Summertime

It's official.  My two and a half week summer break has arrived.  What does that mean?  Well... it means I get a chance to do the following:

1.  Relax and sleep in.

2.  Finish sorting the remainder of those 5,000ct. boxes.

3.  Take my niece and nephew down to San Luis Obisbo.

4.  Finally build and ship out the four "prize packages".

5.  Get both of my cars washed.

6.  Wrap up a few trades I'm involved in.

7.  Catch up on Game of Thrones, Orphan Black, Hell on Wheels, and The Walking Dead.

8.  Write and schedule a bunch of blog posts in advance.

9.  Prepare for the two new subjects I'll be teaching next year.

10.  And maybe... just maybe hit up a flea market.

In the meantime... I though I'd share the first card that came to mind when I thought of summer:

I'm pretty sure it's the first autograph I ever pulled from a pack.  It's from a set produced back in 1992 called Beach Sports.  It's primarily a beach volleyball set with surfing, windsurfing, and skateboarding sprinkled in.  Back then beach volleyball was huge... well at least among my friends. We'd head over to Santa Cruz and play on a regular basis.

Anyways... that's pretty much why I ended up busting a few packs of this stuff when it arrived at the card shop.  At the time, Michael Irvin was coming off of his first Pro Bowl season and the Cowboys were finally turning things around.  So you can imagine how excited I was when I pulled it from the pack.  My boss at the card shop wanted me to sell it to him, but I decided to hold onto it.  Huge mistake.  These days you can pick up this autograph on eBay for under $40.  Oh well.  It's a piece of my collecting history and one of the handful of cards I decided to keep over the past twenty-something years.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer.  Happy Wedneday and sayonara!