Sunday, February 28, 2010

George Strait and the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Some of you may be reading the title of the post, checking the title of the blog to make sure you are in the right place, then scratching your head as to how this all connects.  Others of you, however, made the connection right away.  So, what does all of this have to do with baseball cards?  Well, the time has come to "Give it Away!"  Er, well, grammatically, "Give THEM Away," but that's not the title of the song sung by the two performers mentioned.

A long time ago, in a blog post far, far away, I offered up ALL the cards I had that were not part of my collection (or were not yet entered into my database).  During the process, it occurred to me that I should snap a picture of the "Last Great Tribecards Giveaway" in action:

 
Above, you see a part of the process.  On the left, stacks of cards with the teams I was not looking for at the time this was taken.  Basically, I had several boxes of unsorted cards which I went through 5 or 6 teams at a time.  If the cards were of the teams I wanted to pull out, they got put into the sorter you see in the upper right.  Otherwise, they were relegated to the stacks on the left until I was ready to repeat the procedure.  The 10-section sorter in the middle top area is where I sorted the selected teams based on each person that wanted that team.  It's either not as complicated as it seems, or is way more complicated than it probably needed to be.  I'm not really sure anymore.  Everything is something of a blur.
Once everything was sorted, each person's cards were placed in other sorters (in the photo above, one such sorter is seen mid-right).  After I completed each person's requests, I packaged the cards up for shipping.  Well, that was the theory anyway. In practice, I ended up with many, many stacks of cards divided by requester.  Once everything had been sorted and distributed, then I packaged them up:
 
The photo above does not do the sheer number of packages any justice.  The upper right portion is actually a large box that contains roughly 20 packages alone!  Now, what you may notice right away is differing sizes in packages.  Here's how that breaks down (for those interested... well, and for those not interested but who are reading along anyway):

First and foremost, the number of cards each person gets was determined by the number of cards I had for a given team.  Next, the number of people asking for particular teams affected the number of cards each of those folks receive.  Makes sense, right?  If 15 people ask for Yankees, each person (theoretically) will get fewer cards than if only 2 people ask for Pirates.  Another factor that comes into play is the number of teams requested.  Generally, most people received at least SOME cards from each team they asked for.  There are exceptions, of course, but I tried to spread the wealth as best as possible.  The one main exception to that was the "12 Days" requests.  The folks that had asked for cards during the "12 Days" giveaway were given extra cards because they have been waiting MUCH too long for their cards (in my opinion. As is turns out, you all are a bunch of amazingly patient and forgiving folks!!).

I only have three addresses that I'm missing, and those folks have been contacted.  What does that mean?  That means *ALL* the packages should go out Monday!! WAHOO!!

THANK YOU to everyone that asked to participate in the "12 Days" and "Last Great" giveaways!!  I hope you enjoy your cards as much as I enjoyed putting these together.  It's a lot of work, but knowing these cards are going to the folks that collect them makes it all worth it!  And those that asked for "anything" or "random oddball cards," you have no idea what you've called upon yourselves!

Poetic Justice Note: After I had sealed up all the packages, my son walks in with a binder full of cards he had been collecting.  He drops the folder on the floor and says, "Hey, you can give these away, too!"  AUGH!  Well, I'll save those for trading or some other giveaways later.  Who knows what will become of those yet.

9 comments:

  1. Man, that is pretty awesome. I'd hate to see the receipt from the post office on Monday, though.

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  2. Simple box breaks can be a project. I can imagine what you went through !

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  3. Wow, that's quite the undertaking! Your card generosity truly knows no bounds!

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  4. Madding - I hear ya! Believe me, though, it is well worth it! :-)

    Baseball Dad - It took a lot longer than I thought it would!

    SpastikMooss - Thanks! Unfortunately, this is pretty close to the bounds, as I don't think I'll be doing giveaways for quite some time. That was part of the reason for holding this last "great" one. :-(

    Mark - LOL, yeap, still around and will be posting regularly (hopefully) from here on out again!

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  5. I feel for you. It is always a major undertaking for me to sort 1 or 2 teams out.

    I can't wait to se which one ends up being mine.

    PS: I got the RHCP referance but I guess you have to know country music to get the George Strait one.

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  6. dude. that's nuts. I thought I spent a lot of money on postage.

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  7. Haha - I see postage as a necessary "evil" of being able to share my cards with the folks that enjoy collecting. I do spend a lot in postage, but so far, it has come out pretty even with folks who donate money and cards to me. I never ask for anything in return because that is not why I do it.

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  8. You never cease to amaze me. The bloggers are generally very generous, but you take it to the extreme. I'm looking forward to reading some good regular posts again. Thanks!

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