Road Trip Recap

Back in December, my best friend surprised me with a trip down to Pismo.  Well we went back down again, only this time it was more of a planned vacation.

However before I dive into our trip, here's your obligatory baseball card:

2017 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autograph #FFA-RK

Rusty is arguably known best for having one of the greatest names in hobby history.  But today he's featured in this post, because he grew up in a Central Coast town called Paso Robles, which happened to be our first stop on our road trip.

After taking a potty break, walking Tashi, and grabbing a refreshing acai bowl at The Neighborhood, we continued south on 101 to Pismo.

We stayed at the SeaCrest Oceanfront Hotel which offers some amazing coastal views of the Pacific Ocean.

The next day we woke up and headed about an hour southeast down to a little town in the Santa Ynez Valley called Solvang, which is known as the Danish Capital of America.

Wallet Card @ Ostrichland USA

We stopped off at Ostrichland USA to see and feed the ostriches.  I didn't realize how tall and cute they are in person.

Afterwards we headed into town to eat aebleskivers:

Wallet Card @ Solvang

The trip was filled with delicious food, gorgeous scenery, great company, and perfect weather.  Temperatures ranged from the low 70's during the day to high 50's in the early evening.

Here's the view from our patio:

That's me lounging with my computer catching up and commenting on all of your blog posts.  Life truly doesn't get much better than this.  Unfortunately that was only about an hour before we packed up and headed back home.

Thank you Jen for inviting me along with you, your mom, and Tashi!

My Spring Break has been non-stop since Saturday.  One of the first things I did was walk around the De Anza Flea Market, where I found a set of cards that I have wanted for decades.  I'm hoping to write a recap of my finds either today or tomorrow, but we'll have to see.

I have a pair of lunch dates, a few chores that need to be taken care of, and taxes that need to be filed.  Plus I'm suppose to meet my buddy's son-in-law to sell my car this evening, but I have to get it smogged before.  Today and tomorrow are going to be a little crazy.

Until I write again...

Happy Thursday 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!

Big Day, Big Sign

It's officially here.  The first day of the school year with warm bodies filling up seats.  That means going over the class syllabus, the school rules, and introducing my seventh graders to middle school.

It's been four weeks since I've had to talk to a classroom full of kids, so if things went as planned... I picked up a Strawberry Acai Refresher from Starbucks on my way to school.  I'm not one of those people who go on a daily basis (more like once a week), but I go enough where a few peeps working the morning crew know me.

Two of them are former students and one them happens to be a huge A's fan.  Last week, he left a special note on my cup and I figured it was a good opportunity to bust out my wallet card.  The drink sorta dwarfs the card, but I never finish all thirty ounces in one day.  It provides me with two days worth of refreshment.

Speaking of big, last week I purchased this big sign for my Oakland A's collection:

1973-74 Fleer Big Signs #NNO

According to the Beckett, these measure 12"x16" and were distributed in 1973.  However The Fleer Sticker Project, says there are two versions of the California Angels signs... so he thinks they could have been released in 1974 as well.

By the way... the sign is a tad bit smaller than what Beckett states.  I busted out my ruler and it measures 7.75"x11.5".  Anyways... this is an item I've been eyeing for awhile now and a vendor on eBay sent me a reasonable offer ($12.80 + $3.37 tax & shipping), so I accepted.

Well that's it for today.  When this post is published, I'll be in front of my first period class.  Hopefully things go smoothly.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Summer Vacation (& Baseball Cards)

This week was my annual Ashland, Oregon trip.  Four days up there with my friend and her family.  Four days of delicious food, gorgeous sunsets, good company, and excessive spending.

If you've never heard of Ashland, it's known for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that runs from March to October each year.  We've never watched any performances, but we did participate in a Shakespeare inspired "escape room" this year.

We also enjoy walking around Lithia Park in downtown area.  That's where I took this wallet card shot: 

Downtown Ashland also has a bunch of cool stores.  This year I spent more money than usual on Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family.  While my friend and her kids were shopping for clothes and stuff, I spent time in the record and toy shops.

But we would always meet up at the book stores and a comic book shop called More Fun.  This year I promised one of my nieces that I'd buy her a comic book.  She picked out a Godzilla vs. Avengers comic that looked really interesting.  I bought a copy for myself:

Godzilla vs. Avengers #1

I'm a huge Godzilla fan, so I also bought this issue:

Godzilla vs. Spider-Man #1 (2nd Printing)

I couldn't find any card shops in Ashland, but I did manage to purchase some cards in Medford... which is about 15 minutes away.

There's an antique shop I love to visit every summer called Main Antique Mall.  I found two vendors with sports cards, so I supported both.

The first one had this set of 7-11 discs for $8:

1983 7-11 Angels/Dodgers Coins

There are twelve discs in the set with a total of two hall of famers:

1983 was the first year 7-11 created these lenticular sports discs.  Their baseball set was a regional issue released in the Los Angeles area.  Here's a closer look at the front and back of Rod Carew's disc:

1983 7-11 Coins #1

The other vendor I purchased from had a box of 2025 Bowman singles that were priced at two for a dollar.  I grabbed these two:

2025 Bowman Chrome Mojo Refractor #12

2025 Bowman Chrome Mojo Refractor #BCP-114

There were a ton of 1st Bowmans, but I'm not big on prospecting... so I grabbed a Sasaki for my Japan PC and a Kurtz for my A's PC.

The final thing I want to show off is this awesome Thrifty's ice cream scoop:

I have been looking for one of these for quite some time.  A few weeks ago, my friend came across one of these at a store near her house.  She knew I worked there back in high school, so she bought it for me.

I'll go ahead and wrap up this post with one more baseball card:

1990 Donruss #229

Why am I showing off a Junk Wax Era card of a back-up catcher?  Well... he was born in Ashland, Oregon back in 1961:

Now that I'm back home... I'm hoping to continue to organize my collection and hammer out some blog posts featuring some recent card show pickups, flea market finds, and a few care package summaries.

Until then...

Happy Saturday and sayonara!