Platinum Weekend

by Matt | Sep 25, 2012 | Personal

So, after pretty much giving up on Chrome, I’ve thrown my collective addiction towards Bowman Platinum. I know a lot of folks are down on Platinum, citing the set for having little relevance, but I like it. It fills that “oooh, shiny” portion of my brain while at the same time having really great photography, a nice simple design and is completely without the insert insanity most sets have. The colored parallels are almost a non-issue. It’s also the only major set I’m wanting to finish this year, outside of my team sets. I had hopes of finishing Gypsy Queen but I haven’t made any more traction on that one, so it’s probably a lost cause.

Regardless, I like it, and after buying two more blasters last weekend (I seriously just need to get a hobby box), I decided to count up the cards and see where I was on a complete set.

Here’s what I’m missing. (complete with names). Updated 3/26/13

COMPLETED!

So, there you go. 5 left out of 100. That means I have a good number of dupes.

I’d like to complete the set, I think it would be really nice looking. I’d also prefer to trade for the remaining cards, I think that’s just more fun that buying a complete set. Anyway, I’m going to be adding the colored parallels and autos I’ve pulled across all my blasters to my tradebait page this weekend, so if you see anything you’d like, and have some of the missing cards to trade, please let me know.

Mostly Crazy

by Matt | Sep 10, 2012 | Personal

It’s been quite crazy around here the last couple weeks. For starters it’s been ridiculously hot, 95+ each day and the humidity wasn’t helping any. We had been getting some stuff cleaned up around the house and I took some time to organize my collection a little better. I made a “non Red Sox” binder with a dozen or so pages of guys I respect as players, regardless of their team, plus a smattering of “hot rookies” and other random stuff. I also took some PTO from work and made the holiday weekend extra long, just to take a “mental break day”, which I spent most of finishing Mass Effect 3, which I was terribly disappointed in the ending of. I had made the mistake of playing ME3 on a system I hadn’t played the first two on, leaving me with no previous save. Without one, you basically miss 3 or 4 main characters, and about 20% of the extra side missions, which makes “100%” pretty much impossible. I didn’t care, I was just trying to finish it so I could move it from my “Pile of Shame” to my game cabinet. See, cleaning!

Also, about two weeks ago now, I split a hobby box of Chrome with Sam. Our results were incredibly pathetic. I did scan them, and I sent off Sam’s half of the junk to him on Friday. I felt so bad that he bought into this box of junk that I gave him the only worthwhile card from the box (a black border).

I was also buying some retail to make up for my depressing Chrome box and had 200% better luck. I scanned those as well. I’ll post them in a separate post in a few minutes.

Thankfully the crazy is slowing down. After my wife’s grandmother passed away a couple weeks ago, things have settled back down and we’re back into our routine, which is good for the kiddo, she gets all bent out of shape when things are thrown off. Toddlers are just that way.

I’ve also got a couple freelance things lined up. I’m doing a website for my friend Paul, a shoot for an Oil and Gas company down the street, and I was going to be doing a co-workers wedding but that just got changed. They decided to go with a “real” photographer, which kinda hurt my feelings, but it lets me attend the wedding as a guest instead of shooting it.

I don’t really understand when people say things like that. A “real photographer”. Why, because my 5 years of shooting weddings doesn’t count? Because my 4 year degree, in fine arts, IN photography doesn’t count? Because I don’t have the tax burden, the overhead and the expense of running a full time studio? Apparently that’s the straw. The studio. You can be the best photographer on the planet, but if you don’t have a building address to put on a business card, people look at you like you’re some amateur hack. What’s even funnier is when you ask them who they hired instead, and you find their website, and they have no experience, no formal training, and are charging twice as much. I just laugh. This has happened before. Each and every time the person comes back to me later and says something like “we really should have had you shoot it, the pictures turned out terrible”. Yeah? No kidding? Duh! You can rent as many office spaces you want, but a good photographer is so much more than a studio. Oh well.

Blogging

by Matt | Aug 27, 2012 | Personal

There was a lot of talk last week about being burnt out on blogging. Personally, the hobby, sport, activity, whatever you’d like to call it, has been a constant companion since 2000. That’s not to say that there haven’t been breaks here and there. If you wonder through my archives there are most likely months where I haven’t posted. There are also times I’ve posted daily. The ebb and the flow of blogging is something I’ve ridden like a wave. The one thing I’ve never tried to do is to self-impose a blogging amount, large or small. Forcing myself to post every day, once a week, once a month, etc, only takes the fun out of it. If it’s a chore, something I’ve told myself I have to do, then it’s not enjoyable. I can’t claim to have the longest running blog, the most posts, the most frequent posts, or even the most consistent posts. What I can claim is that I’ve gone through both dry spells, and post floods and that I’ve come away with a greater appreciation for writing each and every time. It’s something I enjoy and it’s something I’m going to keep doing for as long as I continue to enjoy it.

Some times life takes precedent over hobbies, and that’s ok. No on should feel bad about that.

Also, speaking now just for myself, this has been a rather slow month blog wise because it’s been a rather busy month life wise. I’ve had big projects at work, I’ve had lots of family activities on the weekends, and I have a lot of blogging to catch up on, and that’s ok too.