Cards Found By The Lost Collector

When AJ from The Lost Collector reached out for a trade, I couldn't refuse. Six cards from my want list were dangled in front of me and I happily bit. These were the six cards mentioned in the e-mail.

1998 Ultra Gold Medallion Frank Thomas Checklist #249G

1998 Ultra Artistic Talent Frank Thomas #4

1998 Sports Illustrated Frank Thomas #118

1998 Sports Illustrated Team Poster #7 of 30

2000 Pacific Crown Collection checklist #64 Magglio Ordonez

2000 Pacific Crown Collection Latinos of the Majors #8 (#'d 48/99) Magglio Ordonez

It may not appear this way on the blog, but the past few days have been hectic, full of manic highs and face slapping lows. I had meant to get this up on Friday, then on Saturday, but I'll have to settle for the wee hours on Sunday morning. AJ, already posted about my half of trade.

Thursday, I had some business to take care of in downtown Chicago. I love going into the city and I hate going into the city. I love the atmosphere in the city and there's a lot of cool sights to see and things to do. I'm not a big fan of the crowds or paying for the privilege to be there. I could either drive down, fight traffic, construction (even in winter) and pay an arm and a leg to park or drive to an elevated train station, leave my car unattended for great lengths of time in less than stellar neighborhoods and pay nearly six bucks to ride overcrowded public transportation. Both scenarios had their advantages and drawbacks.

I decided to park and take the train into the city. It was the cheaper and better of the two options. I arrived early and had to wait for an hour and a half before my appointment. Luckily, there was a giant widescreen television with ESPN on and I was able to enjoy two and a half innings of baseball between the Braves and Tigers and witness the return of Chipper Jones. Not bad, but that's something I could have done at home. My business took a grand total of two minutes to finish and I was on my way back home. I had originally planned on visiting a few sights, but it was cold and windy that I just felt like heading home. The reason I was downtown was over so quick, the journey felt like another Home Alone sequel. Pointless and wrong.

Friday was a blur, but time just got away from me.

Saturday started off at 6:30 in the morning. An unexpected shower without hot water greeted me to start off the day just right. It was a bump in the road and everything the followed during daylight hours was a joy. A breakfast out with fifteen other members of my family was great. My uncle had a wonderful time at his birthday breakfast. Most of us decided to attend a garden expo at a gardening center called Sid's, which was fun. I picked up a tiny cactus. Everybody else seemed to go overboard. We next went to a thrift store in Crestwood, where I had fun going through the antique books. The oldest I saw was from 1901, but the subjects weren't interesting enough to purchase. A little boy entertained the patrons with organ playing. He did a mean version of "Lean On Me" and a few others, while I was browsing the 78RPM records. I was the only one who left the store empty handed. I had a nice dinner of chicken, chana masala and aloo palak. I checked my e-mail after dinner and found out that my short story submission was accepted and I will now become a published author. A manic high followed. A few hours later, I discovered that my 55 gallon fish tank had sprung a slow leak somewhere in the filter. So, yeah. Manic highs and face slapping lows have been the norm the past few days.

Of course one of the highlights of the past few days has been the package from AJ. I discovered that AJ threw in a few extra cards. A Bowman Chrome of 2007 prospect Aaron Cunningham, an early Joe Crede card, a Topps mini leaders card of Fisk, and Upper Deck card of Magglio and a couple of Michael Jordan insert cards from Upper Deck.

Thanks, AJ! This was a great trade. I look forward to trading again sometime.