Padrograph #1219, The Joy of an Almost Completed Set and the Nola Fan Club

 

Back in February I sent a custom card to an address in Florida for Paul Quantrill.  I knew someone who had used the address.  He told me to write a note on the envelope to give the cards to Paul when he came to visit.  I got the cards back on Monday after a two hundred and sixteen day wait.  Paul appeared in twenty two games for the Padres in 2005.  He is part of one the two father-son duos to have played for the Padres.  

I only have two cards left to complete my 2020 Big League set.  They are both on the way, of course they were two big players.  Bo Bichette and Luis Robert.  It is really a good looking set.  When it is complete I plan on doing a post on it.  

I have a eight year old Granddaughter who hangs out with us a lot.  When the Padres picked up Austin Nola from the Mariners she heard me talking about it and we discussed him and his brother Aaron and where they played.  She decided we should collect cards of the brothers.  If you happen to have any cards of Aaron or Austin that you wouldn't mind parting with my granddaughter, Nola would like to collect them.  

Thank you for your help and thanks for stopping by.  

Padrographs #1217 & #1218

 

#1217, Rob Deer.  What you didn't know Rob Deer played in twenty five games for the Padres in 1996?  He played in Japan in 1994 and split 1995 between the Padres and Angels AAA clubs.  I got this signed through Mark Grunske.

#1218, Jayce Tingler.  First year major league manager Jayce Tingler is probably taking the Padres to their first playoff appearance in over a decade.  I sent this to him care of the team and it only took thirteen days round trip.

Three of a kind: Three guys named Rod

 We are all named Rod and we have one more thing in common.  We were all born on September 13.  Me in 1957, McCray in 1963 and Correia in 1967.  Kinda fun fact.  Happy Birthday to Rodney McCray and Rod Correia.

Padrographs #1215 & #1216

 

#1215, Dave Stewart. Yes that Dave Stewart of the Oakland A's.  He was the Padres pitching coach in 1998.  He has done almost everything in baseball.  He played, coached and was even a general manager.  I sent this custom to The Trove Sports Den.  I sent and paid to get one signed and included two for Dave to keep.  When I got it back he had signed all three and returned them all.  I now have a couple of extras of the card.

#1216, Taylor Trammell. I ordered this off of ebay just before Taylor got traded to Seattle.  I really liked him as a player and will continue to root for him.  Taylor was born on my 40th birthday so there is another player for my birthday collection.

That's a Wrap and where have I been

 

I finished my five hundred and eighty five card autograph frankenset with these two cards.  It was a challenge and I am glad that I did not keep track of how much it cost me.  I would to thank each and every one of you who also helped me complete it.  The next task is to update the frankenset page so you can see it in all its glory.  That will be fun to do.  On that page each row is a page.  

For the past nineteen years I have managed a bookstore for the county library system.  We sold the books that the library did not have room for on the branch (nineteen of them) shelves.  All the money went back into the library's general fund.  Everyone that worked at the bookstore, except for me, were volunteers.  We had five people that had been here for the entire thirty two years the bookstore had been open. The bookstore was a valuable community resource.  We had many teachers, public, private and home, who shopped to teach with.  The books were below reasonably priced.   In March we closed because of the virus.  We thought we would be back in a few months.  In June I came back from my temporary assignment at the county's Emergency Operation Center to begin getting things ready to reopen.  After just a few days I was given a new mandate, destroy the bookstore.  The library had decided that the bookstore was no longer needed and decided to move a branch in from a leased space.  I had to call sixty five volunteers and let them know that there would be no more bookstore.  Many of them were hurt and angry.  I worked with a moving company to pack up all the books so we could ship them to a consignment company.  After that I was told by a newish staff member to get rid of anything that would remind people that this used to be a bookstore.  Some of the things they wanted me to do were just dumb, but what you gonna do. Back in January I had been told that I would no longer manage the bookstore but would move to a new position.  That position no longer was viable because of "voluntary" retirements and layoffs.  So I waffled for a couple of weeks and decided to take the "voluntary" retirement.  That became effective August 31, so basically for the last two months I have been in a big funk.  I read blogs each day but couldn't bring myself to write much.  The other thing I have doing for the past month is submitting paperwork for retirement and looking for work, part time preferably to supplement my retirement income for a few years.  I can start drawing full social security in 3.5 years.  I want to wait as long as I can for that day.  Plus I have to rectify some mistakes in my social security statement.  When I worked at the LCS, the boss withheld the taxes and such but didn't pay them to SS, so there is one year where it says I only have $20 of SS taxes paid.  There are three years messed up.