License to drive

Earlier this week I went to the DMV to upgrade my driver's license. When it arrives in a couple of weeks, for the first time in quite awhile, I will be able to drive in and out of Canada again.

Happy Canada Day, Canada! Watch out! I'm coming back!

Per usual when you re-up your license, you must have your picture taken. It never goes well. For anybody. I don't know how they do it, producing a terrible photo of absolutely every single person every single time. Is it the camera? The lighting? DMV demons?

The picture-taker always asks "is this one OK?" and shows the photo, which then causes me to go into shock, more so this time because I haven't had a haircut in four months on top of looking five years older plus the usual DMV sorcery. I go through the five stages of grief in about 15 seconds before stopping myself from saying, "It's not going to get any better." Finally, I respond:

"Yeah."

It makes me think of baseball players having their photos taken for cards. They're at the mercy of the photographer. I think they turn out remarkably well considering my experience at the DMV (I think 1980s Fleer shots come closest to what you get when renewing your license). Take Jim Tracy above. He's 46 years old in this photo. Looks fine. But that's probably because I'm even older than Jim Tracy here.

*sigh*

Moving on to happier thoughts. Tracy's "Home Team Advantage" 2002 Topps card is one of the cards from the latest flat rate box of Dodgers from Johnny's Trading Spot. He drops one or two of those on me a year, like clockwork. And I weed out the duplicates and thrill over the cards I need on the blog here, like clockwork.

The Tracy was one of those needless, pointless, stamped parallels that I nonetheless needed from the package.

There are a bunch more. I still say stamped parallels are the first cards eliminated from my collection when it comes time for eliminating things (we're not there yet).

One more. Nick Alvarez. Who never made it to the major leagues. I have seven Dodger cards of him now. My collection makes no sense.

The other stack of similarly themed cards from this box that I needed were from that already forgotten Honus Bonus game card set:

These may not look like much one card at a time but they are kind of pleasant all together like this.

I may or may not have all the Dodgers now. I know there are parallels to this, but I don't have time for that.

One last parallel, from last year's Walgreen's Yellow collection. The Twins now have two-fifths of last year's Dodgers starting rotation.

I've reached the point where I get excited about finding team set needs from '90s products. Thanks to more than a decade of blogging, my '90s Dodgers collection is nearly as complete as my '70s and '80s Dodgers collection (excluding inserts, of course). Both of the above were needs and very exciting. Who knew I could get excited over '90s cards?

That Delino DeShields Ultra card is greener than the greenest parallel.

I must show every filled hole, even if I have nothing more to say than "hole filled."

This is as close to a Canada Day post as you're going to get from me this year. I've written Canada Day posts five straight years from 2015-19. I'm tapped out!!

Johnny delivered a sizable stack of '80s O-Pee-Chee Dodgers. I was happy to see I didn't own these three and I was already able to distribute one of the other ones to another blogger that I found on his want list!

John's been able to send stuff like this all the while running his Big Fun Fridays AND this Bingo game now. I can barely get around to sending him the measly envelope that I have.

My most recent Big Fun Friday win is probably my favorite.

Vintage Wackys!!!

All of the above are from Series 5 of the 1973-74 Wacky Packages series. I remember a few of them from when I was a kid, particularly White Fowl and Hungry Jerk.

I never noticed the re-used name on the Hungry Jerk sticker.

It repeated a sticker from the earlier 1973 Wacky series.

I've mentioned before how much these stickers mean to me. It was what I was collecting in 1975 when I wasn't collecting 1975 Topps baseball cards. And, therefore, those Wacky Packages stickers mean almost as much to me as '75 Topps baseball.

But unlike other cards that I treasure from my childhood -- '70s Hostess or Kellogg's or TCMA -- I don't have to battle many fellow bloggers for Wacky stickers. Which is great. More for me!

Thanks Johnny for the cards and stickers. I plan to package up your envelope this evening.

Then I'll spend the next 2-plus weeks bracing for the arrival of my new driver's license.