Night Owl Cards

(I am in that in-between period where I've just come home from vacationing and the return to work is still a day away. It always feels weird and out of sorts. So, I have an appropriately weird, out-of-sorts post for you. I don't blame you if you don't comment/read. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 354th in a series):   As if I'm not a big enough nerd for clinging to a sports-card collecting hobby from childhood all the way into middle age, here's something that will surely earn my nerd badge.   I have been compiling my own music charts -- as in the kind that Casey Kasem counted down -- off and on for more than 45 years.   I first became aware of music countdown shows during the fall of 1979. The first one I listened to was not Casey Kasem's Billboard Top 40 countdown, it was some other version (it wasn't the Rick Dees either, though I was aware of that one at some point). I looked forward to the weekend when it would broadcast the top songs of th...

At some point, probably during early high school years, my half-assed dream of playing baseball for a living died between wind sprints. "Do I really want to be doing this? I can't be doing this. I don't want to be doing this!" was basically the thought process behind the labored breathing. Not only did I realize that I wasn't good enough to play baseball -- too short and no arm in comparison to my peers -- but I simply didn't have the desire to go through the physical demands of playing a sport on a regular basis. Coach wasn't buying "but, but, but I already run during the game!" Sadly, I was only good enough and interested enough for the schoolyard. But so what? I had other interests. Those interests, unlike baseball, were substantial enough to find a career. I could write, or at least people told me I could. And that led to a career in writing. I could also play music, and although that never led to a career, the combination of ...