Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself

(Post title inspired by the above song – which I argue is the best song on the entire Black Album.  Thought about writing some parody lyrics, but that might be stupid, so I didn’t.  Anyway, we now return to our regularly scheduled programme:  “Gomme communautaire” –  Community Gum)

I hear it all the time.  “Gee, those Community Gum boys sure ain’t been around too golly gosh darned much lately, I reckon.”

This is true.  While our blog posts have never been plentiful, they’ve experienced a significant drop off in the past few months.  Mine especially.  Let me explain where I’ve been and all that went wrong.

First, going back to mid-December, I was away on my honeymoon.  This is one of the few things that went right.  Now, I’m sorry loyal readers and occasional perusers, I wasn’t gonna write about cards when Spain, Morocco and Belgium beckoned.  Oh, and my wife, too.

I did look for cards, but something tells me we were in the wrong areas for that type of thing to begin with.  So, no futbol or trapezoidal lane basketball league cards to show off, but I have a couple loose ideas to incorporate my trip into future posts.  Mostly I just want to show off the places I went to.  Besides, who wouldn’t want to see Hamburger Santa and Fat Spiderman in Plaza Mayor?  No wonder the Euro is collapsing, amiright?

Everything was going well, until shortly after my return.  A metaphorical poo-storm hit from which I really only recently recovered.  On the way to work, my car decided to overheat to the point of no repair (Okay, I could repair it, but it wasn’t worth it anymore).  I had to pull off on the highway three times just to make it to the gas station a couple miles away from work.  I had to call one of my direct reports (on his last day) to come get me.

Like a lot of you, I was financially counting on this car lasting me for a couple more years.  I especially thought I was in the clear since I had the <expletive deleted> fucking piece of shit fixed 3 times in the past 6 weeks.  I probably spent 1.5 to 2 times what it was worth on repairs already.  I couldn’t fix whatever problem this ended up being. The car was toast – nearly literally.

After work, I ended up waiting for the tow truck for 3 hours.  I did this all through my insurance’s free roadside assistance.  One company’s truck broke down on the way to get me.  Yup, you read that right.  The next one straight-up cancelled for no reason.  I had to call the insurance company when it didn’t show before they got me another company.  The third was so busy that day that it took 2 hours to arrive.  Needless to say I was pissed.  I probably got home around 9:30 or 10:00.

Finally home, I go to the computer to rest and relax, and I promptly get a computer virus that debilitated my desktop computer completely.

All in the same day.

I know these are first-world problems, but it still doesn’t mean that I wasn’t any less depressed or that I could avoid the feeling that the fates had it in for me.

Anyway, through my laptop and a usb drive, I was able to remove the virus to some degree.  I wasn’t getting the crazy program pop-ups and it looked like I was in the clear except for one problem.  I had no internet access.

I tried a couple other things with no luck and then did some forum searching online.  There I found a few people with a similar problem.  Unfortunately, the solution was unique to each PC and I needed to post my own computer logs and whatnot for them to diagnose and fix the issue.  Sounds easy enough, except for the fact that they took 2-7 days for each response to my log or question, there were many steps involved, and nothing they were asking me to do actually ended up working.

A month and a half later, they told me that there’s nothing else they could do and I had to suck it up and reinstall windows – the very thing I was desperately trying to avoid.  When it came time to do that, I got really lucky, because I decided to use the “repair windows” option on the disk and that restored my internet.  So, I didn’t have to install all my programs and transfer all my files back and forth.  I’m sure it wouldn’t be as bad as I made it out to be, but it was the principal of the thing.

Long story short, that’s why I wasn’t posting.  I had a laptop with wi-fi access and an external drive to transfer pictures for posts, but I simply chose not to.  I allowed myself to wallow in the depression of every material good I own imploding around me.  I sunk into the abyss and withdrew from just about everything I could.  Going from having a terrible, but completely paid-for car to now owning a much newer car with a large monthly payment wasn’t fun.  There’s several thousand dollars a year I no longer have to pay off credit card bills or save for a house.  And I can pretty much forget about buying any new cards with my personal cash.  My new car is great, but there’s still resentment over the whole situation.  I’m a bitter old man.

Then by the time I started coming around from my funk and having a desktop computer again, Topps Series 1 hit and we had to figure out the logistics of 5 jumbo cases.  Weeks later, it’s still eating up a lot of our time since the best we can manage is selling in waves. (Anybody want to buy a set? Still plenty available!)  I haven’t been able to read anyone’s blogs really, and I feel bad about that.

This post isn’t meant to be a pity party, just an explanation and a loose promise that the plan is to be back in effect momentarily.  It’s the long-winded depressing story with a bit of redemption at the end.  You know, the kind that takes several months to fulfill.  I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things.  I think next week should see semi-regular posts again.  I’m feeling the itch, and missing the blogging community and ready to win that comeback player of the year award.  Oh wait, there’s supposed to be a level of quality to” come back” to…I’m screwed again!

Next time, I’ll have pictures of cards, too!