Ramblings ... with a contest winner at the end

The start of the busiest period of the entire work year began this week. This weekend is packed with sports chaos, and I expect every week and weekend to be like that until late March.

You don't notice the bedlam here because I try to keep it away from the blog as much as possible. Good ol' night owl just keeps posting as much as he can.

But it wreaks havoc in other hobby ways. The organization of my collection is always a disaster at this time of year. I have trouble sending cards out to people. If I can even get cards packaged, the packages often sit there lonely for sometimes weeks.

And, every once in awhile, I throw out a rambling post like this with no cohesive thought. The cards are deserving of more, but sometimes a dude's got to eat and pay bills and figure out why the car suddenly sounds like a chipmunk stuck in the engine, you know?

So let's just accept the disarray.

Above is a signed card of the recently deceased Doug Harvey. I received it from Matt from Bob Walk the Plank.

It's a pretty cool item from 2015 Panini Cooperstown of one of the greatest umpires of all-time. I enjoy it because Harvey was a regular part of games when I was growing up (although he was gray-haired then, I'm not old enough to remember when he looked like the picture on the card). He was different from other umpires. I don't recall any player or manager arguing with him, although I'm sure they did. He had an air of authority but not the false air that you see from some umpires that is really just a dare. Harvey always seemed to be right. He was nicknamed "God" for a reason.

I don't really know how to end this, but I just wanted to recognize the card.

While I go about my busy days, I try to carve out some small moments of the important stuff: cards. I make sure I have time to write a post most days.

And if I have unopened packs in the house, I make sure they don't sit there unopened.

Among the many things that Johnny's Trading Spot sent me recently were nine packs of 1995 Leaf, Series 2.

There was so much foil on this thing that it took me awhile to decipher exactly what it was. I didn't open anything during the mid-1990s and didn't open any Leaf at all for the entire decade.

So this would be an adventure for me, and I have been trying to open one pack a day, usually not too long after I wake up, before I go about my long list of daily responsibilities.

The first four packs were the usual mid-90s suspects, meaning nothing that appealed to me much. Bruce Ruffin, Scott Ruffcorn, the often-forgotten Orange Ruffie (why did mid-90s pitchers have dog noises in their names?)

My main goal in opening these packs is to find a Hideo Nomo rookie, which I have already.

So, anyway, I mentioned I'm opening these on Twitter, causing The Junior Junkie to chime in:

I had forgotten exactly how obsessed he is with 1995 Leaf.

Today it was time to open pack five.

The second card out of the pack revealed a tadpole of an infielder:

Awww, .204 for a career average. Isn't that precious?

The fifth card in the pack yielded an insert:

It's obvious who this is now, but picture pulling this card in the Northeast in February. Foil is not made for north country winters. Who is that? I can't read it! Do I have to turn every light on in the house to read this thing? Fine!

I was struggling so much identifying the player because John Kruk played for the White Sox?

After a quick online consultation, I realized he did end his career with 45 games with the White Sox.

Then the seventh card out of the pack:

It's one of them slideshow thingies.

Junior Junkie's slideshow thingy!

I quickly looked to see if he had it. Of course he did.

Then I suddenly realized I was excited about something that came out of 1995 Leaf!

So, I have four packs to open. But that's probably the highlight.

OK, so you survived all that rambling to get to where I reveal my 2 million views contest winner.

It received a good amount of entries, although I don't know why every card blogger wasn't entered in a contest in which I buy the winner a card they've always wanted.

I also appreciate all the nice comments. I wasn't really fishing for those, I promise (well, maybe a little). I just wanted to get a good idea of what readers liked so maybe I could gear my content toward anything specific. But I'm more than happy sticking to "write whatever you feel."

So, there were 83 entries in the contest. The lucky winner after three twirls of the randomizer will receive a card, under $40, that they've always wanted. Let's take a look at the winning spin:

Congratulations to Jonathan. He's won himself a card he's always wanted!

According to his comment, he's looking for a '72 Nolan Ryan, which would be appropriate because I also landed my '72 Nolan Ryan after a blog contest win.

But he always has the option of changing his mind. Send me an email, Jonathan!

I didn't have enough room to show the bottom of the randomizer list and didn't think to make a copy of the bottom part. But the last entrant on the list was Nick of Dime Boxes.

He may be happy to know that I sent him a card package today, as kind of a consolation prize.

So that wraps up my random post of randomizing and ramblings.

Thanks for viewing, thanks for reading.

Now I've got to get to work.