Lake George trip card recap Part 1: Worth the wait, Earning it, and a Milestone

The week in Lake George is great...it's what I look forward to all year, it's my one week of the year where I can actually have fun...and I did. I took more photos than I ever have before...and I accomplished a photography goal as well. More on that in part 3. (Fear not, it's only a three-part series)

While I'm still a bit burned out on the hobby, that doesn't mean that cards don't still play a role in my life, oh no. There were three card related events in Lake George this year, and each will get a post, with the third post being a recap of the entire trip.

The first card event was a visit to Live, Love, Laugh, the newish card shop in town- which is not really a card shop, it's a shop that sells cards among many other things. You may remember that when I visited the shop in 2017, I wrote a post about it, and mentioned that I passed on a specific card and hoped I didn't regret it. Well, I did. I didn't get there at all in 2018- just couldn't get near the place, and we had less time there last year. Well, the very first thing we did this year was go there. He had something last time I was there that I REALLY wanted for another blogger, and luckily, he keeps them in stock so I was able to secure them. What surprised me is that the card I mentioned leaving behind and had been regretting ever since was still there! I was totally shocked by that. It was still marked at $50, and he marked it down to $40 for me- still double what I normally have as a limit on any single card- but I could not leave without it again. It's now in my top 10 in most I've ever spent on a single card, and it was so worth it!

This was the first patch card of my favorite player I ever saw...and now, 2 years later, it becomes the first in my collection as well. While I was there I picked up two store collated hockey repacks for me, which I would get to later, and two other single cards of Lundqvist.

After leaving Live, Love, Laugh, my brother and I walked through town while mom found a place to park. Even on Tuesday it was more crowded than we expected. We ended up at the gameroom, Playland Arcade, which has been a staple in my life forever- this arcade has been in the same spot, with some of the same games, as long as I can remember. In fact, a good portion of my "in town" memories that don't involve the car show are related to this arcade.

 This is where we played the side scrollers of the 90s, where I experienced the 1977 Star Wars game, where I played Skee-Ball for the first time (something my back no longer allows, unfortunately) and so much more. The light gun shooting gallery, the skee-ball, and the Pokerino games have been the same since the 1980s or before. A couple other games have remained from the 1990s. Most cycle through quickly. One of the new games this year was a DC comics game, which as prizes, gives out trading cards...but they don't make it easy.

What happens is, you press the button that lights up in the center of the main console, and it triggers some tokens to drop. The little tray moves back and forth and if you do it right, the tokens fall off, and push whatever is in the large tray area towards a drop. If the card goes over the edge, you get the card! It's not easy though, because you have to time it just right, and there's a lip on the edge which makes it so the card doesn't easily fall. I payed close attention and devised a system to make it work for me, which essentially was just waiting for the little tray to move two times instead of one, so it would either get 5 tokens, or 1. Even if you time it just right, you have to hope one of the tokens goes over the top of the card, because that pushes it forward. If you don't get that little bit of luck, you're wasting your time. I don't know how, but I also made two cards drop down- and I got them both. The Darkseid card, shown upside down, is one that I got to drop. I worked hard at it and collected it as well. I later got the Wonder Woman card- which had dropped before we got there- and the JLA team card, which I dropped and earned. I spent about an hour and almost $50 on this, but I was not walking away without them. And, it was actually fun. The cards are New 52 artwork, which I'm not a big fan of. They also have classic art- which is what's on the machine- but this unit didn't have them. We later found a machine with them at a different arcade in town, but by then I had spent a lot of money on this trip and didn't work on them.

The cards have rounded corners and are on a thick plastic-about as thick as a jersey card. I presume this is so the tokens, and the drop, don't damage them. A cool thing about them is that where they were earned is listed on the back- Playland used a stamp which is embossed and shiny. The other game room hand wrote them all. This is the first time Lake George has actually made it into my card collection, even as a reference, although I did basically include a business card of one of the ship companies since one side was entire a photo.

After we got back to the motel room, I opened both hockey repacks I got. I didn't know it at the time, but I would hit a pretty big milestone that night....

This card, 1995-96 Score #28, is my 15,000th different NHL card! That's pretty amazing considering that I only began collecting the sport officially in January 2017. (although I had exactly 3000 by that point already) So many of the cards- at least half- have been gifts, from other collectors or family members.

Here are some other highlights from the two repack cases I got...it will be a long time before I get them all scanned. Each case had at least one autograph in it.

 I was surprised to pull a Refractor! I had just gotten my first cards from 1999-00 Topps Chrome, at least the hockey version, about a week before the trip from SumoMenkoMan, a package I've not gotten the chance to write about yet.

 Rookie reprints are usually always cool, especially so when they are a reprint of a card I'll never be able to afford the original of!

 This is an autograph! It's hard to see, but it's there.

 These die-cut Crown Royale cards are always cool.

 another die cut!

 This autograph I think was included as a bonus. I don't know autographs of hockey players well yet, so I don't know if that's legit or not. I would guess if somebody was going to forge an autograph, it'd be someone that sells for a bit more, but maybe that's how they get you. Like I say, I'm not really into IP autos.

 I literally laughed out loud at this card. The In the Game Heroes and Prospects sets were usually pretty good from what I've seen, but this one is pretty laughable.

 Now that's an art card! The cases were obviously not devoid of stars. Multiple Gretzys, Lemieuexs, and more.

 An embossed mid 90s insert. With an unusual texture. Cool!

This was my other autograph, and it's numbered to boot! I only have a couple of cards from 2003-04 SP Authentic, I also got a base card from the other repack, bringing my total to 4.

I ended up adding 154 new hockey cards from Live, Love, Laugh. 151 came from the repacks, which only cost $5 each. I really enjoy doing them....I still have, in my stash, the other ones I got in 2007, and show in the linked post above. I really should go through them and add them to my collection.

A first first

Today marks a first I didn't foresee ever happening. I don't have anything to upload! Since either 2010 or 2011, I've done my monthly upload to my websites on the 1st, or starting on the 1st, every month. I decided to do this because it was too much to upload everything when I did it as I did, which is what I did originally. It has worked well.

I didn't do any card scanning at all in August 2019. I didn't edit any scans. I didn't make any scans. Nothing. I talked about this a few days ago, but I figured I would get a couple things scanned at least. Nope. I worked on models instead. I finished three of them, two of which came out good. One was going good but got frustrating at the end. I still managed to finish it- earlier today in fact. Check Scale Modeling History because I plan to post it there- after I crop out the extraneous stuff from the background, anyway. Here's a sample picture of it.

I am sure I will scan in September- but not this week. In fact, I'm not going to be online much, if at all, for the next week. It's Adirondack Nationals week and the temperature is going to be in the 60s- for once, the heat is NOT going to bother me at a major car show! With my health problems, the heat is usually pretty brutal for me- anything over 80 and I have trouble breathing, and most shows are held in the summer. Some shows, even shows I love, I can only walk a half hour or so before it gets to be too much. With it being in the 60s, I should be able to walk around for a couple of hours at least! I can't wait. It's the only week of the year where I actually experience truly having fun.

Now I can sort of read my Japanese cards!

SumoMenkoMan has sent me a lot of Japanese cards. I really appreciate that because I would have pretty much zero chance of getting them otherwise. But I couldn't read them. Luckily, and somewhat confusingly, the team and player names are in English on the basketball cards...but I couldn't read the backs at all.

Until now!

Yesterday, my brother got a new phone, nearly identical to mine. He was the first in the family to have a smart phone and it's dying, so it was time to upgrade. When he was checking out his new one last night, we saw an icon on the camera screen and didn't know what it was, so naturally, he clicked on it. As it turns out, it's something called Google Lens, and it has a few options. You can place it over food to find out more information (something I've not used yet), over products or images to pull them up on sales sites or a general Google search, it can copy text, and on the far left of the icons- Translate.

My first thought was about cards. I ran and grabbed my phone, and I had it too. So then I went and got one of the latest cards Ryan had sent me and tried it out! It's not perfect...but it's a heck of a lot better than it was before!

 This is a regular picture taken with the camera on the phone

This is a screencap of Google Lens. As you can see, it works pretty well but not perfect...it translated Brave Thunders as Brave Sanders, I'm not sure what Students should be in the bio area, and it gets the nouns a little confused (we don't refer to people as It) but this is a FAR cry better than it was before! When I could read nothing. Interestingly, it didn't translate the stat headers, but they were printed in English anyway.

I've actually got half a mind to go in and screencap each and every one of my international issues- not just the Japanese cards. I've also got cards from Germany, Belgium, and others, although the vast majority of untranslated cards are Japanese.

This is a pretty cool tool to have, now I need to get out some of my world coins and see if it can translate them...

Odds & Ends: A catchall post

This post a catch-all of several small topics that I need to get posted, but don't have time to give a full post to.

First, I realize I'm going to break my streak of 10 posts per month that I had going. Last time I did not hit 10 posts in a single month was September 2016. I kept it going longer than I thought I would- but I'm not going to hit it in August 2019. There's a very good chance I won't hit it in September or October either, as I'm going to be extremely busy during the next few weeks, including my favorite day of the year- the Adirondack Nationals is fast approaching.

I got new glasses last week, for the first time since 2005. I'm not really adjusting to them well- I made a poor choice when I selected them. But I like the design, so I'm keeping them...for now. Next month I will get a different pair, and transition these into painting glasses. But it feels like I'm wearing scuba goggles all the time here. I'm at 20/900 vision by the way. Without my glasses, I'm pretty much blind. With them, I can see again. I was at the point where I couldn't read license plates or the scroll on the bottom of NHL Network or NBATV. Now I can. Ironically, adjusting to the computer screen is proving to be a bit of a challenge- which is one thing I could see just fine before. Odd. But I will get used to it eventually.

I have done almost nothing with cards this month. I am writing this on August 27th, and I have not scanned a single card at all this month. That's just a weird feeling, but I have been doing other things. For one, I had been backlogged in updating the original files that go into creating Cardboard History Gallery. That was the last thing I really did in the hobby, then I just kind of shut it down. I even have some cards I scanned in July that I have not edited yet. I just tonight typed in all the cards I've gotten during the month earlier tonight- it's not many. And if I hadn't received (another) generous gift from SumoMenkoMan I would be looking at essentially 50 cards. Instead, it's 183 cards. That's my lowest month in a long time, I think. I do have it all written down but don't feel the motivation to check it.

I'm still at total burnout stage, which I have been at for a while now. August is typically my least-card active month, based on my records. I suspect it may have something to do with the heat, which has always badly interacted with my health problems, and I just don't want to do much.

However, these past few days, the weather has been good so I got the model stuff out and got to work again. That has been going well, surprisingly well- one model literally fell together in a single day, everything worked just perfectly, as I've never seen before. And I've built more than 300 models over the past 20 years!

This was the first one I finished this month. It was originally intended to be a factory stock build, but the paint can was defective. I decided to make a lowrider out of it. Totally coincidentally (this build was started last year) the next model show I plan to go to's main theme is lowriders. The theme was announced after the direction this build would go in was already decided. I used the parts supplied in the kit to make the left front wheel off the ground, as you sometimes see with lowriders- first time I've ever done that.  I've never been to the show before, but some of my club members have and they say it's a good one. There's actually another local model show coming up next weekend but it conflicts with the Adirondack Nationals, and I can't give that up. It's my favorite day of the year, and I need that right now as I'm dealing with a health related thing that is making me very depressed. I don't want to talk about what it is but I am not sure I can enjoy the Lake George trip this year. Even "cardboard therapy" didn't help this time.

On that note, real life has been somewhat trying of late. Our new fridge (purchased 2018) had an issue where everything went bad, our new AC (purchased in April of May of this year) died, our car (leased July 2018) had an oil leak, my storage unit where my models and all kinds of other stuff is stored changed their system and now, what used to be climate controlled, is now set on 80 degrees, which means my entire model collection could be facing damage from the heat. Now I think my tablet may be dying as well, it's certainly not acting right. I'm feeling pretty beat down right now. Coupled with my continued health problems I'm finding it harder and harder to find any happiness in anything. I don't really want to get out of bed each morning at this point...I do, but I feel like I'm just "going through the motions". The Adirondack Nationals is, as I've said, my favorite day of the year, and it couldn't come at a better time...although with my health problems it's getting harder and harder for me to do the car shows.

On a happier note, I got an unexpected package from Fastenal Racing this month, with a hero card and a sticker for the Fastenal Fan Club. I remember signing up during a contest to win some race used sheet metal. I apparently didn't win, but I'm very pleased to get the hero card. I have not gotten any in years now, then I got a new to me card from 1986 a few months ago, the Derrike Cope card I got at the NYIAC, and this one now. I think the last one I got before these was 2012. It's been a while. My intention was to plug my scanner in and scan it, but again, lacking motivation, so I took a picture instead.

I hit an NBA milestone earlier this month, 93,000 different cards, if my count is correct, via trade on the Trading Card Database. So far, I've made 36 trades this year, adding 790 new cards to my collection. I've never tracked it before but I'm keeping a running total via a list on the Database this year. I'm not including Random Acts of Kindness either, just actual trades where I send something and get something. You can see the list HERE. I linked to page 4 which shows the most recent trades. if you hit the link, you'll see I also made my first ever Twitter trade earlier this month. Actually, I made it last month, the cards arrived to me on August 1st. I know I'm several trades down on recapping them- remember when I used to do that?- but I've misplaced a box of cards including some absolutely needed to make the post, entire trades worth. It's not unusual for me to lose things, it IS unusual for me to lose cards before I write them into my paper listings. This is only the second time I am aware of, the first time I discovered it when I found some cards in a box that were not registered as part of my collection. There may be more, mixed into my storage unit somewhere, probably never to be seen again, that I just don't remember.

I have been toying with the idea of moving away from my paper listings. It's at the point now where updating them causes my pain, but these are the backbone of my collection. There was a time (a little more lax now), where I didn't even consider a card a part of my collection until it was entered in my paper listing. But I can't bring myself to do it. When I was away from the NBA from 2006-12, I actually missed working on the paper listing more than I missed the cards themselves sometimes, if you can believe it. I can tell my handwriting is getting worse- I'm losing some of my fine motor control. And if you've ever seen my handwriting, you know it's never been good. I realized that I don't need it to be perfectly legible- as long as I can tell what is supposed to be written there, it's good enough. If I spell something wrong, it's not that big a deal. There are a few pages that I've rewritten due to too many mistakes in the past. Not going to do that anymore.
I just don't trust the computer enough to transition to using it instead. I've had files corrupt, I've had storage devices corrupt, and with my computer not having a battery backup of any sort, if we lose power, I lost any unsaved work. That's too many variables I have no control over. Paper doesn't corrupt. I'm up to 4 binders each for the NBA and NHL, 2 for NASCAR, one for Non-Sports and other sports and one for Misc. which currently has WNBA, multi-Sport and NCAA basketball.

Blue Angels, Red Arrows and F-35 Lightning Demo Team

How was your day today? Mine was spectacular! The New York International Air Show is at Stewart Airport in Newburgh. NY this weekend, and I won't be going- for my family to attend would be $750, it's crazy expensive. However, today the Red Arrows and F-35 Lightning Demo team took a flight to the State of Liberty today. The Blue Angels were supposed to join them but cancelled due to plane maintenance so I didn't expect to see them. I was wrong.

My mom and I took a trip to Newburgh, and parked in the Barnes & Noble parking lot. I had recently gotten a gift card for the store, so I figured, that would work well. The B&N in Newburgh is right below the flight path for the long runway at Stewart...in theory, they would go right by us when they returned. That's exactly what happened!

The Red Arrows took one circle around and then landed, but the F-35s did some stunt practicing!

Those little dots in the middle of the image? Those are the F35s. They were high, they were fast, and hard to get a good photo of...but, you know, I managed to.

My favorite photo of the entire day, and I took over 400!

So after they all landed, we went into B&N, then the plan was to head to Roy Rodgers for lunch...but I was already more than an hour past my medicine schedule and my head was pounding, so Arby's, which is much closer, was chosen as lunch. (The fact that you have to drive right past the airport to get there didn't hurt, although it turned out to be a dud- I didn't see any of the Red Arrows, F35s or Blue Angels on the ground.

As we're driving back after lunch, I hear the roar of jet engines over the car. It's an unmistakable sound, and I love that sound, even though it's much louder than anything I usually like.
I look straight up out the roof and what do I see, but the Blue Angels practicing their stunt flying! I have never been happier that our car has a sunroof! We pull back into the same lot, and watch the Blue Angels practice for over an hour.

 My best Blue Angel shot

I know the pictures are not that great...they were moving quickly, and up high- and my camera is not that great, so I did the best I could. Even though my pictures do not compare to how incredibly awesome they were in person, this is something that I will never forget. It's not the first time I've seen stunt flying- I saw a single fighter jet doing stunts at an air show in the mid-1990s- this was the most amazing, spectacular thing I've ever seen involving an airplane...or airplanes.

It's unbelievably awesome to see these pilots, the best of the best from two nations-doing their thing.

I wish I could have captured it on film how great it really was. I'm so thrilled I got to experience it...see it, hear it, even smell it, because they were close enough that I could smell the jet fuel! (a smell I like, by the way)

I also hit 20,000 photos taken on the year today...I blew past my personal record for most photos in a year months ago, and I'm just adding to it all the time. I will never top 2019 in photos.

The first player from my first NHL pack has sort of retired

When I began collecting the NHL officially back in January 2017, a current season pack was not the first I opened...I had found some packs from 2014-15 MVP and one of them ended up being the first pack. The first player was goalie Eddie Lack, and as of right now...it's my only card of him. Earlier this week, he announced that he had taken a coaching job at Arizona State University, essentially ending his playing career...although he's not calling it retirement. He's been struggling with injury for several years and has put his playing career "on hold" for now. If he can regain his health, he's leaving the opportunity open that he may play some more...but history has shown that most players don't come back once they've taken a coaching job. If this truly is the end of his career, it's a stark contrast to the first player out of my first NBA pack, who played for 13 years after I opened that pack. (Sam Cassell). Unfortunately I don't remember who was the first person out of my first NASCAR pack. There's only one left active from my first season, but the possibility does exist that it could have been Morgan Shepherd.

If Eddie Lack is done, he's going to end up being a fairly obscure player. He got into 143 NHL games with four different teams. He last played in the NHL in 2017-18, which was my first full season. He did get over 200 cards so odds are more will join the one I do have at some point. I actually like getting cards of obscure players more than the superstars, to be honest, so I think it's actually pretty cool.

I thought it was an interesting contrast between the two sports where I know who was first, and worthy of a quick post.

2014-15 MVP #193

Surprise #2 finally revealed

I am finally ready to reveal the second surprise I had up my sleeve for the Cardboard History Gallery. I didn't expect it to take as long as it did, but now...finally...it's here! And it's probably going to be my favorite section of the entire website!

This is the last part of the website I plan to reveal. Everything else has either been created or the groundwork has been created. Unlike the Gallery of Hits that was surprise #1, this one I am doing out in the open where anyone can watch me upload as I work, if they so choose.

As you all know if you've been reading my previous postings, cars are everything to me. To me, the Earth doesn't revolve around the sun, it revolves around classic cars. But, health problems prevent me from doing anything with the real cars...so I collect cards instead. I have created a listing of Automotive by Brand, where each car brand gets it's own album, like each person does. And there are a lot of them- 158 different brands. (although some of them are the same brand changing names- like each sports team, I'm keeping it to what it was called at the time.) There have been over 2000 automotive brands in the USA alone, so there's a lot of room for expansion.

Unfortunately, most of the brands have only one or two cards, there has not been a truly decent automotive themed card set since 1996, and even that was only Corvettes. Cars were much more popular to see on cards in the past, and while I don't have a lot of them, I'm always looking for more. From my research the earliest automotive set was issued in 1908, although the earliest in my collection is from 1922.

This, like each team and eventually each person, will be uploaded after the first of each month, depending on what I scan. I do have more that needs to be scanned, this is not a complete listing by any means.

I also want to point out that my knowledge of fire trucks is severely lacking, so I had to go by the captions on the cards in many cases. I don't know if they are entirely accurate. If you see a mistake, please point it out to me. Accuracy is important to me and I've done the best I can do with the knowledge I have...but as I said, I don't have a lot.

Chevrolet has an almost insurmountable lead, with 119 cards in it's album at the time of creation. Chevrolet was very supportive of the trading card hobby from 1990-96, with multiple all-Chevrolet large sets issued...and most of mine still awaiting scans. Once I get them scanned Chevrolet will be over 300 cards. No other brand comes close to that many; Ford has 101 cards currently but a higher percentage of my collection of Ford cards is scanned, they will not top 200 cards. No other brands will even hit the 100 mark.

I did not include race cars- those are in the albums for the people who drove the cars in the Auto Racing section. I also did not include motorcycles, but I have been considering adding them in. I have very few motorcycle cards so to do that would take me literally about 3 minutes. I AM including advertising postcards in the project, like the ones I got from the brands themselves at the New York International Auto Show.

In the creation of the albums for uploading, it is the first time that I have ever determined exactly what automotive brands appear in my collection, and how many of each brand I have, I have never known this before, and the Trading Card Database does not provide this information.

With the high number of albums, it will probably take me a few days to get them all uploaded. I'm going to start now but I don't expect to finish them today as it's at the end of my day. And I'm starting from the bottom alphabetically and moving up. So if you hit the link and see the albums starting with lower letters, just stay tuned, because I'll be working on getting them all posted as soon as I can.