Making Progress

It's goal-setting season at work. Time to sit down, evaluate my performace, and check off the boxes to say I'm on my way to accomplishing my goals for 2020.  

Except I'm not doing that.

When I say it's goal-setting season, I actually mean it's time to revisit the goals I was supposed to have made at the beginning of the year. 

I didn't do that either. 

Now before you assume I'm a bad employee, I should mention that I'm actually exempt from setting goals in my role. Most everyone in the company sets goals, but the sales team doesn't have to jump through these hoops. Our goals are numbers based and assigned to us late in Q1. I don't have a say in what my goals actually are. 

Things are a bit different over here in the collecting world. 

I set goals for myself. I have the freedom to adjust them throughout the year or completely drop them if I wish. If I don't meet my goals, I won't be fired or disciplined. Heck, I can have the same goal year after year. It doesn't matter. 

To put it succinctly, my collecting goals are arbitrary. 

And heading into this year, I really only had one goal: make progress on my Dodgers team sets for Topps Flagship. 

And thanks to many of you, I've accomplished that.

Greg over at The Collective Mind recently sent over a handful of Dodgers from various sets, including the 1983 and 1978 cards you see above. Don't be fooled by the scan on these '78s, Greg didn't cut off bottom part of these cards--that was the work of my auto-scanner. The full cards are resting nicely in their binder, and I didn't feel the need to scan them again. 

With these additions, my 1978 set is now 79% complete (23/29) and the 1983 set is now at 66% (21/32). Definitely making progress.

Perhaps the best cards in this package were actually a pair from 2014 Update: Clayton Kershaw and Chone Figgins. Both of these cards were on my Most Wanted list on the sidebar and now that they're in hand, I can officially say the 2014 set is complete.

It's just the sixth team set completed to date, but I'm making progress. 

Bo over at Baseball Cards Come to Life! also dropped some more Dodgers on me recently via PWE. He's made a dent in several of my checklists over the last several weeks, this time targeting 1981 and 1984. 

My progress on both of these sets trails the average for the decade (72% of the 80s completed), as 1981 sits at 56% (18/32) while 1984 checks in a bit higher at 68% (21/31). I've yet to complete my first set from the '80s, though I imagine that will happen at some point this year. 

I'm not exactly sure where I started the year, but I'm currently at 51% total for all Dodgers team sets. I was around 47% just a couple of months ago, so it is nice being over the halfway marker now. Still, with only six of the sets complete there is more work to be done. 

So don't mind me if I continue to have the same goal year in and year out. There's always progress to be made. 

State of the Blog: 2015 Goals

Last year I set nine goals for myself, all of differing variety and difficulty. This year I decided to make things a little simpler.

1. Get to 300 Matt Kemp cards

Pretty self-explanatory. I reached 200 in 2014, so that gives me about 365 days to get 100 more. My options are getting lighter, but we'll probably see the first non-Dodgers Kemp card in my PC this year. That will be a tough post.

2. Add One Clayton Kershaw Auto

Hell, these are all self-explanatory. I have been meaning to add a Kershaw auto for quite some time, but I never found one at the right price at the right time. Hopefully 2015 will be the year.

3. Reach 100 Followers

Again, pretty easy. Though this one does depend on other people more than myself. I should probably bring back contests this summer.

4. Finish the master auto set of either Parks and Rec or Archer

In a perfect world I'd do both, but this isn't a perfect world. Parks and Rec is probably the most realistic of the two sets to finish, but there are some expensive cards left to acquire. Let's hope 2015 is the year of the good eBay deal.

I'm sure other things will pop up periodically throughout the year, but these are the bigger things I'd like to focus on for now. 

Wait, one more.

5. Go to Los Angeles for the Dodgers World Series Parade
B)

I'm sure this guy would be down to party it up this November

A Look Back at my 2014 Goals feat. Barry Bonds

On this date one year ago, I established nine goals to accomplish in 2014. Let's take a look at each one of those goals and grade how I did. I'll be posting my 2015 goals early next week.

1. Keep an Updated Blog List
Well, I guess I did alright. I have quite a few blogs on my Blog List, and I know I added a few in 2014. However, I know there are quite a few blogs I visit regularly that are not on here. If you aren't on the list and would like to be, just leave me a comment.

Grade: C+

2. Track Chavez Code Points Better
Hahahahaha. Nope. It only took me a few months to get rid of that due to the difficulty associated with its upkeep. It was a pretty cool idea though.

Grade: F-

3. Reach 200 Matt Kemp cards
Hey, I actually accomplished this! It was on the last day of the year, but I still did it. It was quite a fun ride getting to 200 and I look forward to grabbing more for my PC.

Grade: A+

4. Own 15 Matt Kemp Autographs
Yep. Though only 13 have been shown on the blog. I guess that warrants a bit of a markdown. Look for numbers 14 and 15 soon.

Grade: A-

5. Complete the 2013 Topps Chrome Rainbow for Matt Kemp
The first sentence accompanying this goal was, "This one depends on the availability of the cards, more than my desire to get it done," and boy did that ring true. I missed out on the camo refractor of Kemp early in 2014, and apparently I missed another one that only sold for two bucks in November. I still need five more refractors (Red, Camo, Pink, Atomic, Super), so the chances of this ever being completed are slim. It is a HUGE goal of mine though, so I will drag this goal onto 2015.

Grade: Incomplete

6. Complete 2014 Flagship Before 2015 Comes Out
Well, that was the plan. I finished Series One within a month of its release, came pretty close to finishing off Series Two, but then ditched my set building in an effort to save some time, space, and money. I feel I would have accomplished it had I not gave up on set building, but here we are.

Grade: C-

7. Put Together Every Dodgers Team Set from 2014
Looking back at these goals have led me to realize the difference in my collecting habits only one short year ago. I am focusing more on my small group of PC's nowadays (Kemp, Kershaw, Green, Beltre, Ryu, Bills, Harper, Puig), so this one was doomed when I changed my collecting habits in the summer.

Grade: F

8. Have 75 Followers on the Blog 
I started out the year at 22 followers, so considering I am at 88 followers now, I think I did pretty good.

Grade: A+

9. More Dodger Bobbleheads
I had five at at the time, and I now have twelve.

Grade: A+

Overall, I think I did alright. Some goals didn't work out due to a big change in my collecting habits, so I don't feel too bad. Others I just sucked at following through. It was fun to look back and see how I did, and I hope to have some of the same success in 2015.

Overall Grade: C+

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I couldn't post this without an accompanying card, so here is a card I picked up in one of my latest trades. 

This card came courtesy of Caitlin over at Yankees and Jays. You can see what I sent her here. 

This may be the only time I ever intentionally trade for Giant, so soak it in. Barry Bonds is the greatest player of my generation (though many people may argue that), and I am happy to add a cool looking card of the Home Run King to my collection. The relic on this piece is particularly weird, and it feels a bit like foam to me. I'm not sure if it is specific to my copy of the card only, but it is still pretty jazzy. 

Thanks again, Caitlin!