Welcome to (Even) Better Know a Blogger week! Each day this week, my goal is to publish an interview with a fellow blogger. To be included, bloggers had to email me for a questionnaire, fill it out, and then email it back to me. Simple! I think many of us enjoyed getting to know fellow bloggers back when I ran a similar feature a number of years ago...and I'm happy to report that some of the same people that participated back then joined up this time around as well! Let's get to it!
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1. Your name (or alias if preferred): Mark aka cynicalbuddha
2. Your blog website: So many but mainly Collector's Crack even though I don't post much anymore. But I do contribute over at a Pack to be Named Later and post pretty regularly on my Robin Yount blog the Yount Collector.
3. Your social media handle(s): I use cynicalbuddha pretty much through all social media platforms I'm on.
4. What are your favorite sport teams? Brewers and Packers and a little Buck and Blackhawks and GPK and other oddball stuff and non-sport stuff.
5. What kind of collector do you consider yourself to be (team collector, player collector, set collector, etc.). Why do you collect that way?
I've always considers myself a three pronged collector. A player collector, team collector and a set collector, but I've cut my set collecting back to one maybe two sets a year. Mainly just flagship Topps baseball and since Panini got football I haven't put any football sets together or bought very much product. Now I'm concentrating mainly on my Robin Yount PC and Brewers team collection.
6. What is your favorite item in your collection?
My 2011 Topps Allen and Ginter Stan Lee Red Framed auto numbered to 10 that pulled myself. I'm a big comic book geek as well as a card geek so it was a perfect card for me and a hit of a life time.
7. If you could add any one card to your collection (that you don’t currently own), what card would it be and why?
It's hard to pick just one but i'd love to add one or all of the minor league Milwaukee Brewers from the T206 set.
8. Thinking back to when you first started collecting, how have your habits changed (if at all)? Any ideas why?
I've definitely become more focused on what I spend my money on. That's one of the reason I stopped set collecting. Most sets are just too expensive to try and build from pack or box buying and just buying the base set really isn't all that fun, but I do love picking up new cards from the Brewers and Packers. I've almost gotten to my collecting goal this year to have 10000 unique Brewers cards.
9. If an alien being came down from the stars and forced you to describe yourself using no more than three cards as talking points, how would you do it?
Wow this is a hard one. I'd have to say my 1975 Yount Hostess greased stained rookie card, my Stan Lee auto, and the card I had my heart set on since I started collecting cards and finally got my holy grail when I was about 17, my first Robin Yount rookie card. I've since picked up more, but that first rookie cards was a milestone in my collecting history. What that would say to the alien I have no idea
10. If you could give any of the major sport card companies one piece of advice about something you’d like changed (or perhaps simply continued) what would it be?
For me I'm a little dismayed at the shift of product price point moving and continuing to move more to the higher end side. Moving away from base sets and products being almost exclusively hit driven and the over use of parallels, I mean it's getting a little out of hand.
11. Where do you live? What is your favorite local food?
Anchorage, Alaska. I guess it's a toss up between my world famous smoked salmon or king crab, which is very pricey.
12. If someone were to visit you, what place (within an hour of travel from your residence) would you suggest someone be sure to check out?
About an hour to and hour and a half north of Anchorage is the town of Talkeetna and on the trip up the highway aligns perfectly with Denali and on a clear day, which can be rare around Denali, the view is absolutely spectacular.
13. What is your profession? How did you end up there? If you are in school, what do you plan to major in and/or what job do you hope to get after graduating?
As I write this I'm in my final days of working at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as a Habitat Biologist. By the time this appears on your blog I will be working for the Alaska Department of Transportation doing planning and traffic data. Kind of a jump for me, but I needed to find something else to do for a while and that would get me outside, plus it's a 4 day work week so that's a big bonus.
14. Do you have any hobbies besides card collecting?
I have a pretty substantial comic book collection. I also collect $1 casino chips, patches, squashed pennies, and lego minifigures.
15. Tell me something interesting about yourself that hasn’t been covered in the first 14 questions!
I'm a fairly decent artist, at least I like to think so and it's a great stress reliever for me. I post some of my art periodically on my art blog here.
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As always, let me first start by saying "thank you" to Mark as he is our latest participant in the (Even) Better Know a Blogger series.
Right off the bat, I have to say that I'm a bit jealous of Mark because he lives in Alaska. Now, I don't exactly want to live in Alaska myself but the state is one of few 50 United States that I haven't been to yet (others in that list include Colorado, North Dakota, and Rhode Island).
Mark and I have completed a number of trades over the years - usually involving baseball cards but also one or two I think that have involved some sort of LEGO being sent one way or the other. Like Mark, I too collect the LEGO Minifigures though trading on that front has died down in recent months.
Finally, I have to say that Mark's new job sounds interesting to me as a math guy. I imagine that planning and traffic data analysis would use quite a bit of interesting math, perhaps matrices even or my personal favorite: graph theory!
---------
1. Your name (or alias if preferred): Mark aka cynicalbuddha
2. Your blog website: So many but mainly Collector's Crack even though I don't post much anymore. But I do contribute over at a Pack to be Named Later and post pretty regularly on my Robin Yount blog the Yount Collector.
3. Your social media handle(s): I use cynicalbuddha pretty much through all social media platforms I'm on.
4. What are your favorite sport teams? Brewers and Packers and a little Buck and Blackhawks and GPK and other oddball stuff and non-sport stuff.
5. What kind of collector do you consider yourself to be (team collector, player collector, set collector, etc.). Why do you collect that way?
I've always considers myself a three pronged collector. A player collector, team collector and a set collector, but I've cut my set collecting back to one maybe two sets a year. Mainly just flagship Topps baseball and since Panini got football I haven't put any football sets together or bought very much product. Now I'm concentrating mainly on my Robin Yount PC and Brewers team collection.
6. What is your favorite item in your collection?
My 2011 Topps Allen and Ginter Stan Lee Red Framed auto numbered to 10 that pulled myself. I'm a big comic book geek as well as a card geek so it was a perfect card for me and a hit of a life time.
7. If you could add any one card to your collection (that you don’t currently own), what card would it be and why?
It's hard to pick just one but i'd love to add one or all of the minor league Milwaukee Brewers from the T206 set.
8. Thinking back to when you first started collecting, how have your habits changed (if at all)? Any ideas why?
I've definitely become more focused on what I spend my money on. That's one of the reason I stopped set collecting. Most sets are just too expensive to try and build from pack or box buying and just buying the base set really isn't all that fun, but I do love picking up new cards from the Brewers and Packers. I've almost gotten to my collecting goal this year to have 10000 unique Brewers cards.
9. If an alien being came down from the stars and forced you to describe yourself using no more than three cards as talking points, how would you do it?
Wow this is a hard one. I'd have to say my 1975 Yount Hostess greased stained rookie card, my Stan Lee auto, and the card I had my heart set on since I started collecting cards and finally got my holy grail when I was about 17, my first Robin Yount rookie card. I've since picked up more, but that first rookie cards was a milestone in my collecting history. What that would say to the alien I have no idea
10. If you could give any of the major sport card companies one piece of advice about something you’d like changed (or perhaps simply continued) what would it be?
For me I'm a little dismayed at the shift of product price point moving and continuing to move more to the higher end side. Moving away from base sets and products being almost exclusively hit driven and the over use of parallels, I mean it's getting a little out of hand.
11. Where do you live? What is your favorite local food?
Anchorage, Alaska. I guess it's a toss up between my world famous smoked salmon or king crab, which is very pricey.
12. If someone were to visit you, what place (within an hour of travel from your residence) would you suggest someone be sure to check out?
About an hour to and hour and a half north of Anchorage is the town of Talkeetna and on the trip up the highway aligns perfectly with Denali and on a clear day, which can be rare around Denali, the view is absolutely spectacular.
13. What is your profession? How did you end up there? If you are in school, what do you plan to major in and/or what job do you hope to get after graduating?
As I write this I'm in my final days of working at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as a Habitat Biologist. By the time this appears on your blog I will be working for the Alaska Department of Transportation doing planning and traffic data. Kind of a jump for me, but I needed to find something else to do for a while and that would get me outside, plus it's a 4 day work week so that's a big bonus.
14. Do you have any hobbies besides card collecting?
I have a pretty substantial comic book collection. I also collect $1 casino chips, patches, squashed pennies, and lego minifigures.
15. Tell me something interesting about yourself that hasn’t been covered in the first 14 questions!
I'm a fairly decent artist, at least I like to think so and it's a great stress reliever for me. I post some of my art periodically on my art blog here.
------------------
As always, let me first start by saying "thank you" to Mark as he is our latest participant in the (Even) Better Know a Blogger series.
Right off the bat, I have to say that I'm a bit jealous of Mark because he lives in Alaska. Now, I don't exactly want to live in Alaska myself but the state is one of few 50 United States that I haven't been to yet (others in that list include Colorado, North Dakota, and Rhode Island).
Mark and I have completed a number of trades over the years - usually involving baseball cards but also one or two I think that have involved some sort of LEGO being sent one way or the other. Like Mark, I too collect the LEGO Minifigures though trading on that front has died down in recent months.
Finally, I have to say that Mark's new job sounds interesting to me as a math guy. I imagine that planning and traffic data analysis would use quite a bit of interesting math, perhaps matrices even or my personal favorite: graph theory!
Very nice post! Great questions and awesome answers! I'm looking forward to getting to know more about fellow hobby bloggers.
ReplyDeleteGood interview!
ReplyDeleteCB has some mad art skills. Love that 4 piece seascape piece.
ReplyDelete