My Omaha Winter Gulag, Day One

Day One: Rations are low but holding out so far. Weather started wet and cool, but quickly turned to chilly and mixed. I have endeavored to delay transportation home an extra day in hopes that the journey will be safer, but I am now unsure whether provisions will last. Have also procured an additional night of shelter at a local establishment, but spirits are waning as the weather looks to steadily decline. I will attempt to continue these journal entries as a document of my travails here, either as a tribute to my unflagging hope or as a memoir of my miserable last days. Only the good Lord knows which at this time…
– Rhubarb_Runner

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Friday Random 10, Compliments Of Pandora

More light jazz/fusion for a Friday morning…

1. “Pigling Bland“, Soft Machine, 5
2. “Climax: Theme for Astral Pirates”, Lenny White, The Adventures of Astral Pirates
3. “Spirit of the West“, Yellowjackets, The Best of the Yellowjackets
4. “Hot Fun“, Stanley Clarke, School Days
5. “Lemme at It”, George Duke, Reach for It
6. “Birdland”, Weather Report, Heavy Weather
7. “Uncle Funk”, Deodato, Knights of Fantasy / Night Cruiser
8. “Involuntary Bliss”, Eddie Hendersion, Anthology (Best of Blue Note)
9. “Ring of Life“, Pat Metheny & Brad Mehldau, Metheny / Mehldau
10. “Mission Impossible“, Lalo Schifrin, ITV 50 – Cult Themes

Enjoy your weekend!

A Trade 25 Years In The Making

I was browsing Steve’s fine work at 25 Years of Baseball, and I came across a gold foil Craig Monroe card in one of his pack breaks, which precipitated a trade of several cards for eight Twins cards. It included a nice mix of Twins parallels; a couple 2007 Topps red letter variations, 2008 Topps gold foil cards, and the ones pictured here:

clockwise, from top left: 2008 Topps Gold Foil #393 Michael Cuddyer; 1992 Classic II #T71 Chuck Knoblauch; 2008 Topps Gold #626 Mike Redmond [995/2008]; 2007 Topps Hobby Masters #HM19 Justin Morneau

Bonus points for digging through my wantlists, and for knocking out another of the Classic cards I needed, Steve. Thanks again, and best of luck with the next 25 years!

What Exactly Is “Community Gum”?

I recently parleyed my contest winnings at Community Gum into a bit larger trade, including Twins from a box of O-Pee-Chee cards. I won’t bother to show the Twins cards here, as most were featured on their website. I may singlehandedly get Jon over his Maddux collection goal for the year.

But like you all, I have often wondered exactly what IS Community Gum? Well, as a member of the Ministry of Information Retrieval (“Be Safe; Be Suspicious”), I did some digging and uncovered the following details:

Community Gum is located in a modest building at an undisclosed location in the Chicago metro area. Besides Jon and Andy, there are seven additional full-time workers, well paid men and women hired from the area’s underprivileged and unemployed. They and their staff spend the day opening, sorting, and organizing packs and boxes of cards, as well as packaging and addressing trades and contest winnings, and all have some modicum of blogging skill and take their turns creating the posts on the website. The “gum” part of Community Gum is interesting. When packs are opened that contain gum, that pink chewy substance is meticulously stacked and lovingly carried to the back room, where a converted wine refrigerated storage case is used to store them in optimum temperature and humidity. After the weekly Friday contest idea conferences, some of the gum is retrieved as a “way to go!” treat for everyone for a job well done.

Well, it’s possible that not all of the information is entirely accurate, but you get the idea — Jon & Andy have a quality setup, and I enjoyed the trade.

10″+ Snowfall Friday Random 10

We shovelled out of 10″+ snow from Wednesday night, and now I’m enjoying the wintery view this morning out my office window while listening to:

1. “White Rock“, Rick Wakeman, White Rock soundtrack
2. “Three Friends“, Gentle Giant, Three Friends
3. “Little Hans“, Eric Woolfson, Freudiana soundtrack
4. “Big Rumble”, Bruce Hornsby, Hot House
5. “Hosea & Gomer”, Ron Miles, My Cruel Heart
6. “It Turned Out Nice Again”, Roger Eno, The Long Walk
7. “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”, Pink Floyd, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
8. “The Man’s Too Strong“, Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms
9. “All Around the World“, Paul Simon, Graceland
10. “Rock and Roll Dream”, Asia, Astra

Good luck with any shovelling you have to do — lift with your legs!

No One’s Going To Make This Trade

Here’s more fallout from the Met’s trade bait post from last month, this time with Jeremy at…well, no need to tell you where his blog is, because no one’s going to read it anyway. Not a major trade, just a dozen or so cards heading in each direction. Still, Jeremy sent a nice selection from my wantlists, including an SP Allen & Ginter Liriano, a Topps Update Gold Mauer, some mini’s, colorful shiny Chrome, and I’m a sucker for the Target retro Topps variation cards.

clockwise, from top left: 2007 Topps Chrome Blue Refractor #185 Francisco Liriano; 2006 Upper Deck Season Highlights #SH-11 Francisco Liriano; 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter mini (A&E back) #92 Joe Mauer; 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter mini #318 Delmon Young; 2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions mini #248 Carlos Gomez; 2009 Topps Target Retro #146 Glen Perkins

Thanks again for the trade, Jeremy. Hopefully no one continues to read your blog — having to reregister it under a new name is a bear!

Cards From Another World

… Justin’s World, that is. No, it’s not named for Justin Morneau, whose card I saw in this post, which precipitated the trade. The blog’s proprietor Justin sent some cards from my wantlists (and a minor junk wax team dump) for several Cubs cards. (and btw, keep your eyes open in the next week or so for a Cubs trade bait post, FYI)

clockwise, from top left: 2007 Bowman Heritage Prospects #BHP66 Steven Singleton; 2007 Upper Deck First Edition Pennant Chasers #PC-JM Joe Mauer; 2006 Upper Deck #285 Torii Hunter, did he catch it?; 2005 Upper Deck Pro Sigs #101 Daylan Childress

Thanks again, Justin!

Cards From The Night Owl — Now In 3-D!

Night Owl from Night Owl Cards and I swapped a few cards, and I was surprised by what I found when I opened the package after getting back from my Omaha business trip: Topps cards now have DEPTH!

No longer was flat, 2-dimensional cardboard sufficient for “The Monopoly”. No, these cards jump right out at you…literally. If you look at the scan, you can see the sweeping motion of F-Bomb’s delivery accentuated by the corner-to-corner curl of the flashy chrome card. Alex Burnett’s 6′ height is visually enhanced by the top of the card bending away from you as you hold it. Yessiree, there is no way Spock would be able to sneak up on Topps in the Mutara Nebula!

clockwise, from top left: 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects #BCP203 Max Kepler; 2010 Topps Chrome refractor #98 Francisco Liriano; 2010 Topps Chrome XFractor #188 Alex Burnett; 2010 Topps Chrome XFractor #187 Luke Hughes

Thanks again for the trade, Night Owl. Looking forward to seeing the next great advance in card technology. Spellcheck, maybe?