Adding to the back of my baseball card

As of next week, I'll have a new job.

Thanks to some help from a former coworker, I'll be starting a new position at a charity-based book warehouse, where I'll basically be pricing and listing books online all day. I've worked at a used bookstore for about a year now, and while I enjoyed it more than any of my past bookstore jobs, working retail in the age of COVID just got to be too much for me. Dealing with the public has its own hazards regardless, but it was aggravating and often incredible to see how little people seemed to care in the middle of a pandemic. So goes my faith in humanity.

I'm excited to start at the warehouse, mainly because I won't have to wait on a single customer. But like a well-traveled baseball player, I've unwittingly built up the back of my baseball card as an adult with my job changes. This is the fourth book-related position I've had, and my third in the last three years. I've never really planned on having a set-in-stone career, but I also wasn't exactly looking to become Dave Kingman, who (in)famously played for four different teams in 1977, as mentioned in this excellent Topps Comic I recently received from Greg of the legendary "Night Owl Cards" blog.

Even after his wild quadruple-stop season, Kingman did eventually find a relatively stable home in Chicago, and even became somewhat of an icon as a Cub -- I can only hope to be so lucky.

If nothing else, I think this new job will allow me at least a bit more time and energy for things like baseball cards -- I've got a set schedule with weekends off.

I'm about to set a record for fewest posts in a month on this blog -- this is just the fourth one I've written in August -- and you can attribute a lot of that to simply being devoid of brainpower after coming home from the bookstore. I always get nervous leaving a job, but this was a fairly easy decision, especially because I had another gig waiting for me.

So hopefully I'll have some more time for my cards now, and more energy to show great cards like the ones I got from Greg around here.

The Kingman and 2019 want-list miscellany were actually throw-ins to the main coup: a stack of minis I claimed from Greg during a giveaway he held on his blog a while back.

As soon as I saw that Jim Abbott advertised as part of the lot, I knew it was the prize I wanted -- the others were just cherries on top.

As fate would have it, I also received a surprise package from Greg last week, one that featured yet another heap of want list help.

I still have yet to see any 2020 Archives on the retail shelves around here -- it's probably already been bought up by the pack hounds -- but it's nice to know my 2019 Archives needs are getting closer and closer to completion.

My want lists are more for my own reference than anything, but it warms my heart to know that other people still go through it, finding stuff I need.

Here's some 2020 needs Greg found from my lists, including a couple more cards that reaffirm my love for this year's Turkey Red inserts.

I specifically requested this card from Greg on his blog not long ago, and voila, it wound up on my doorstep not long after.

I've mentioned it before, but I started collecting Ryan Borucki because his uncle is a client at my mom's work -- my mom, at some point, mentioned to him that I'm a huge baseball fan, and she came home with a ball personally signed for me by Borucki one day, given to her by his uncle.

When Greg mentioned that he'd pulled Borucki's advanced stats variation from a pack of 2020 Topps, I obviously needed to inquire.

It's the first of these parallels I've gotten this year, and I'm ecstatic to have it -- I'll wow everyone with my knowledge of Ryan Borucki's spin rate. It's a nice change of pace in what has become something of a valley for baseball card backs in recent years. For now it's just another way to connect with my collection -- which is something I hope to be able to do much more often in the near future.

Until then, wish me luck at the new job, and hope I can start to build some kind of consistency on the back of my baseball card.