twitter. The pandemic has made it challenging at times trying to find product to break. It's hard trying to cater to everyone's collecting preferences, but looking back I feel as if I did a pretty good job. Who knew so many people would be willing to join a break that featured just a few retail blasters?! I'm still up the challenge and have already lined up several boxes once my breaks return to action in 2021.

When to comes to the seasons of my favorite teams in 2020, well it should be obvious as to which team had the best season. My Carolina Panthers had a crazy off season to say the least. New head coach and coaching staff, long time QB Cam Newton was released and veteran QB Teddy Bridgewater would take control of the team. Little did we know that our star RB Christian McCaffrey would miss most of the season with various injuries. Not a fun season to say the least. The Hornets season was canceled early due to the virus and they would not receive an invite to play inside the Bubble in Orlando. The new season has just started and 4 games in they find themselves with a .500 record, taking out the Nets and Mavs in the last few days. LeMelo Ball seems to be legit and he's mixing well with the other young studs the Hornets have. I'm still not a huge fan of the current NBA product, but I do look forward to being an active member of Buzz City this season.

As a Braves fan the shortened 2020 MLB season was fun, yet tough. It looked like the Braves were poised for greatness in 2019 before their offense disappeared in the playoffs. The expectations were high going into the season even before the pandemic delayed the start of the season. Once play began the team looked sharp, even though they lost several players due to them sitting out the season because of the virus (Felix Hernandez) or lost early in the season due to injury (Cole Hamels, Mike Soroka). That didn't seem to derail the team too much as they would go on to win their division and finally advance past the NLDS. However the Dodgers would yet again weasel their way past the Braves during the NLCS. In light of the crappy way the season ended, Freddie Freeman would go on to put together one of his best seasons every and would eventually be named NL MVP...an award much deserved.

With the Brave's on field success it led to a whole slew of new Topps Now cards. In years past I tried to grab as many as I could, but would always forget to check the Topps' site daily for new cards. Even though I was missing cards from all the previous years, I created a binder during the delay of the season. This time around I was much more proactive in staying on top of new releases, using various outlets to pick up the new cards for a fraction of the asking price. I was finally able to complete the team set, even picking up some of the special cards that highlighted awards such as Freeman's MVP.

  

I wasn't able to build nearly as many sets this year that I would have like due to not being able to find product at retail, however I was able to get my hands on a few non-sports sets that saw a comeback. Garbage Pail Kids Chrome recreates the original 1986 Series 3 set while WWE got the Chrome treatment for the first time since 2015! Right on the heels of Chrome came the WWE Finest set. While I still give the edge to Chrome, the Finest set is still a beautiful set with a good autograph checklist. These three sets have helped end 2020 on a fun note for me. 

There have been a lot of ups and downs this year and I for one am looking forward to turning the page to a new year. I'm not sure how much better 2021 will be as this global pandemic doesn't look like it's going anywhere anytime soon. Because of this I'm glad to have a hobby such as this to help keep my mind off of the craziness that surrounds us all. I hope and pray that the new year will bring positive change and by the time I'm writing my next year in review type post that we'll be looking at COVID in the rear mirror.

2018 In Review

The new year has already ushered itself in so now is the time to look back at the year that was. In 2018 this blog had 79 posts, 19 fewer posts from 2017, but 29 posts more than 2016.

2018 also saw the return of the Affordable Group Break. I had gotten away from my hosting duties as I had gotten a little burnt out and needed some time to focus on other things...like getting my collection organized...which still hasn't fully happened. I suspended the breaks in late 2018, but I may bring it back at some point in the first quarter of 2019 if I think there are enough people interested.

On the topic of breaks, I held a break that benefited a friend and his family quest to adopt a child from overseas. The break was successful and we collectively were able to make a decent size donation to their GoFundMe account...which by the way they did make their goal to have a successful adoption!

Last week I read somewhere that they though card blogging was dead and that many people had moved onto using Twitter as their medium for collecting and sharing cards. While I somewhat agree with their statement, I'm not ready to give up the blog. Granted my blogging activity is down, I know I'm not the only one that suffers from finding time to blog. I'm still collecting, still adding cards to my want lists and trade lists and when I have time, I'm still reading other blogs and trying to make trades when possible. I also try to stay engaged with several fellow card collectors on Twitter. If you're not already following me and you want to, @flywheels is my handle. However my Twitter account is used across all of my blogging platforms so if you only follow card bloggers, but know that you may see a toy or video game related tweet from time to time.

 

I'm not one to create goals for myself in the new year as I already feel as if I have enough on my plate. I really want to get myself and my collection more organized...who doesn't?! I have started to take steps at putting sets I've actively building into binders. This will make it easier for me to add the new cards to the set as well as enjoy the sets I'm building. I've already purchased Avery spine labels and made myself a template I plan on using for the binders. If I'm going to take the time to do binders, then I want to do it right. I hope to dive into creating the binders and the spine inserts really soon as this is a project I've been excited about undertaking.

After I complete the binders, it's back to organizing my monster boxes that house my team collections. I'd love to put these in pages too, but time/money/space won't allow that right now. Plus my ADD doesn't allow me to put cards in pages unless there are perfectly in alphabetical order by card release.

I was able to pick up some good cards in 2018 as well. Some came through group breaks that I either hosted or participated in, trades or eBay purchases. I'm really behind on my scanning of cards so here are just a few that I already happened to have scans of readily available.

You would think that with me working from home so much during the year that I would be able to create more content for this blog and the rest of the ones I operate, but between work, family and my other hobbies it's a constant struggle that doesn't seem to be getting any better any time soon.

I'm looking forward to a new year of cards, with 2019 Topps just a few weeks away from being released. I hope to be able to continue to build the annual sets that I enjoy (Gypsy Queen, Allen & Ginter, Archives) while I continue to chip away at filling holes and cleaning up my want lists.

A huge thank you goes out to everyone that I've met along the way. The card blogging landscape continues to change and I know we haven't seen the last of these changes. I continue to enjoy sharing and talking cards with everyone, whether it's here on the blog, on Facebook or on Twitter.

A look back at 2017

Here I thought the winter months would bring me more downtime to blog and take care of other hobby related things and my last post was 3 weeks ago. So much for "downtime"! I did however want to take advantage of my last day of vacation before heading back into the work week to look back at the previous year like I usually do.

Before I look back at the year that was, let me take a moment to share my card related gifts from Christmas. Now I have to be honest here and say my wife bought and wrapped for me the rack pack of 2017 Topps Update. I bought the clearanced box of 2016 Topps Update, 2017 Topps Gallery and one pack of 2017 Panini Playoff Contenders and put them in my own stocking! I grabbed the other pack of Contenders while in Charleston, SC with my wife as we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary.

2017 was a great year for me. I got to take in several professional games, something that I don't always have the chance to do. Back during the summer my wife and I got to take in two games in one weekend at the Braves new home, Sun Trust Park. What a beautiful ballpark to visit and soak up a few games.

Too bad the Braves on field performance fell short (of the Playoffs, not expectations). I did feel that going into the new season that the Braves would have performed better, after all they signed a few veteran starters in the offseason (Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey) to help anchor the rotation that had a lot of question marks. Dansby Swanson struggled and was demoted to AAA at one point, however Ozzie Albies got the call up late in the season to make it interesting to watch none the less. Then of course there was the scandal with the Braves front office that led to a shakeup with the general manager and other moves. I guess I'm more concerned about hte future of the team with the players they lost because of the rules they broke. None the less, we should see the young phenom Ronald Acuna in Atlanta, very, very soon!

Back in November I attended a business conference and trade show in uptown Charlotte and my employer treated us to the Panthers vs. Dolphins Monday Night football game. I hadn't attended an NFL game in many, many years so even though it was cold and I was sitting in the nose bleed section, it was a great time. The NFL regular season is over and my Panthers have limped into the Playoffs as a Wild Card. We were swept by the Saints during the regular season, but have a chance to get our revenge against them this upcoming Sunday. If they can make it past the New Orleans, an injured Eagles team waits in the 2nd round. So far this has been a good season for the team, despite the ups and downs we've had with injuries and Cam Newton's play at times.

On the card front, I don't feel as if I accomplished as much in 2017 as I have in past years. I pulled back on some of the set building I've done in the past, only focusing on the flagship Topps set (even though I slacked with series 2) and somewhat with Allen & Ginter and Stadium Club. This marks another year I didn't buy even one hobby box, choosing to stick to retail for my card needs.

I even ignored Gypsy Queen for the most part, something I haven't done since it's inception. I find this odd/funny because when it was announced that 2017 GQ was going to be less expensive and have less "bells & whistles" I was all jazzed. Then it was released and I only mustered up a few retail packs.

I did noticed that from a post count, 2017 makes the most I've blogged since 2013...and here I thought I dropped the blogging ball this year. I am behind on getting want lists created for sets I am working on, as well as actively looking to help others fill their holes in their collection with trades and what not. I did receive a few surprise packages from fellow bloggers over the last few weeks. A huge thank you to those who sent me cards. I always try to post and share what others have sent and I do plan on doing so when time allows.

While my single card purchases decreased during the year, I have a ton of 2017 Topps Now cards that I never got around to scanning and posting about. At this point I question if I should even bother putting them on the blog. Does anyone care at this point now that 2018 Topps flagship is right at a month away from being released? I did have some fun w/ the Topps Bunt (and Huddle) app and have routinely posted new digital cards of both sports to my Facebook page. Like others though, I'm still behind on scanning other new card purchases and getting that overall organization down. I hate all the random stacks of cards on my office desk. I bought a lot of stuff from BCW last Christmas to get myself organized and while I made some headway, I still have a lot of work to get totally organized.

All in all 2017 was a pretty good year to me. I do look forward to 2018 and what it holds for me and my teams (Panthers in the Super Bowl again?). I haven't researched much of what Topps and Panini have planned for the new year so I guess I'll just have to wing it moving forward. I hope that the blog can remain just as alive (if not more) in 2018. Thanks to all my fellow bloggers for the comments, trades and continued support.

Goodbye 2016

Looking over my post history for 2016 is a quick reminder of just how busy I was...or was it that blogging about cards lost some of it's appeal. Or was it a little of both?

I'm still not able to put a finger on it, but regardless a new year is upon on so why not take a few moments to look back at the past year...and share some images of cards I've picked up, but never posted about.

2000 Upper Deck

2005 Fleer Showcase #035/183

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like my player collections keep changing. I tend to pick players that don't always get a lot of cards or the players just drop out of the limelight all together, but one guy that I've stayed with is Tim Hudson. I have a good many of his cards already, but I'm amazed I keep finding cards of his that I don't own...especially cards of his pre-Braves days. Tim isn't going anywhere and I look forward to resuming my search for his cards in 2017.

2016 Topps Update Black parallel #60/65

The 2016 Braves may not have been the best team the club has assembled nor did they have the success I'm sure they were wanting, but one good thing did become of the season. Frenchy. When he signed the minor league deal during spring training I was beside myself. However I really didn't think he had a snowball chance in Hell to make the team. I was glad I was wrong. Early in the 2016 baseball card season I had to settle for cards of Francoeur in an ugly Phillies uniform, but towards the middle of the season Topps finally corrected this and issued a few proper cards of him in a Braves uniform. I was glad to have more cards of his to chase, especially trying to complete the rainbow of his 2016 Topps Update card seen above. I believe I'm still lacking the pink parallel to finish off the "set".

2015 Topps Heart of the Order

Freddie was back to his normal form in 2016. He was just as much fun to watch as ever, especially now that his eye sight issues that plagued him in 2015 seem to have been corrected. It was also fun following his journey becoming a dad for the first time during the season. After the Braves shipped Hector Olivera off to San Diego in exchange for Matt Kemp, Freddie was finally given a good power bat in the line up to compliment his game. The Braves may have not had the success they wanted, but they seem to be heading in the right direction and I'm glad that Freeman continues to be leading the way.

2016 Topps Gold Label

It seems as if you can always find new cards of your favorite players, even if they aren't playing the game any longer. I recently picked up this metal gold framed auto of Andruw Jones for about $5. These cards are much more beautiful in hand than they appear when scanned.

 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Relic

I don't actively seek out Chipper cards, but I pulled this GQ relic from a blaster while working on completing my 2016 GQ set (which I still need to do).

 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Relic

 2016 Topps Triple Threads Legends Relic #13/27

2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Framed Mini Relic

 I will seek out new cards of Smoltz however and I was glad to pick up these relics. I don't normally bother with Triple Threads, but this particular one caught my eye and the price was right.

Do you like the fact that Topps (and even Panini) are still mixing in retired players into current product checklists?

 2016 Topps Heritage

2016 Topps Gold Label

How can you talk about the 2016 baseball season and not bring up the Cubs. While I'm not a fan of the team, I was glad to see David Ross pick up a World Series ring. In the aftermath of the Cubs win I did manage to pick up a few Cubs cards of his before he rode off into the (retirement) sunset.

During the said Cubs World Series win aftermath, I found out that the Cubs reliever, Carl Edwards, Jr. was from my hometown of Charlotte, NC. I don't always actively collect cards of players from my hometown or from NC, but I found myself with yet another beautiful Gold Label auto. I'm not sure if he'll gain a spot in my PC, but it's still a nice card to own none the less.

 2016 Panini Instant

After the Braves season ended I was all ready to shift my focus to the NFL and my Carolina Panthers. The 2015 season fell just one win short of being magical, so I and many other fans thought we may be able to recreate that same magic in 2016. Wrong.

I guess one of the things that bothered me for much of the season was Cam Newton's play and the media. Cam had a bad year. The team had a bad year. Judging from the media though a player can't have a bad year. According to the media the MVP season Cam had a year a go was a fluke. According to the media Cam is the only QB in the NFL that is a sore loser. 

2016 Panini Prizm Intros

Why does everyone love to hate this guy? I've seen countless number of videos of Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and others throwing tablets, cussing up a storm on the sidelines and throwing their own versions of temper tantrums...yet the media acts as if Cam is the only one that is so emotional playing this game. While I won't and don't defend Cam 100% of the time, I do get sick and tired of the double standard.

Does Cam need to work on his mechanics in the off season to improve? Definitely. Is he a bad QB? Heavens no! Some fans say the Panthers should cut him. I wonder how many other fanbases would love to have Cam as their QB. The 49ers? Rams? Vikings? Eagles? Jets? Whatever the problem was for the team and for Cam, I hope they are able to work on it in the off season. I hope that the team management is able to take some of that cap money they didn't use in 2016 and go and sign some good veteran free agents to help solidify the offense line. Go draft some much needed young guys to fill in the holes on this team. 

2016 Panini Playbook Yellow Printing Plate 1/1

Regardless of the teams performance, I still sought out new cards at different times throughout the season. When your team isn't playing hard it's a little harder to get excited to hunt for new cards, but this printing plate of Greg Olsen is one of the best cards I picked up all year. You couldn't tell from that guy's play that the team had a 6-10 record. BTW, congrats to Greg for becoming the first TE in the NFL to record 3 consecutive seasons with 1,000 or more receiving yards.

I let a lot of things slide in 2016 and I plan on fixing those things in 2017. I have a lot of sets that I've never finished collating, yet along made lists for. I slacked off of trading and I'd like to get back to helping fulfill other collector's lists. My organization has been horrible. I've got some many stacks of cards all over my office and in my man cave down stairs that I can't remember what's going on. Thankfully that should be addressed really soon as just today a huge order I placed with BCW arrived. Too bad I had to leave to go out of town today, otherwise I would have dropped what I was doing to start to get organized again. Look for a post on this process in the near future.

I'm excited for the new year and what it will bring. The release of 2017 Topps Series 1 is just around the corner, the changes made to '17 GQ have me excited and before I know it I'll be busting a box of my annual favorite, Allen & Ginter. Let's just hope I don't lose this renewed energy and I can't keep it going for another year. Thanks to everyone out there in blogger world for the continued support. Here's to a great new year.

Looking back at 2014

First off, Merry Christmas to everyone! I know my annual "year in review" post is a little early, but I find myself sitting at work on this quite and rainy Christmas Eve with nothing but time on my hands.

2014 has been a big year for me and my family. For this blog...well not so much. I hadn't planned for my activity to plummet as it did a few months into the year, but sometimes those things just kind of happen. Looking back over my posts from the year it was pretty easy to recap things...so here we go.

The first card package I received in 2014 came from no other than The Collector's Crack and was a Topps Finest card of Tim Hudson my collection was missing.

January brought the end of my Carolina Panther's playoff run, losing to the hated San Francisco 49ers. I was a great ride so of course expectations were pretty high for the 2014 season. Well if you follow the NFL at all then you should know by now the Panthers season hadn't gone as expected. However by some sort of divine intervention the Panthers are playing the Falcons in Atlanta this Sunday for the NFC South title. The Panthers are 6-8-1 going into this game. Crazy to think a team with a losing record can win the division, but then again I've seen crazier things happen. At least I have something else to look forward to after Christmas this year.

The start of the new year also means new Topps baseball cards. Turns out this was one of two boxes I bought for the entire year! Where did my excitement go? Well I have to say as much as I liked the base design of 2014 Topps, the inserts didn't excite me. Now before you go and say that you don't collect the flagship brand for inserts, I guess the "work" of collating cards and such that goes with set building was starting to take it's toll. Collecting should be fun and not feel like work. However I started to realize I was biting off far more than I could chew. I was trying to build too many sets. Too many insert sets. Ultimately trying to do too much.

One of my goals in 2015 is to get myself organized, get rid of some cards and clean up my trade lists. I sorely miss trading with others, but I'm not in the right place to try and resume that activity. I may buy a few random packs of 2015 Topps, but I'm getting out of set building. I'll try my hand at A&G later in the year, but I'm drawing the line there. Some of the sets I was working on I'll try to finish (someday), but others on my want list will be disappearing soon.

2014 saw only one Affordable Group Break. Sad I know. I took a lot of pride in offering past group breaks on a near consistent monthly basis. However I found these breaks, while a lot of fun, took me away from my own organizational time and cards I needed to catalog and scan started to pile up.

I really enjoyed the return of Donruss and I wanted to jump into the second series Panini offered later in the year, but I never quite got around to it. I am eager to see what Panini's plans are for the Donruss brand in the coming new year.

Perhaps one of my favorite posts all year on the blog was when I interviewed a friend of mine who was asked to supply some sketches for 2014 Topps Museum Collection (and several UFC products). I don't feel as if I have many talents, so of course I'm jealous of people who can write, sing, build things or in this case, draw. James Michael-Smith is an incredibly talented guy and it was a lot of fun talking with him and seeing some of his final work, not to mention watch him sketch these images.

May 20, 2014 is the day the Charlotte Hornets returned to the Queen city of Charlotte, NC! Thus far in the NBA season it's been a bumpy ride for the Hornets, but it's so refreshing seeing the teal and the purple on the court again. For those of you outside the NC/SC area you may not understand what the big deal of a name change is, but for those of us in the area it's been a pretty big thing. Now let's just see if the team can repeat what the former team, the Bobcats, did last season and make the Playoffs!

Being out of the everyday cardboard loop, the return of the Stadium Club Firebrand inserts cards were a welcomed sight. While I still have yet to finish the set (chalk it up to laziness), this was one of my favorite insert sets of the year.

I believe it was around August I got a small bubble mailer from My Cardboard Mistress. (honey, if you're reading this that is the name of a blog! I swear I'm not cheating on ya babe!) Inside was a nice patch type card of the Charlotte Knights (the local AAA baseball club) mascot, Homer the Dragon, a autographed patch card of a Carolina Panthers Wide Receiver bust (Joe Adams) and the above auto of "Googs". Adam remembered that I'm a fan of NC State and sent along a beautiful card of one of my favorite alums.

In late August my wife and I took a trip down interstate 85 to Atlanta to catch a game at Turner Field against the Oakland A's. My wife scored us some great seats in right center field, first row. We were basically just to Jason Heyward's right. It was fun all around. It was Zombie night at the park so there were a lot of cool looking people walking around. Several home runs were hit, a few near where we sat, the guy next to me heckling the A's Josh Reddick was actually funny...and oh yeah, the Braves won the game. 

Little did I know that was the last game I'd attend and see Jason Heyward (and Justin Upton) in a Braves uniform.

Even though my Braves had another horrible second half crash and missed making the Playoffs again, I enjoyed most of the season (minus September). I picked up a few nice cards throughout the year. One of the best things of the season was watching the hometown kid, Alex Wood find his own on the mound.

Looking back it seems as if not a lot went on in 2014, but that couldn't be more wrong. Not related to this blog necessarily, a lot of changes happened with my family. Perhaps the biggest was my wife returning to work! She went back to the elementary class room to teach 3rd grade this time around. Her teaching license for North Carolina had expired so it proved challenging getting her back in the classroom, but she eventually made it...a whole 3 days before the new school year started! This also meant we had to find a place for our two daughters. It was tough on us emotionally as the girls had stayed home w/ my wife since their birth. However we got them enrolled in an awesome church program nearby and the girls quickly adapted and accepted the change. It's so awesome to see them learning classroom skills, but also about Jesus. They have friends now and of course this means welcome to the world of children birthday parties galore!

I was also introduced to the world of camping earlier this year as my wife twisted my arm and purchased a pop up camper with part of our tax return. I do have to say it is nice being able to easily take a trip to the beach or wherever whenever we want. I believe we camped down at Myrtle Beach, SC 3 times this year for less than it would have cost us if we had stayed in a hotel room for a few nights! It was also a blessing that the girls really enjoy being outside and getting dirty while camping. Who would have thought that?!

On the blogging front, my first blog, Random Toy Reviews, really took off. I started getting some real exposure in the toy collecting community which brought on a lot of interesting conversation. I didn't have any real big toy purchases to speak of, but I did eclipse the mark of 100+ toy reviews. I also started a side project I call the Transformers Bio Card Database. Over the years many Transformers toys would come packaged with trading cards, especially the Japanese releases. Being a card collector these cards really appealed to me. However I couldn't find a real resource out there for these cards alone...so I created one...or should I saw I'm creating one. Lastly I recently created my 4th blog. This one is called Rugged Music. Over the last handful of months I've been actively re-visiting a lot of the music I listened to while in high school and stuff I discovered via my old church youth group. It's all Christian oriented and mostly rock, hair/heavy metal stuff. I know I don't have a lot of extra time, but it has been fun working on it thus far.

As for 2015 and this blog goes, I hope to get myself better organized. I hope to continue to share cards of my interest with others and even return some of the generosity I was shown throughout this year. I don't see myself getting back to where I was a few years ago for several reasons, but I'm not ready to let go of this creative outlet I call Cardboard Collections.

I appreciate all my fellow bloggers who have kept me on your blogroll. I appreciate all the comments and cards people have sent my way. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The baseball card community has some of the best people hands down I've ever "met on the internet". Here's to an awesome 2015!