What the Future Holds…

I guess I better get to the 2015 round of resolutions I cannot possibly keep while we’re still in the afterglow of a new year’s dawning.

Collection Goals

15 trades- I think I got close enough to my goal of a dozen last year not be entirely disappointed in myself, so let’s up the ante.  I already have two that are slowly coming together, one with longtime frequent trading partner Shot Not Taken and another with Baseball Card Breakdown.  I’ve also pulled out some odds & ends for a few other bloggers, and I’ll start sending out emails to the lucky(?) perspective trading partners soon.  I also reserve the right to add the two I got in just under the gun in 2014 if they get me over the hump at the end of the year, since their actual arrivals did and/or will take place in 2015. 😛

Finish the following Single Page Sensations- I am over halfway done on almost all of the following, so I’d like to finish as many as possible.

Cubs: Albert Almora (5/9), Javier Baez (8/9), Kris Bryant (7/9), Tyler Colvin (6/9), Ron Santo (6/9)

Other Baseball: Dick Allen (6/9), Roberto Alomar (7/9), Albert Bell (7/9), Carlos Santana (6/9)

Bears: Charles Tillman (6/9)

Basketball: Luol Deng (7/9)

Wrestling: Victoria/Tara (7/9)

BenchWarmer: BenchWarmer model (none over 3/9)

Baseball Sets: 2011 Topps Legend Variations (6/9), 2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Legend Variations (8/9), 2012 Topps Museum Collection “Canvas Collection” Baseball (8/9), 2014 Topps Museum Collection “Canvas Collection” Baseball (6/9 if I keep Strasburg)

Football Sets: 2013 Topps Museum Collection “Canvas Collection” Football (8/9)

Add 2 new licensed and 5 new personal Raven sketch cards- The former are crazy expensive for a B-list team character and there just aren’t a whole lot of either to go around.  I think these are pretty reasonable numbers to strive for though.

Finish both the licensed and PSC DC Comics miscellaneous Single Page Sensations- I am starting the year at 4/9 licensed and 3/9 PSC.

Complete any other sketch card Single Page Sensation- Lots to choose from, but I’m over halfway done on but a very few.

Blog Goals

Write 80 new posts- Again, we’ll up the ante a juuuust a smidge from 2014.  I did a good job of posting with a fair degree of regularity when I was actually here and posting in the year gone by, so I think I can average a little better than 1.5 posts per week in the year to come.  I’m not going to make any requirements on the number of non #collect-focused things this time though.  I feel that was a small contributor in falling off the map so early last year.  I’m stupid (not true, but I am very, very lazy), so I’m going to keep it simple.

Art Goals

Complete 50 new sketch cards- I managed 38/50 last year (1 side of that weird Marvel two card puzzle was completed).  That was close enough to not feel too much shame, especially in light of how much I managed to draw in total.  Still, this isn’t close enough to up the ante, so I will give the same number a good go again in 2015.  Paul Molitor (repurposed) and Boromir of Gondor (artist tile) are the first two in the queue.

100 total new works- I’m pretty sure I coasted past this number last year, and if you consider the multiple pictures on single pages as individual works, then I did even better.  Everything was unofficial, however.

Finish 30 old sketch cards- I barely finished any old cards in 2014, and I don’t feel like I did a very good job on what I did do, so I’m making this a point of emphasis in the new year.  I’m off to a good start, having already finished seven oldies on January 2nd (also colored most of two others).  I’m also happy to report my coloring seems to be back to nearly as strong as it was at the height of my powers a couple years ago.

You can keep track of my 2015 art progress HERE.

Writing Goals

Finish a first draft of any novel idea- I barely got anywhere on anything last year, and while I’d like to say a more stable computer situation would have helped, I’m not so sure…  There can be no excuses this year though.  I just bought the one I’m currently writing from a month ago, and I hope to have a laptop, and the additional mobility that entails, to go with it by spring.

Here is your reward for sticking around to the bitter end: Please enjoy my best pull of 2014, a Meryl Davis autograph! ♥

Aaaand that’s all for this post I guess.  There are plenty of other things I’d like to accomplish in 2015, but these are the most pressing and/or well-defined.  A bit simpler than last year, and I’m sure I’ve probably broken a couple resolutions already, but thanks for stopping by!

Until our next…

2014

I’m not much for resolutions and I know anything I put here is going to fail miserably.  But what the hey.  These are my goals for 2014, in no particular order.

Collecting

1.) Mostly Finish Fergie Jenkins playing career run- Pending COMC shipment, I will have gotten all of Fergie’s solo, non-league leaders Topps cards from the 1970s.  So, barring oddballs and OPC, which are not major priorities. I’ll just need his ’68, some league leaders from the ’70s, any SSPCs, and most of his ’80s cards, none of which should cost too much.

2.) Get Ryne Sandberg’s other two RCs- I have a Fleer and two Topps Ryno RCs, so I need his OPC and Donruss.

3.) Complete 12 trades- Averaging one a month shouldn’t be too hard… right?  We already have one pending, two if you count Shot Not Taken being always pending.

4.) Complete any three sets- Propaganda Posters, Diamond Stars, and some year of A&G Highlight Sketches look like the easiest options, but we’ll see.

5.) Complete the following Single Page Sensations-

2011 Topps Legend Variation SPs

2011 Topps Diamond Legend Variation SPs

2011 Topps Diamond Die-Cuts- Sale and Winfield Single Pages have been reinstated, so I need two to replace them.

2012 Bowman Chrome Legends in the Making Die-Cuts

2012 Finest Faces of the Franchise Die-Cuts- I was very on the fence about these until I actually got them in my hands.  I like them.  I will keep them (I  may still be willing to part with certain ones for the time being though).

2013 Topps Museum Collection Canvas Collection

Victoria/Tara

Luol Deng

Carlos Santana

Any combination of five others.

Any two from the Sketch Card Page.

The sketch cards might prove difficult, but none of the rest should require a great deal of expense or challenge.

6.) At least 30 new 1960 Topps Cards- This has really trailed off.  Out of the 30, I want a minimum of 5 superstar/Hall of Famer/common high numbers.

7.) Land at least 10 more key rookies- Andre Dawson, Ichiro Suzuki, Vlad Guerrero, Nomar Garciaparra, Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, and Don Mattingly are the highest on my list.  I’d be very happy to land any one of them in the coming year.

8.) Complete 5 more trifectas- Almost everything I’m close on trifecta-wise is attainable, except Kosuke, because he has no autograph cards that I know of.  Peanut Tillman lacks severely in the relic department, but he does have one.  Even lesser Ladainian Tomlinson autos can be had for around $25 on occasion, so finishing these enough of these is just a matter of making them a priority.

9.) Break the 100 card mark of another player- I’ve been over 100 with Aramis Ramirez for a little while now.  Ichiro and Vlad are my next closest, and I feel like I might be able to get there on one of them, especially if trades pick up.

10.) Pay off my old debts- There are a couple trades from 2013 I still need to send out, and I found someone on twitter awhile back that I flaked out on like three years ago.  Those will go out soon, one possibly as early as today.

Blog

1.) At least 75 posts this year.

2.) At least 25 non-baseball card related- Art, crappy poetry, short stories, life in general, reviews, recipes, I’m up for any whim really.

Life

1.) Finally start hitting the gym-  This won’t start until I think the resolutioners have mostly cleared out though.

2.) Rededicate myself to running- I hit a wall last summer and never really recovered, even though I still walked a ton.  I’m starting to get it back though.  I’ve jogged the full, 2+ mile trip over to the parents twice recently.

3.) Rededicate myself to eating healthier- I don’t look hideous and haven’t gained a lot of weight, but I feel like I really fell off the wagon the last couple months of 2013.

4.) Finish most of the old sketch cards I’ve never gotten around to completing- I did a few awhile back, now for the other bajillion.

5.) Complete at least 30 new portraity sketches of real people- Well, I’ve started one so far.  Sketch cards count, but I’d like them to not account for more than half.

6.) Complete at least 50 new sketch cards- These could play into #5, but I’d like to get back to comic & such ones in a big way as well.

7.) Finish the first draft of a novel- I have a chapter or two written of several things and lots more character sheets to work from.  I really should have finished this already.

8.) Take at least one trip well outside of my town on my own- All I want to do is travel, so I just gotta start doing it.  No one is willing or able to help me with this.

9.) Watch more anime- I watched Trigun: Badlands Rumble over the holidays, and while I never got that into the series itself, the movie was pretty outstanding and reignited my love of anime.  I have a promising series called Fairy Tail queued up to watch in the coming days, so this is off to a good start.

10.) Play more video games- I want to finish my Gen IV Pokemon games, pick up and complete both games in Gen V, and maybe beat one or two of the oldern non-Polkamenz RPGs I have laying around by the end of the year.

That’s all I got right now.  Come back at the end of the year to see what an utter disaster this turned out to be!

Your reward for slogging through my self-indulgent post..

#KeepMoving…

A New Year Is Upon Us

Which means millions of failed resolutions will cover the earth like a post-apocalyptic wasteland by March.  I only made one: To be on more sketch card sets this year.  One’s already confirmed (and the cards are hear), still waiting to hear on a second (becoming less hopeful by the minute).  So I’m off to a good start.  I don’t like the resolution thing, making unrealistic goals you can’t keep.  Besides a little more sketch card work, I just want to keep building on the good of 2011.  I lost 15 lbs from late spring through mid-summer and have maintained it, weighing in between 199 and 208 lbs ever since (206 at last check, after overdoing it bigtime to start the year).  Nothing unrealistic, just keep getting better.

I’d like to maybe get one of my first drafts of novels written (three in development), and while I’m going to try, I’m not making it a resolution.  It has to be an organic thing, like my success in getting healthier was last year.  I didn’t make a resolution to do that.  I just decided last March to take the vast majority of red meat out of my diet and try to eat a little healthier in general.  And circumstances necessitated I be a little more physical than normal, having to clean up and prepare my place for inspections entirely on my own.  It just works out better that way, I think.

I have a few collecting goals I hope to achieve this year, but again, I’m only making a resolution of the first one or three.  I’m not going very far out of my way for the rest.  Life and everything will dictate where I end up on them.

1.) This is the important one.  I must get all my outstanding trades dealt with.  I know I owe cards to Marie, CamClow, GSNHoF, Carl Crawford Cards, Shoebox Legends, Project ’62, Pursuit of Griffey, and one other very long-defunct blog.  Plus I have several more trades to get too in the near future.  I need to be a better and more consistent trader!

2.) This is of some importance too.  Get all my pages fully updated.  I’ve done a bit of this here & there in recent weeks, getting a little trade bait and player collections added in, but I’m still a long way from finished.  There are probably more tweaks to come as well.

3.) Also kinda important.  Blog more!  Since I got my parents old scanner and it’s already set up and working and everything, I don’t have any excuses left to not blog on a regular basis, except just not having anything to say sometimes.  And those times I can probably find something else to talk about.  Geeky news, sports commentary, novel nonsense, passable poetry, whatever.  Just say something, kid.

4.) Now for the collection itself.  Break 100 cards in at least two player collections.  With the Zambrano collection on the shelf for the time being, I think Aramis Ramirez is my only one within shouting distance, so I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me if I’m going to finish this one.  I think Vlad Guerrero and Ichiro are my next closest, and Vlad doesn’t have as many chasers, so I’d guess he’ll probably be my second.  Ichiro and Ryne Sandberg could still be contenders though.

5.) Get to 50 cards in the 1960 Topps set. I think I’ll need about 37 cards to do this.  I have 12 in-hand and Wally Post waiting to be delivered from the Diamond Giveaway.  It’s… doable, I guess.  We’ll just have to see what comes up.

6.) Complete a few sets.  I think 2010 Topps 2020 (only need Buster Posey), Propaganda Posters, and a couple of the Baseball Highlights sketches are reasonable to expect myself to finish.  Perhaps the World’s Greatest Word Smiths.

7.) Start a baseball Frankenset.  792 cards.  Every base set ever made by any company can be used.  SPs and variations are acceptable as long as they retain their particular set’s numbering (thus making recent topps variations and such eligible for inclusion, but only non-parallel versions).

Guess that’s it for today.  I’m done braining.  Coherence… failing.  Today was long and busy.  Most of the last couple weeks have been.  Sleep sounds good.  Preferably 16 hours or so.  I’ve been doing a little better with it lately after falling apart for a couple months, so lots of fairly restful sleep isn’t entirely out of the question.  Goodnight and such.

Oh yeah, I also resolve to have a one night stand/torrid affair with a celebrity. 😉

Here’s to New Beginnings!

Or, the Obligatory New Year’s Post.  The Obligatory New Year’s Resolution Post?  Whatev.  Anyway, as I begin writing this, there are nine hours and fifty-six minutes left in the year 2009 (where I’m at anyway).  Was it good to you?  Are you ready to move on?  Are you ready to step boldly into the next decade?  Do you have any resolutions for the coming new year and decade?

This is probably about the first year I’ve ever seriously considered making any resolutions for the coming year.  I was chatting with my friend David from Spain, and he asked me if I had any.  And as it turns out, yes, I kinda do.

So here they are:

First is to just be a little more focused in general.  This will help me in all facets of my life, I think.  Just focus, stick to one thing at a time a little more.  I have the attention span of a guppy (which I assume is really short, as is mine).  If I had a little better focus, I may have done something worthwhile in my life already.  It’s not too late, as sad as it makes me because it feels old to me, who’s emotionally stunted in my very early teens, I am only in my mid-20s.  I think I can still learn to focus, maybe even along those lines, learn some organizational skills.

That leads me to my most tangible goal for the new year.  And that is to accomplish something as a writer.  Finally getting close to 1000 words on something, and I want to get much, MUCH further in the new year.  You know I’ll keep y’all posted on how that goes, though it may slow down my posting at times.

Next, I want to continue to push the limits of my artistic ability.  I’ve gone from thinking I couldn’t draw anthropomorphic characters to having no trepidation at all with them in short order.  I’m still nervous when it comes to coloring and inking, but the fear is subsiding there as well.  So I want to keep moving forward.

That brings me to my next resolution.  I mentioned most of my sketch cards taking damage recently, but I’ve done eight more since they got messed up.  It brought me down for about a day, but I came back strong and have drawn eight more so far this week.  I must keep this attitude up, when it comes to responding to adversity… to deal with it, and keep fighting onward.  It is all one can do, right?

The last resolution came to mind as I started writing this post, and pertains to cards.  Virtually everyone I’ve traded with knows how slow I can be in every part of it, so I really need to be quicker in all facets of trading.  I need to email, and reply to emails faster (I’ll email about trading you that Holliday refractor sooner or later, Mojo!).  I need to send out trades faster (Roll Out the Barrel and Sooz and GSNHoF are waiting, though I need the first two’s addresses… oh and Night Owl, I finally have your stuff ready to send!).  I need my cards to be more organized so I can send out trades faster (I have cards EVERYWHERE, and only a few teams have any semblance of order).  So yeah, even though this might actually be the resolution most likely to fail, it’d do me good to get it right like all the rest.

Those are my long-winded resolutions, what are yours, if you have any?

Oh, and here’s the back of that box topper from last time.  As always, thanks for reading!

Happy New Year! 😉

Eight hours and fifty-three minutes…