A foundation of this blog

I was going through some posts on my blog from May of 2010 the other day when the total number of posts written that month caught my eye.

I wrote 44 posts that month. This is not a surprise to me. I know I used to post to Night Owl Cards twice a day as often as I could and averaged 40 posts a month. But when my old habits hit me out of the blue like that, I am stunned. What kind of cyborg was I?

This May, I will have written 16 posts. This is post 16. That is one more than my record low for posts in a month, which happened twice last year.

Some may think I have gotten too "big" for this blog. Life is far busier due to my family health issues. Also there's the matter of writing for Beckett magazine. "Perhaps Mr. Big Shot Night Owl doesn't have the need for this particular writing exercise anymore? Perhaps he can't be bothered with those blog basics: trading, updating want lists, boasting about card acquisitions, etc?"

Well, maybe. But I'm going to try like hell to avoid letting that happen.

My blog has never been solely a trading vehicle or a card-displaying vehicle. I started this blog to write about my appreciation of cards, baseball and a little about life. Writing is the foundation of this blog, not cards or any other subject.

But there definitely are other foundation basics and when I deal with those on this blog, it feels like coming home. One of those is showcasing cards with blog trading buddies.

Even though my want lists are in disarray -- because really who has the time -- I keep old standbys like the Nebulous 9 going on the off-chance that somebody knows that night owl still trades cards.

Recently, P-Town Tom from Waiting 'Til Next Year took a wack at the Nebulous 9, taking five whole cards off of it, including ones that had been on there for the second-longest and third-longest period of time.

The most important cards that I received were from 1981 Fleer. The Mike Schmidt card at the top had lived at the Nebulous 9 for far too long. It was thought to be one of the final two cards I needed to complete the 1981 Fleer set. That was until I discovered there were a couple of other '81 Fleer wants that I had missed.

P-Town Tom took care of those, too:

So it's official now -- I've double-checked and everything -- I need just the one Rickey Henderson card to complete the '81 Fleer set. It's card #574. It gets confusing because there's another Henderson card in the set (#351) that looks almost identical to the other Henderson card. Trust me, 1981 Fleer was so weird when it came out because of things like this.

Another long-lasting member of the Nebulous 9 has finally moved out, too.

1992 Bowman is very pesky. I've vowed to finally finish off the Dodgers in that set several different times but can't get myself to commit to it. I wanted to cross off Eric Davis first as it was the last remaining "significant" Dodger that I needed from that set.

The other Nebulous 9 need erased from the list with Tom's mailing completes another team set, as weird as it is.

Yes, that's Jackie Robinson in the 2017 Topps Fire set. The Dodgers Fire cards are finally complete.

There may be very little time for the blog now that I'm an All Grown-Up Night Owl doing Very Big and Important Things. But I will be updating that Nebulous 9 list. And I will be getting out trade packages when the time allows.

Because that stuff is at the foundation of my blog.

Writing may be the No. 1 reason why I'm still doing this, but let's face it, you still need pretty pictures to get anyone to actually read it.