2015 - State of the Blog Address

Well with 2015 well under way.  The Super Bowl just over the horizon and Spring Training only a couple month away it's that time again to access the collection and the blogs.

Well last year I really didn't accomplish much on the list with a few exceptions, but I look at the State of the Blog address not as a to-do list, but as a vehicle for looking back and ahead.  Pretty deep.

Last year was a big year for me. Not in the blogging or card collecting world, but in my personal life.  I welcomed my son into the world and that put a huge crimp in my collecting.  For one, about this time last year I cleaned out my man cave to make room for a nursery.  I also pretty much lost most of my disposable income to the diaper fund.  But for the almost 30 years that I consider myself a card collector I've never stopped being part of the hobby.  Sure there were times and situations that I wasn't as fully immersed as I had been, but I never considered myself out of the hobby.

So lets look forward to this year.

1. More TTMing.  I have a big list of former Brewers that sign that I'd like to send to.  And Spring Training is just around the corner and there are a ton of prospects I'd like to send too as well.  After my original Spring Training send off last year I really didn't do anymore mailings and that can be seen in my success rate.

2. Limit my box buying and the number of sets I put together.  This is a carry over from last year and to be honest I really did do a good job.  Near the end of the year I kept finding fantastic deals on boxes so I did buy a few, but my baseball box buying was very sparse. I don't even think I sprung for a box of Allen and Ginter and that's probably my favorite set of the year.  We'll see how much Topps baseball I buy, but it's not looking good.

3. Trade more.  I really, really mean it.  I was terrible last year, but you know work, baby, etc.

4. Work harder on my Packers and Brewers collections.  Having mothballed the majority of my collection hurt this one as I wasn't going after cards to fill holes because most of my collection was boxed up.

5.  Keep up posting on my other team and player-centric blogs.  I really like how my Robin Yount blog turned out this year.  I was able to feature great cards, do checklists and galleries of current releases, do general news, and publish more posts then all the previous years combined.

6. Draw more.  I don't know if most of you know this, but I do like to dabble in art.  And not to toot my own horn, but I'm not too shabby.  I even started an art blog.   To be fair that blog originally started off as a rant blog, but I decided to use it to post my art.  And I've been terrible about keeping that blog up as well.  Let me just say having this many blogs was probably a bad idea.  But my wife has challenged me to produce one to two quality pieces per month this year and she would try and get me my own showing.  That would be cool.  However my drawing space has been relegated to the kitchen table.

7. And finally lose 30 pounds.  Maybe I'll actually try this year.

Actually that's a pretty lame list, but I'm working on my 6th year of blogging here folks and I don't really plan to change to much.

Alright  cb out.