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Happy New Year! Here are my 2016 Resolutions!

I want to be one of the first to wish you and yours a very happy and prosperous 2016!

Most years I create some sort of list of New Year's Resolutions (though in 2015 I eschewed that practice for some reason).  However, I do enjoy reading other people's resolutions (especially the blog related ones, who cares about losing weight or working out)?!  And so, I present my 2016 Resolutions for your enjoyment.

And yes, I'll be lucky to complete even two of these by this time next year!

1.  Barry Larkin Collection.
I want to keep growing my Barry Larkin Collection.  By this time next year, I hope to have at least 500 cards written up and posted in my Barry Larkin Collection series.  This should be a relatively easy goal since I already have another 100 or so Larkin cards scanned and waiting to be written about (and as of the end of 2015 I had already completed 417 Larkin Collection posts)!

2.  The Great Reorganization.
I've been working on reorganizing my collection off and on for the better part of a year and a three quarters now.  I think I should finish at least the first full wave by the end of 2016 - which means I need to go through all of my binders and first decide which sets I want to collect and which I will give up on.  Then I need to update my want lists accordingly!  This process will probably require me to purchase some more binders and 9-pocket pages as well which stinks because those are two of the most boring purchases in the world (second only to new tires for your car I think).

3.  The Want List.
I'd love to be able to actually whittle down my want list substantially in 2016.  There are quite a few sets on my want list for which I'm only missing a few cards, so I'm going to actively try and complete a number of them - who cares if that's the proverbial low hanging fruit...and set off my want list is a good thing!  Here's at least a partial list of sets that I'm close to completing - hopefully by the time the end of 2016 rolls around there will be a number of these sets no longer on my want list!

  • 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter:  A World Beneath Our Feet:  BUG- 14
  • 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter:  First Ladies:  FIRST- 1, 16, 20
  • 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Hoist the Black Flag:  HBF- 1
  • 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Magnates, Barons, and Tycoons:  MBT- 1, 5
  • 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Mythological Menaces:  MM- 7
  • 2015 Topps Archives:  Will Ferrell Insert:  4, 7
  • 2015 Topps:  Robbed insert:  R- 9, 15
  • 2014 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Outlaws, Bandits, & All-Around Ne'er Do Wells:  OBA-01 Robin Hood
  • 2014 Topps Stadium Club:  113
  • 2013 Topps Chrome:  1, 10, 16, 32, 48, 119, 190, 220
  • 2013 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Famous Finds:  FF-CG
  • 2013 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Inquiring Minds:  JPS
  • 2013 Topps Allen & Ginter:  First Americans:  CM
  • 2013 Topps Archives:  237, 240
  • 2013 Topps Archives:  Tall Boys:  FL, FM, MS
  • 2013 Topps Archives:  All-Star:  CR, GB, GC
  • 2012 Topps Allen & Ginter:  N43:  11, 14
  • 2012 Topps Archives:  Classic Combos:  KK, LM, SF
  • 2012 Topps Archives:  In Action:  CR, I, JE, JH, KG
  • 2012 Topps Archives:  Archive Reprints:  164 (Roberto Clemente)
  • 2011 Topps Lineage:  1975 mini parallel:  33, 103
  • 2011 Topps Heritage:  460
  • 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Inventions of the Future:  5
  • 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Extinct Creatures:  1
  • 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Creatures of Legend, Myth, & Terror:  5, 7, 14, 15
  • 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Cabinet boxloader:  6, 10
  • 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces:  108, 115
  • 2007 Topps Heritage:  Then & Now:  TN7
  • 2007 Topps Heritage:  Baseball Flashbacks:  FB2
  • 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game:  Decade Greats:  BJ, CR
  • 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game:  Dodgers Greats: SS
  • 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game:  Tigers Greats:  KG
  • 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game:  Yankee Greats:  WB
  • 2001 Topps Gold Label:  19, 41, 61, 62, 93, 97, 106, 108, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115
  • 1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice:  186, 188, 189, 190, 192, 194, 196, 197, 198, 200, 494, 500

4.  My Frankensets
The idea of a Frankeset isn't anything new to most of you - but for me I've never tried to create one until 2015.  Actually, all I've done so far is get a bookshelf worth of cards that I think might end up in one of my two Frankensets that I'd like to build.  The first will be all Reds while the second will be strictly non-Reds.  I hope to start both sets this year...and that too will help with the collection clean-up goal from above!

5.  Woodworking
Although not necessarily baseball card related, I want to get back into woodworking this year.  We moved to our new house in October of 2014 and in the move I basically lost our giant garage (which had plenty of space for lots of my woodworking projects).  My new house does have a garage but there wasn't any workbench (or even electricity) in it when we moved in.  We did get an electrician to install some outlets for us in the garage which means I can now start working on building a proper work area.  This is most likely a summer project - and I hope I can complete it!

6.  Teaching 
After a couple of years of basically teaching the same courses that I've been teaching (which means no new lessons needed), I've got a bunch of new courses coming up over the next 18 months.  For starters, I'm teaching Applied Calculus this spring for the first time ever as well as Graph Theory.  Both courses require quite a bit of work - so if I'm quiet on the blogs during the semester you can almost assuredly blame those two courses!  Then, next fall I might be teaching Calculus III - a course I haven't touched or looked at since I took it as a student about a decade ago.  And, moving to spring of 2017, I'll be co-teaching a brand new course called History of Mathematics that will have a travel component in it (Italy and Greece).  I'm extremely excited about that course...but I need to get through all the other new preps first!

I think that pretty much does it for goals related to this blog (and my career).  Now, it's your turn.  What are your resolutions for 2016?  Feel free to leave your comments below or to leave a link to your blog!

Comments

  1. Nice goals, man you are so close on many of those sets. Good luck on knocking them out in 2016!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lol... I guess I shouldn't complain about reading up on 8th grade physical science. Have fun teaching your new courses in 2016!

    ReplyDelete

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