Wax, Facts, and Snacks

Opened a tin of Series 2, 2025-26 and hit the big dog Young Gun in the set. A mini hit with the Schaefer/Gatcomb YG checklist. Hadn’t opened anything in ages, so it was a nice surprise to hit a big one (though I have yet to pull a 1 of 1. Ever.) 😆

Today at 3:10pm, we lost one of the sweetest, gentlest souls we’ll ever know. …this one hurts.

The idiopathic chylothorax ran its course and took its toll on Ruby’s lungs. While we are lucky we got almost four years more with her after the initial surgery, it was never going to be enough time together…

Ruby was a friend to people, dogs, and cats alike. She was our little diplomat where the cats were concerned and even recently helped welcome Reilly and Jonesy into the fold once we started introducing them to the dogs.
When at UW for surgery or treatment, she rarely spent any time in a kennel because the staff always loved her so much.
She always had an upbeat demeanor and calming presence. She helped guide Loki’s transition into the family when he joined us, but would always keep him in line if he caused trouble. Despite all that Ruby battled through and dealt with in terms of health issues, you would’ve never known anything was wrong. She was a model patient and conquered every challenge with the strength and courage of a warrior.

To say she will be missed is an understatement larger than any other that ever has or ever will exist.
We know Tater and Luna met her on the other side of the rainbow bridge, and she met Maddie and Niko and is running and playing with them all…

We love you, Ru.

So… a quick little update because I realized I never filled y’all in: after giving some time/space for awhile, I reached out to the card shop owner I was working with a year and a half ago… turns out he closed up shop. I didn’t really get any details on how things played out, but I’m sure I wouldn’t want to rehash the demise of my shop if I had one. I think it’s pretty safe to say I won’t be compensated for the 200+ hours I worked while he was dealing with his rock bottom moment. When I’d last talked to him several months ago, he said his intention was to still come up with something to compensate me with… I guess that became a moot point when he closed up shop. The last text conversation we had was friendly, but open-ended as he never replied to my last text. I take that to mean he’s done and has moved on. I guess I’ll chalk the whole experience up to trying to be a decent human being and when that’s exactly what someone needed. While I gave up hope and moved on long ago, I guess it’s closure on that storyline…
It’s otherwise been a challenging year full of health issues for my wife and I. As you can imagine, that leaves little disposable income for buying cards— thus the lack of videos.
Some of you see my story shares periodically, and I still Like posts and try to be supportive of others still thriving in the hobby, but for now anyway, it’ll be a bit until I can return to opening packs and sharing my love of collecting sports cards.

My return to legit game action was a year ago. Was just a weekend tournament, and I’ve been playing regularly for ever since. They had a hardest shot competition (which I won😁), thus the videos of me shooting.

As much as I hate to say it, I believe this account is all but dead… I was in the hospital nearly two weeks ago for possible heart issues. The good news is my heart checked out fine after the stress test. The bad news is they only have a theory about what caused the abnormal bloodwork (which soon returned to normal after a few days). They think it was costochondritis, which I’ve had before, but never that intense or widespread. Long story short, medical bills will be a thing for the foreseeable future (as I’ve got follow up appointments on top of the two day hospital stay).
While it brings me joy to open packs and search for cards for my personal collection, it’s just too expensive a hobby to justify (likely for the rest of the year). While I’m well aware that life with multiple chronic illnesses is no fun (been living this reality since 2010), health issues have thoroughly killed any hobbies that are even remotely expensive.

I hope you’re all doing well and in good health. I’ll likely still interact with this account, but new content isn’t likely to happen anytime soon while there are medical bills to pay.

HOW ABOUT THEM BADGERS!!!

THE BADGERS ARE NATTY CHAMPS ONCE AGAIN! 🏆🦡

Wisconsin Women's Hockey defeats Ohio State, 4-3, to win the 2025 NC Women's Ice Hockey National Championship.

For those of you who’ve been wondering what’s up, hey! It’s been awhile. As some of you may know, I haven’t posted a video in over two and a half months. Going even further back, the videos of pack openings were few and far between. While part of the reason is that the budget hasn’t/won’t allow for nonessential purchases, the main reason is an experience that’s soured over the past six months…. Putting it bluntly, that card shop I worked at this past spring/summer still owes me for over 200 hours worked (204.5 hours, to be exact). There was no written agreement, employment wasn’t official… it was just a handshake with a man who said his word was valuable, and meaningful. Initially, it wasn’t much of an issue because there was no definite plan. Things changed when it turned into helping the shop owner through a rock-bottom low point in his life. It turned into me working solo in order to keep the shop open and running in his absence for over a month. By early July I had to pull the plug on things as it was literally costing me money to keep working there (gas money). I kept the shop owner in the loop about my hour total all along. I was aware compensation may not happen quickly as we’d just relocated a couple months prior and were getting established in the new location half an hour from the old location. It’s basically been radio silence since July. I’m fairly certain “there’s no profit to pay out” would be the answer to any inquiry as that’s the gist of the conversations that happened back in July. While I’m not holding my breath (and haven’t been), I did think some attempt would be made to square up by now. …all this to say the experience has left me a bit dejected about sports cards in general right now. Not that I don’t still love collecting (as I have since 1990), but between lacking the funds to justify buying anything and being owed for hours worked… it’s all left me not wanting to think about any of it.
Drama aside, I thought I’d fill in anyone who cared as it’s always nice to feel kept in the loop. I genuinely have no idea if one day I’ll pick up where I left off here, but for now I’ll be trying to solve the problems I have control over and can fix.

It only took 9 months to fulfill the redemption, but I finally got a Connor Bedard rookie card (it’s /499)

Say hello to Loki. 😊
He’s 13 weeks old (born on June 26th) and is joining our two 5 year old Shelties, Merlin and Ruby. A special appearance in the pics by our 15 year old cat, Tater.

A more complete view of my new setup. Should be easier to stay organized as I start selling on eBay and I have my hockey stick table as a backdrop for opening packs 😊