Have you ever been tossed by a wave and struggled to catch your breath? That's sort of how I've felt the past month or so at work. Teaching, testing, grading, and classroom cleanup is part of the normal hectic routine that educators go through at the end of each school year.
It's all the other stuff like the final spirit rally, grad dance, graduation, end-of-the-year picnic, and creating next year's leadership roster that had me stressed out and overwhelmed on what seemed like a daily basis. Each time I had a chance to come up for air, I'd get pounded with the next thing on the list.
But school's out for summer. Yesterday was the last day of the school year. Grades have been submitted. Keys turned in. And this morning I submitted all of the lingering paperwork (like overtime and rosters) online. Summer break is officially here.
That means it's blogging season in my area and I have a ton of stuff to write about including a bunch of flea market finds, a few card show hauls, eBay pickups, and even an estate sale purchase. But before I get to those, I need to wrap up a few more thank you posts.
Today's post highlights some of my favorite Japanese athletes included in Reader X's and John's (@ Johnny's Trading Spot) care packages. Together they sent me over one hundred fifty new singles for my Japanese athlete PC.
Let's start things off with this video game legend:
2025 Cardsmiths Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors Dreams #27
I wasn't a huge Street Fighter fan, but I do remember fighting against this sumo wrestler when I did play:
Here are some other big names and cool cards that Xavier sent my way earlier in the year:
Shota and Masataka are experiencing slow starts in 2026, but this next player isnt:
Thank you Xavier for this latest batch of Japanese athletes!
Let's move on to the stuff that John sent my way.
I was also very happy to cross off nine Matsui Rookie Chronicles cards from my set build.
He sent me so many base cards, inserts, and parallels... that I expanded my Japanese PC binder collection from 6 to 7 binders.
Seiya Suzuki and Kodai Senga were two of the bigger stacks. Some of them I already had... but most were new.
Thank you John for expanding my collection. Now that school is out, I'll get those Star Wars cards shipped out to you.
As for the rest of you, I hope you have a great summer.
Do you have any fun summer plans?
I have a few short trips planned here and there, however my main source of entertainment will be organizing parts of my collection and placing some Sportlots orders to complete some set builds. Plus I'm hoping to attend at least one or two card shows. Depending on the weather, I may or may not attend any flea markets over the next couple of months. But like I said at the start of the post, I have a few flea market posts sitting in the draft folder.
Happy Friday and sayonara!
13 comments:
Congrats on the completion of another school year, I hope you have a great Summer. No specific plans for us this Summer.
I have a very distinct memory of tumbling in the surf at Avila Beach when I was a kid. Totally disoriented underwater but calm about it at the same time. Obviously turned out ok. More recently I’ve felt the way you referred to - tumbling through the work week. As for the summer I do have plans to visit the 805 next month. Also heading to Detroit for work and hope to get to comerica park for the first time.
On the outside looking in but with a job tied to the school year, it seems to me that there are too many school activities now. It seems like schools add a new sport or a new level of sports every year. I know I was a kid 500 years ago, but we might've had a couple field trips and a science fair during the year. I guess much if it is probably mandated by the district or state.
No big plans this summer but now that have my vehicle back we'll definitely be doing some driving!
Hooray for summer vacation--enjoy! Great cards for your Japanese PCs from Xavier and John. I'm glad to hear that you landed so many new ones you had to expand to another binder, that's awesome. I've got one trip planned to see friends down south, and also next weekend I may get to do another blogger/TCDb meetup. Good luck getting to your shows and back to the flea market, and I'm happy to hear about more FMF posts!
No Alice Cooper video?
Well, I'll be going through more in a blog post soon, but I'm volunteering at the free concert series by the lake this summer.. Peterborough Musicfest. Couple shows I want to see anyway.. Gowan, Crash Test Dummies, Trans Canada Highwaymen...
Glad you reached your well-earned summer break! Enjoy the time away and get some great rest. And thanks for showing off this awesome array of cards. They look great.
I'm heading to a card show today, and meet up with fellow blogger Jeremy. BTW. just dumped Tanaka from the PC, he has started another stack with some pretty cool cards in it too.
I'm amazed that collectors are willing to part with Ohtani cards. He's up there with MJ and Tom Brady IMO - not in career accomplishments(yet) but in the way that anything with his face/name on it has a higher premium than any other player.
My summer plans are mostly to try to get outside more, visit my mom in CT and try to get my daughters to a museum or aquarium. Hope you enjoy your summer break!
I look forward to hearing from you soon as well the flea market picks & estate sales too hopefully your able to keep eyes on the lists I have my summer plans are to enjoy my new job getting nice stuff off my list if someone finds me things as well going crazy at any shop/show & find a bunch of things I have been looking for
Summer plans this year are taking the, gulp, senior in high school to visit various colleges in the area. Will hopefully manage to get some baseball games in as well on those trips.
batting out of order - thanks. hope you have a great summer as well
gcrl - if you stop by the bay area, let me know. in-n-out on me.
night owl - i think you're right about field trips and school activities. seems like there are way more things we do in middle school today than what i experienced back in the mid 80's. there are pro's and con's to this, but i'm sure the students aren't complaining. glad you got your car back. have a great summer.
dennis - hope you had fun meeting up with your blogger buddies. i'm definitely excited to write these fmf posts (mainly b/c i want to sort and finally put them away).
sg488 - was looking for my alice cooper card, but couldn't find it. i guess a video would have worked too, but a lot of times it's blocked on my blog
mike matson - nice. have fun volunteering at the free concert series.
peter k steinberg - i'm so happy summer break is here. opened up a ton of packages today. looking forward to hammering out some blog posts.
johnnys trading spot - hope you had fun hanging out with jeremy. opened up your mailer today. gonna hammer out a thank you post this week
chris - i'd definitely put ohtani in mj and brady's league. i was just up in oregon last week and i think $5 was the cheapest ohtani card i saw. have a great summer chris!
poison75 - hope you're enjoying your new job. i missed my first flea market of the summer yesterday. i got back from oregon on friday and was exhausted. but if it's cool enough, i'm planning on going to one on thursday
nick vossbrink - visiting colleges sounds fun. attending some baseball games sounds even more fun.
Great cards from Johnny and X!
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