It's A GO At the PO!!!!!!!!

Thanks to a truly awesome and amazing postal clerk who has become a friend, I now have an unlocked PO Box… As many of you crazy bloggers do, I was spending a ton of time at the post office and this meant I really got to know the folks who worked there… It is a very small post office and including the Postmaster, there are only 3 employees. All 3 have gone out to roller derby bouts (we have 1 tonight!) and when I am shipping, the conversation isn’t forced small talk – these are really good folks… I am lucky. One of the employees – Chrissie, is particularly awesome. We are “friends” on Facebook and chat on occasion.

I have been broke and haven’t been around like I once was. She sent a few messages of concern and said she missed me and was worried about my box being locked. I explained why and she said she was determined to help me get back on track – postally (is this a word?) speaking at least… Last year she was excited because her 13 year old son was going to his first big concert, the Tampa stop on the Vans Warped Tour. She is a pretty cool chick and was going with him, playing chaperone and being the cool mom that she is. I told her I wasn’t going this year, but had been to nearly every year prior. She told her son this and he thought that was pretty cool. He had met me at a derby bout and considered me one of his mom’s “cool friends” even though I am a Grandpa… Anyway, while cleaning up around the house I found an old tee shirt, a concert tee from the first ever Warped Tour back in 1995 which featured bands like Sublime, No Use for a Name, Sick of it All, L7, Quicksand and more… I brought it into the post office and gave it to Chrissie for her son. He LOVED it! It gave him big “cool points” at school for having such an old school tee. She said he wore it for a week straight.

Anyway, fast forward to last week. My Wifey, the legendary Esther Gin N Juice and I were celebrating our 6-year wedding anniversary (shown here on Wedding Day 03-11-2006 right after jumping from an airplane… ) I made a post about it on facebook and Chrissie sent me a message that she wanted to get us a special Anniversary gift since we had hooked her son up the year before. I messaged her back telling her thanks, but it wasn’t necessary and pretty much forgot about it.
Then, after work on Saturday, I stopped at the post office, solely out of habit because it was closed and my box was out of order. I went to it anyway, unlocked it expecting to see the yellow barrier in the back of the box which prevented anyone from putting mail in it. The yellow barrier was NOT there, there was a pair of manila envelopes in it instead along with a receipt…

The receipt was for a box payment. A BIG payment, considering I owed a $15 late fee along with the $48 cost for the box rental. It was ALL paid!!! I nearly cried I was so happy and touched. I have had a lot of truly generous people touch my life in the years since I began blogging and trading and this ranked among the tops… Truly unbelievable!!! Thanks sooooooooo much Chrissie!!!

I really don’t know what to say or how to thank you, but that is mega awesome and I will be eternally grateful for this… By the way, the 2 envelopes in the box came courtesy of a reader named Tim who is an Indians fan who claimed a card I had posted nearly 2 years ago. He had said he didn’t have anything to send me at the time, but he would pay me back someday. He came through with an awesome package of really cool and unique Rays cards. This will be the subject of my next post, thanks Tim! The other package came from Chris at the Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz blog. He had sent me an email weeks prior offering to send me 60 cards off of my 2012 Topps want list. I tried writing him back to tell him of my address change, but the email was sent back and for some reason I couldn’t get one through to him. I think he sent this envelope a month ago. Of course I still needed everything and now they are all safe and sound in the 2012 Topps binder.

When I got home I had a manila envelope in my house’s mailbox, too. Another 20 cards from 2012 Topps from a reader named Nick. Everything is safe in the binder. I have 32 completed pages now and just need a few more cards to finish the set off. For the first page I need card #7, I would assume that is a Mantle card, from there the next 30 pages are totally full! The few others I need to finish it are cards numbered 297, 307, 312, 313, 330 and 331. Yep, just a total of 7 more cards to finish this off! Not too bad I think…

I bought my first pack 5 weeks ago, posted a want list and within 30 days the blog-o-sphere sent me over 250 cards towards my journey. Huge thanks for that!!! I should mention that in the package from reader Nick I also got a few more 1987 Topps style minis and updated that list as well. Nick doesn’t have a blog and is just getting back into collecting. He ripped a bunch of 2012 Topps and he has already finished the set so he doesn’t need any of that. He does have a few PCs that I can help him with, so if anyone has any cards of Ichiro or Alex Ovechkin that they wouldn’t mind sharing with me – I want to hit Nick back.

This is important because not only did he send everything I mentioned- he is also the first person to answer the call for parallels of Desmond Jennings from 2012… I am now the proud owner of the RED version of his rookie cup card. I want them all, right down to the printing plates if I can find them, but I am on the road to domination and I owe ya for that Nick! That card incidentally is my 8th different Desmond Jennings card. My DJ page is nearly complete. I am going to post up pages from all of my PCs soon, but I am pretty stoked about this right now… You might notice the blue parallel that the Cardboard Don sent me from 2011 Topps. I want to collect EVERY parallel of that card, too… I was at that game!

I used to be a Carl Crawford fan and have nearly 700 cards of his (up for trade!) but DJ is helping me forget about him… I have been lucky to be in attendance for his first triple ever and several homeruns… I think I am a lucky charm for the guy… Okay, that is all for now. The Rays are taking on the Boston Red Sox in Port Charlotte, Florida today. Oh yeah!!! Roller Derby later tonight! More posting in the near future, too! I need to post up some more mailbox arrivals. Scott from Smed’s Cards has sent me about a dozen AWESOME envelopes in the past few months, but it was earlier this week that a white box arrived at my house FILLED with something really cool… Stay tuned!

A huge thanks to Post Office Chrissie and all the cool kids who have sent me cards and helped me out on my set quests!!! Y’all rule! Want lists are up to date, my address is Collective Troll/PO Box 1063/Tallevast, FL 34270 and Trade Me Anything will open for business really soon. I LOVE this hobby! Oh and by the way... That RED Ryan Braun 2012 Heritage parallel is still available and up for trade, so anybody want it??? And also, I have decided to chase 2009 Topps and now have list for it... Spare any? Oh, and yes, that IS what I look like, hope I didn't scare away too many readers, ha!

The Nuclear Bombshells are entertaining the Lakeland Derby Dames in just a couple hours tonight... Wanna learn more? Find us and like us on Facebook... Thanks for reading and sharing my love! Go Rays! Troll out.