Chips & Donuts

Eating healthier is one of the most common New Year's resolutions and something I need to improve on.  But my first post of the year centers around cards related to a pair of unhealthy snacks:  chips and donuts.

Before I get to them, I wanted to thank all of you who commented on my post earlier in the week.  I thought I was getting better, but ended up spending most of the week in bed.  Today was the first day that I woke up and wasn't super congested.  Now if I could only kick this cough.

I also owe a huge thank you to my best friend who dropped off chicken noodle soup, orange juice, oranges, miso soup, and other snacks to me this week.  She did it "lockdown" style by leaving it on the porch and texting me from a distance.  Anyone else remember those days?

To return the favor, I woke and took a trip down to Dunkin' Donuts.  They're giving away these little tote bags (and a donut) with the purchase of any beverage.  She really likes stuff like this, while I'm more into stuff like this:

1998-99 EX-Century Dunk'N Go-Nuts #8DG

Back in 1998, I opened a lot of basketball and pulled this insert.

It's just another example of why I enjoy inserts from that era over today's stuff.

Let's move along to the "chips" segment of this post.

Now I've been sitting on a bunch of packages that I was planning on opening over the course of the holiday break.  But "phlegm" happens.

The thing about being congested is that most of the stuff I've been eating barely has any flavor.  Then earlier in the week, I remembered that Ryan a.k.a. SumoMenkoMan sent me a full case of 2025 Calbee Chips.

These are just salty enough to tickle my taste buds.  Plus each bag includes a pack of two baseball cards.  here's what this year's design looks like:

2025 Calbee #63

2025 Calbee #114

So far I've opened seven bags of chips, but this is the only pack of cards.  I'll definitely open up the rest at some point.  The same applies to the eBay purchases and blogger care packages (from Angus, Dennis, and Bob) shown above.

Update:  I just received three PWE's (not shown above) from Kenny, Matt, & Jim.

I did manage to ship out some holiday cards and care packages on Tuesday to the following zip codes:  

11572, 16933, 97230, 98665, 35750, 95350, 32720, 05866, 85226, 08540, 48105, 34472, 13601, 03063, 17320-8511, and 96326

I have a few more I need to put together as soon as I'm feeling better.

Thank you Ryan for the tasty chips.  And a special thanks to Kevin over at The Diamond King for motivating me to ship out more care packages this holiday season.

Inspired by Jeremy @ Topps Cards that Never Were, here are today's questions of the day:

What's your favorite chip?

What's your favorite donut?

Happy New Year and sayonara!

Whirlwind of a Week

This past week has been filled with surprises of all varieties that are best broken down into the following categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good:  Surprise Road Trip

Last Sunday my friend invited me to join her and her mom down in Pismo Beach for a short vacation along the Central Coast of California.  My lower back was feeling good for the first time in weeks, so I couldn't pass up this opportunity.

We spent a total of three days and two nights there and the weather was perfect for walking on the beach, doing a little shopping, eating delicious meals, and hanging out by the fire pit.

Here are a few photographs from our trip:

Tashi & Me

Wallet Card @ the Fire Pit

In a few days, it'll be eleven years since Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown inspired collectors to pick a card in their collection that they enjoy and start carrying it around in their wallets.  I don't go on too many vacations, but when I do... I'll pull it out.  

Wallet Card @ the Beach

In honor of Gavin, I made sure to take a photo of my wallet card in the wet sand.  He usually takes things a step further by allowing his card to take a dip in the water, but mine isn't quite ready to swim.

Another thing I like to do when writing about trips is research famous athletes who were raised in the area.  Unfortunately Pismo Beach's population isn't very high, so I couldn't find any notable athletes that I was familiar with from the area.

Ribeye @ Jocko's

However on Monday night, my friend took us out for a delicious ribeye steak at a restaurant in the small town of Nipomo.

2019 Topps Clear Travel #CP-53

Jeff McNeil went to high school in Nipomo and ironically, the New York Mets traded him to the Sacramento A's on the day of our dinner.

The next day we woke up, packed, ate a yummy breakfast then rushed back to the Bay Area in an effort to beat the rain, wind, and predicted flooding.  Thankfully we got home safe and sound, but this was going to be just a quick stop for me.

The Bad:  Under the Weather

My brother met me at my house and the next morning we drove to Roseville and spent Christmas with our brother's family.  We lucked out and avoided any holiday traffic, because we left at 5am.  But we did hit some rain which made it hard to see the roads at times.  Thankfully, my bro got us there in one piece.

Christmas Eve was pretty relaxing.  We watched some movies and ate a delicious miso salmon dinner.  However, I started to feel a little congested.

We all woke up early on Christmas morning, ate fried rice for breakfast, and opened presents.  At around 10am, my head was throbbing so bad from the nasal congestion that I took some Mucinex and laid down.  I kept hoping I'd feel better, but by the afternoon I had quarantined myself from the everyone.

It rained off and on throughout Christmas Day.  There's a creek that runs behind my brother's property that was slowly rising.  It peaked sometime around 9pm and ended up flooding half of the backyard, but thankfully the water had receded by the next morning.

The Ugly:  Worst Headache in Years

The day after Christmas, we came home.  I loaded up on over the counter cold meds, orange juice, and chicken noodle soup and hoped the road to recovery would begin.  It didn't.

Friday and Saturday were rough.  Every time I coughed, I'd feel a sharp pain in my head.  My main sources of relief were sleeping and taking hot showers.  Fortunately, I woke up this morning feeling a little better.  I still have a cough with phlegm, but the headache is tolerable.

I'm planning on resting one more day to help my body fight whatever it is I'm dealing with.  

Hopefully I'll finally ship out the holiday care packages I've been putting together either tomorrow or Tuesday.

In the meantime, I wanted to recap the highlights from my 2025 Topps Holiday Advent Calendar.  Several other bloggers have covered the day by day contents of their calendars, so I figured I'd just show my favorites...

2025 Topps Holiday Buyback: 1997 Topps #410

The two buybacks were the main reason I purchased one of these advent calendars.  To pull one of my all-time favorite baseball player was a dream come true.

The other card I was really hoping to pull was a Nick Kurtz rookie:

2025 Topps Holiday #H40

The Green Plaid parallels pair perfectly with any of the A's players.  I was fortunate to pull one:

2025 Topps Holiday Green Plaid #H32

It seems like The Nice List inserts were a hit with collectors.  I don't love them or hate them.  I just wish Topps made them a little tougher to pull.

2025 Topps Holiday Making The Nice List #MNL-2

Overall I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this product's design.  My buddy opened a couple of blasters and told me I could have his duplicates.  If I have a reasonable percentage of the set, I might just purchase a blaster and attempt to build it.

Well that's about all the energy I can muster right now for a blog post.  I hope all of you are enjoying your holidays.  As soon as I can ship out all of those care packages (hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday), I will write another post.

Until then...

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

A Trio of BIPs (Blogger Inspired Purchases)

A quick post with a back update and some recent blogger inspired purchases.  Let's start with the back.  I'm still in a lot of pain, but at least it's not constant.  I've had to burn a handful of sick days and a couple of half days, but it's slowly getting better.

One of the most comfortable positions is laying down flat, pillow under my neck, legs bent, feet flat on the ground, with a heating pad under my lower back.  As luck would it... I'm able to still use my laptop (which lays on my belly) to create Google Slides and lesson plans, do some online Christmas shopping, read blogs, and of course buy cards.

Most of my recent card purchases have been inspired by fellow bloggers.  Let's get to it...

BIP #1:  Beastie Boys Custom

2024 Nine Pockets 1982 Topps In Action #3

Regular readers know that the Beastie Boys are my all-time favorite group.  So when I saw that Gregory over at Nine Pockets created a new card for them, I immediately headed over to his eBay store and purchased four copies.  I asked if he'd sign one of them which he graciously did.  Here's a scan of the back:

He also offered to include a free copy of his original Beastie Boys custom:

2020 Nine Pockets 1982 Topps Future Stars #5

I already own a copy, but told him I'd love an extra for my buddy who is also a huge fan.

Thank you Gregory!  And keep up the creation of sweet customs!

BIP #2:  Iconic Hockey Set

1990-91 Upper Deck French Hockey Set

Not a lot of hockey fans out there, so I'll keep it short (not really... so if you need to... just scroll down).  This set was huge back in the 90's and I've always wanted to own a copy of the French version.  It was once considered much rarer than the English version.

1990-91 Upper Deck French #525

The set is loaded with hall of fame rookie cards including guys like Mike Modano, Ed Belfour, Mats Sundin, Pavel Bure, and Sergei Federov.  Plus it's only a matter of time before Jaromir Jagr gets inducted.

As for the blogger that inspired this purchase, that honor goes to this trio.

#1 Gregory @ Nine Pockets (Again):  He got the ball rolling with a post showing off his complete 1991-92 Upper Deck hockey set back in October.

#2 Bulldog @ Nothing If Not Random:  Bulldog wrote a post showing off three packs of 1991 Upper Deck football that reminded me how awesome early 90's Upper Deck products were.

#3 Joseph @ CrazieJoe's Card Corner:  The day after Bulldog's post, Joe showed off a 1990-91 Upper Deck Tom Barrasso hockey card in a post and the search was on.

Two weeks later, I won an auction on eBay for $21.62 (+ tax & shipping).  Two of the cards (#92 & #93) were English versions.  Unfortunately the seller didn't have either of these cards laying around, but he did refund me a few bucks to cover the cost of me tracking them down for my set.

BIP #3:  Barry Sanders Oddball Rookie

1989 Detroit Lions Police #11

Two weeks ago, Greg over at CROCODILE SPORTS CARDS showed of some recent purchases that included an oddball rookie card of one of the greatest running backs of all-time.

That same day, I purchased a copy of my own off of eBay for $11.75 (tax & shipping included).

Anyone who had the pleasure of watching this guy run in the 90's understands his greatness.  It's just a shame he played for the Detroit Lions.  Can you imagine what his career would look like if he was running behind the Dallas Cowboys' offensive line?

Speaking of the Detroit Lions, I'm quietly rooting for them to beat the Los Angeles Rams today.  Not sure if that'll happen, but if it does and the Seahawks can take down the Colts... the Hawks would own the best record in the NFC.  Let's go Lions, Hawks, and Packers!

Thank you Gregory, Bulldog, Joseph, and Greg for inspiring me to add these cards to my collection!

Happy Sunday and sayonara!