An Explantion for My Absence and Cards from the Quarry 3.0

Those of you that have been reading my blog for awhile will know that I typically do not like to get too personal with my postings.  The reason is two-fold.  One, I am a very private person and don't really like to share some thoughts and feelings.  Secondly, this is a baseball card blog, so I think the topics should trend away from the deep end of the pool.  I am going to break that rule for the first half of this post in order to explain my (non-Friday) absence from the blog world.  It's not because anyone really deserves to know why, but honestly I need people to know why.  And today seems to be the most appropriate day for this to be said.

First a little background.  I grew up primarily without a father in my life.  My grandfather served as a more than serviceable replacement, but my dad has been gone since I was 4 years old.  My parents got divorced at that time (which I'm sure has been the story for too many people) and that was the last time I ever saw or even heard from my father.  It made my life difficult, but I persevered and made it to adulthood without THAT many problems, at least in my mind.  Throughout my teen years, I really wanted to meet my father just to punch him out because that's what I though he deserved.  It was a typical hormonal teenage reaction, but it never came to pass.  I don't remember the exact day, but around the time I turned 20, I decided that it wasn't worth being angry anymore and I arrived at the conclusion that my dad was basically dead to me.  That was around 15 years ago and since then I have rarely thought of my father and even if I did is was with pure apathy rather than disdain.

Fast forward to April 26th of this year.  I discovered through my younger sister that the man that gave me life had lost his...in 2004, the day before Valentine's Day in 2004 to be exact.  For eight years my father had been dead and I never knew.  I was very surprised at how hard I took the news, because he had basically been dead to me since 1980.  The news did shake me up quite a bit though because part of me always wanted to have one of those magical reconciliations that only happen in the movies or in NBC Olympic featurettes.  But it didn't.  I have begrudgingly accepted that many questions I have will never be answered to my satisfaction.  The more prominent shake up that I had with the news was quite a bit more selfish and unexpected.  My father died in 2004 at the age of 48 from unknown causes.  I am currently soon to be 36 and the 50% of myself that I never knew was rapidly approaching a deadline of sorts.  Obviously, I know that just because my dad died at that age doesn't mean I will, but It does tend to run through your head anyway.  I had been extremely lucky in that death had never played a major role in my life's story.  Sure I had the occasional elderly relative that I mainly knew through stories pass away and I had a distant cousin by marriage that succumbed from cancer at a young age, but never had anyone close to me died unexpectedly.  That too was a difficult hurdle to overcome and in some ways I am not completely past it yet.

I was an emotional wreck for several weeks after finding out, but I have mostly recovered now.  Although part of me will never recover from the news and that's okay.  The news of a parent's death should affect you permanently.  The key for me was to try and not make the transformation a completely negative event.  The idea that I have a finish line has now been strengthened and hopefully I can progress a little better than I was previously.




I will try now to transition from the deep problems of life and death to a relatively shallow one, that of my blog's future.  With the glut of remakes and sequels dominating Hollywood at the moment, I am going to do the same thing with my blog.  I am going to try to maintain a schedule and devote the time to actually showing off the cards from my collection which was the main reason for my starting the blog in the first place.


The schedule will begin as follows


Mashburn Mondays - cards of Jamal Mashburn and other UK basketball players

TuBalGo Tuesdays - cards from the modern incarnation of Rockies...ie Tulo, Ubaldo, CarGo etc.

Walker Wednesdays - cards from the Blake Street Bomber era featuring Walker, Bichette, Galarraga etc.

THelton Thursdays - Todd Helton only

Feature Fridays - I enjoyed the recently completed Best Topps Set Countdown and the previously completed Rock Stars series a lot and I will now devote Fridays to a new discussion.  Next up, Rating the Rookie All Star Teams.

Wild Card Weekend - anything and everything from box breaks, trade posts, random musings, thoughtful insights.  Well probably not thoughtful insights, but thoughtful nonetheless.


I hope that will bring back some readership that departed during my hiatus(es) and potentially bring some new people into the masses.  I will begin tomorrow with Cards from the Quarry 3.0 and I hop you join me then.