Out of a Funk and Back into Blogging

I seemed to hit a wall recently with regards to my blogging and actually with cards in general.  It probably seems a lot longer of a funk to me than anyone who regularly reads this blog but it has been about 3 weeks.  I took a work trip with my family then added a vacation on top of that a couple weeks back and had 8-10 posts in the queue prior to leaving.  I have been back over a week now and outside of a post for Nachos Grande's (vote for me!) to enter a contest, I had little motivation to scan and post and blog until today.

Upon reflection, I think the time away from home - about 11 days - and getting out of my routine were the primary drivers.  Additionally work is extremely busy and things around the house are pretty crazy too - really it was a perfect storm.  Today however I popped out of bed pretty early, did a little organizing scanning and blogging and it is feeling really good.  There were also several things that lined up to get me back in the groove - 1) the aforementioned post for the Nachos Grande contest, 2) winning a prize in Fuji's contest!, 3)  last night I read through and voted on all the other contest entries for Nachos' contest and in addition to reading the contest material I read through some other recent posts and was inspired, and 4) I just love cards.

I thought I would jump back in and share some of the highlights from the vacation part of my hiatus. I took the family to San Francisco for a few days and had a great time.  My boys had never been before and had a fabulous time.  We spent the first day at Pier 39 and the Fisherman's Wharf area.  On day 2 we headed out to Alcatraz - which they thoroughly enjoyed.  My 8 year old was entranced by the audio tour and both really loved the boat ride out in addition to the tour around the island.

To me day 3 was the highlight. I got to take my kids to their first Giants game at AT&T Park (we saw them earlier this year against the Angels in Anaheim and I refuse to take them to Dodgers Stadium due to the nature of the rivalry).  They really liked the park.  They got to slide down the Coke slide and really liked the view of McCovey Cove.  We sat up in the top deck at the top of the stadium which actually worked out great - perfect view, in the shade, virtually right behind home plate and some open seats around us that allowed some friends to join us (more on that in a minute).

Despite the results of the game, we had a really nice time and to top it off, they gave away a few cards as a stadium give away!

It was Donate Life Day, encouraging people to sign up as organ donors and we got cards of some players that support the cause.  If you need these for some reason drop me a note as I have a couple extras.

As mentioned above, I also got the chance to see some friends.  My oldest (not in age in longevity) friend Eddie and his son Jake were able to join us at the game.  They came up to our seats in the 4th inning and were able to sit with us the entire game. It was fun seeing my boys interact with Jake and great to catch up with one of my best friends.  It was a day game so we also got to connect later in the evening for dinner.  Check out what Eddie brought me:

It is a Willie McCovey statue that was a stadium give away.  He attended the game but didn't there in time to secure a statue for me so he trolled Craig's List and picked this up for me.  It is very cool and a great addition to my collection of all things McCovey.  If you think I am going to stop at just one picture of this outstanding pick up you are crazy, here are a couple more pictures of the box:

 This is the front at a slight angle, on both sides they wrapped a view of the stadium from McCovey cove where the real statue sits, a great photo and great view.

The back has a photo of the statue with an orange background covered in SF logos.  Overall a great job in the packaging.  And now a couple pictures of the statue itself:

 I am thinking this is intended as the front.  These were sponsored by B of A so I am guessing they would want their logo on the front.  It is a nice angle for the statue, matches the real one in McCovey cove and features Stretch's powerful swing follow thru.  But my favorite angle is this:

Not only does this feature Willie McCovey's name (like there is any question who this is), it showcases his famous and retired number 44 - my favorite jersey number of all time for obvious reasons.

Overall it was a great trip, we visited the Golden Gate bridge and Lombard Street on the way out of town as well.  Thanks to Eddie for a great Willie Mac collectible.

So, I think I am out of my funk and ready to hit the blogs hard.  I am up over 4000 views to the blog and approaching 70 followers - more than I ever thought I would achieve.  I have some work travel coming up this week but I suspect there may be another contest in the near future.  I need to clear up some space, give away stuff to my readers/followers and hopefully drive a little more traffic and followers to the blog.