I've Got Some Work to Do

Christmas came early to Off Hiatus HQ yesterday. My wife told me on Thursday that her parents had gotten me a big Christmas gift, and that they were making the 2+ hour drive to bring it to our house yesterday.

To be honest, I had no idea what they were bringing. I theorized that it could be a new grill since the one we have -- though just three years old -- is already looking a little worse for the wear. 

The gift arrived yesterday...in the back of my father-in-law's pickup truck.

I look happy there.  This photo is the realization that I need to go through these and sort them all out:



There are about 75 binders to go through.  Seriously. This is going to take a while.

Here's another view of the binders out of the truck, stacked in my screen porch:



My initial flip through these binders -- in moving them to my office and, then, getting them so they aren't just thrown all over the floor -- is that there is a lot of junk wax with a few oddball early 1990s sets thrown in and, randomly strewn throughout the binders, are cards from the 1970s. 

The man who had these cards passed away, and his wife and son wanted to get rid of them. The previous owner had pretty detailed inventories of what he had, so that's been helpful. However, his definition of star and my definition of star are slightly different. I would not, for example, have included Dave Bergman or Francisco Cabrera or Tracy Jones in a star binder.

Still, that's a lot of the fun.  It's too bad that I have a bunch of work to finish up today, as I might otherwise spend all day blowing through these things.

The best part for my wife and her parents was that this was a huge surprise to me. It's great to have in-laws who like me generally, but to care enough to find this, buy it, and deliver it to me is just unbelievable.

I really am a lucky man.