I feel like I'm in downtown Denver. Do you get that vibe at all right now? Oh, not at all. No? Yeah, I'll put it there. I have a yes, I have a no. Yeah, this is definitely, this is definitely like Colfax. I love Denver. Yeah, Colfax. Oh, Colfax. I should have at least another 20 people mad at me, but yeah, that's fine. We're doing good at whatever. I haven't even had anybody honk at me yet. I don't think we're doing great. Hey Tiffany. What? Have you ever paid for parking for a big rig before? No. I don't know if we pay for it. I'm not sure if anyone else has either. Do we pay for one or do we pay for two? Do we have to hit that little button that goes wait? Wait. Wait. What if like in Texas instead of saying wait, it was like hold up a man and partner. That'll stop now. So tell me the kind of conversations that you were having with Ian, the terminal manager, what kind of conversation was it that led into like the office position? Was that something that you had specifically asked for or? I did let him know that I did, but we didn't have any specific conversation. My son and mine, our former driver manager is now working as a recruiter in the main office. So I reached out to Evania and told her I wanted to be in the office. So she kind of advised me on what to do and how to search for jobs and that kind of thing. That's awesome. So with her guidance, I started applying for jobs in the office. Yeah, like just going online. Just going online and submitting my resume and that kind of thing. And then I was coming back to go on my home time and I happened to pass Jesse and Alan in the parking lot. And here, right? Turn right, yes. And I had told him that I was interested in going to work in the office at some point.  Well, he didn't tell me. I like Cox. Yeah, he didn't tell me it was going to be his. He just said a spot. That's funny.  Go in this lane. The left one. Yeah, sorry. And I would be interested in it. Can you make it through that little narrow bit? Sure. Sure. Anyway, I just mentioned to him that I would be interested and he told me to go ahead and do an application and all that. And he would try to get me worked in for an interview, which he did. No, actually he did. I didn't get an interview for that. For that role? For that role at that time. A DM driver manager position came open. So I interviewed for that. Yeah. And that didn't produce anything. So I just went back out on the road. For Alan. This all transpired probably within about four months. So then the safety position came open and then we started from there. But this was not Alan's position? No, they had hired somebody else for Alan's position. So I had ended up applying for a driver manager and then Alan's or interviewing for those two. So it took a little time to get everything squared away. And then finally they allowed me to have Alan's position. Oh, that was interesting. That's fun. So it ought to be fun. Yeah. I think it's going to be a fun position to be. Get to be home every night. That's what I'm really looking forward to. So I lived in Alaska for three years. You lived in Alaska for 20? Yeah, it was 19 and some months.  Yeah, I would too. I think mine wasn't quite three years. I rounded up because of how cold it was. It's a pretty amazing place, I thought. Everybody should see it at least once. That's exactly what I say. Would you go back and live there again? No. No. I don't think I would either. My wife won't. Yeah. I could. You know, I have a lot. I still have good friends there. I have my oldest son and grandchildren still there. Oh, okay. You know, so I would love to be closer. You'll be visiting, I'm sure, then. Unless they come down here. Yeah. And what it has shown me is what my parents went through their whole life now because they were here and I was up there. And now I understand the torment they went through. Yeah. Just being away, not seeing the grandkids. Right. Just missing out on the life, you know. Yeah. But, you know, Alaska is an amazing place. It's beautiful, but it rains a lot.  The mosquitoes are very large. They are. The bears are even bigger. I don't think that the summer times are beautiful enough to make up for the winter times. Well, they're too short. Yes, very much. For me, the Phoenix winter is the last in the summer. It's true. But it's much longer. A little bit overcast. I just was always so upset because I come from, I was raised in Phoenix and I was used to being able to wear like sandals and sun dresses in the summertime. And up there in the summer, you're not wearing that. Like you're wearing some rain gear. You just didn't get used to it yet. I probably didn't. The locals were. I was in like two layers as opposed to the wintertime. I was in five layers. When the temperature hit 65, we were at the lake with the jet skis. Exactly. That's the other thing that I noticed too. So I'm kind of a planner. We talked about you being one as well. So I'm going to plan out my day. If not like a week in advance, like at least that day, I'm going to map out like I'm going to hit the gym. I may go to the grocery store, whatever. And in Alaska, you don't really know how the weather is going to be all the time. So when it's sunny that day, like you drop everything that you're doing. The sunshine. Yeah. Like let's have a barbecue. 10 people are coming over. We're barbecuing. Like what? What is this? It's insane. But it is so beautiful. Especially the summer days that aren't raining. Yeah. Which. When it's sunny. Yeah. And 75. That happens. My parents came up one time and all that time. For two weeks, it rained every single day. My gosh. Yeah. And they weren't real rain people. We grew up, we're from Wyoming. It's sunny there like it is in Arizona. Yeah. Not very often, huh? The farmers there, which a lot of people grow, like have their own gardens. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So the fruits and vegetables there and the grass just grew like crazy. Yeah. No need to water. Yeah. From all the light that you get in the summertime? We lived out in the valley out in Wasilla area. And there was one house we lived in, the grass literally grew 8 to 10 inches a week without watering it. Yeah. So regardless of what you're going to be doing, you are going to be mowing the lawn. Yes. So. Hopefully it's going to be sunny and pretty weather for you to mow the lawn. Yeah. Don't count on it though. What was your favorite city to go and visit when you lived there? Like to do like a vacation too? We didn't do a lot of vacation stuff. We spent a lot of time bouncing back and forth for Fairbanks. Oh geez. That's far. Actually, I guess if I had to pick a spot, I would be like down on the peninsula, Homer, you know, I was going to say that. Yeah. My former boss has a fishing charter that he runs at a deep creek. Okay. So we would like to go down to his place. Yeah. Thanks dude. We'd like to go down to his place and go fishing and that kind of thing. Like dip netting? No, we go out on his boat and fish for halibut. Oh yeah, my favorite. And then in the winter we'd go down there at Snowmobile out of there. Yeah. Polebenders. Polebenders. Polebenders in Deep Creek, Alaska. Captain Greg, your best captain on the water. And out to Captain Greg. Captain Greg. I love that. He better. Those folks are great people, I am. Is that near Homer? Deep Creek? Yeah, it's probably about 20 miles or so north of Homer, I would guess. There you go. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I think one of my favorite places that we visited was Homer. I love Seward though, I absolutely love Seward, but Homer, it was such a cool experience like going out on the spit, going out on the peninsula. Oh my gosh. And there were sea otters everywhere.  So seeing the little sea otters like swimming around on their back or like trying to open the shells, like muscles and clams, whatever it is.  It's amazing that they're that smart. Yeah, right? And then so many bald eagles there too. The bald eagles are beautiful. Just like scavenging on the beaches. I was very lucky. I got to travel, I spent some time on the North Slope and I was able to go down to the Aleutian chain to Dutch Harbor. Were you working? Did you work at Fisherman? No, no, no. I had a little maintenance company going on where I did some window maintenance just over a weekend. What did you do on the slope? I helped them with the shutdown, just clean up some of the pump stations and stuff, do the maintenance on it. Who did you work for when you did that? That was Viko. Viko, when was that? Oh man, that was back in... That was back probably 95-ish. Is that CH2M Hill? It is now. And that's who my oldest son works for now. Oh really? He works on the slope now. Good for him. What does he do? You know, I don't really know. It's like manual. He's studying to be an operator and I know he's been training to be an operator. But I don't really know exactly what he's doing. Have you heard of American Marine Corporation based out of Anchorage? No, I don't think I have. I worked on the slope when I was up there for an environmental company. Okay. I just planned all the logistics for their crews, but there was another company called Alaska Clean Seas. I have... You heard of that? I think so, yeah. It's a non-profit that gets all their funding from the oil companies that are up there, that operate up there. So they just get their annual budget from them and then they promise to clean up any spills that any of these oil companies will have. Well they, Alaska Clean Seas, in turn, came back and would hire our crews. So we were kind of like feeding them the crew that they needed so they didn't have to have that crew on staff all the time. Sure, sure. So that's what we did. It was a really cool experience, obviously, working in the oil field. Yeah.  Right. So I could come back to Arizona and visit my family all the time. But it was so lonely up there. It was just... Like, when you're up there, you're working 86 hours a week. Right. If not more. Work, work, work. So, yeah, that's all that you do and eat food. Yeah, that's what they say. Work and eat. And you can tell with some of them that they've only been working any day. Yeah, one of my best friends works up there as well and then my son. That's cool. And when I went up for the shutdown, I could have went back and went full-time. Yeah. They asked me to, but I felt like it was more important to be home with the boys and try to be there for them. Yeah, that's why I decided... Well, one of the reasons I decided to move back was I just need to get a normal career. Like, this is not a career that I want to do long-term. I couldn't imagine being a mom and having to leave my children every two weeks to be away from them. I know my son struggles with it because he's got two boys. Yeah, how old are they? One just turned 13. Yeah. And the other one, seven, I believe. I guess it's similar to, like, a trucker lifestyle, too.  Yeah, that is nice. See, I'm kind of a believer that for every week you're out, you should get two days off, just like everybody else can. Yeah. There's... I think that that can be coordinated. It can, I think. But we don't have that setup in the system. It's not setup, but if they work with the driver managers, it can be worked out. The driver managers are so accommodating as long as if you come in and work hard and produce, be on time, be professional, they're going to do anything they can to help you. Yeah, it's true. You know. I feel like part of the reason I am where I am now is because I feel like I was one of the better producers. Yeah. I ran hard. I was nearly always on time. A couple of times I made mistakes, but, you know, I'm human, but nearly always on time. Most of the time I was early and I just... I was dependable. They knew if they'd give me a load that I was going to do whatever I possibly could to get it there on time. I guarantee you that they checked that out before they brought you into the office just to see, like, how reliable you were. Oh, I'm sure of it. Yeah. But I don't think they had to look. I think they already knew. Yeah, that's true because you worked with them already. Yeah. That's a good point. But yeah, I'm sure they knew. That's cool. You'll have to let me know how your transition goes. So far, it's been awesome. The folks have been real patient with me and, you know, I'm making baby steps today. I felt like today was almost kind of a milestone day.   That's so awesome.  Well, she hasn't voiced it yet. I'm sure it's gone. At least you're gone for most of the day. Well, she's working on it, so... Is she really? Oh, absolutely. She works full-time. Where does she work? Does she have her own? She leases a station from... I can't think of it right now. Is it close to home? It's up off the I-17 and Cape Creek, not Cape Creek, but Carefree Highway, Carefree Salon. Oh. Does she have a lot of clients? Oh, yeah. She's been in the exact same place that we got here in 1907. Oh, jeez, yeah. So she's been there a long time. She doesn't like to move.  Oh, yeah. Build relationships with her customers. All of her customers, her long-time customers, they just love her. Being a hairstylist is... Is that the proper term? Yeah. Hairstylist? Yeah. It's such a relation-based business. Oh, yeah. And I love it. Like, I love the conversation that I have with my hairstylist. You know, like, it's just... It's cool. Because you're generally going to spend quite a bit of time with them. Oh, absolutely.  Yeah, well, she's been doing it since 88, 87. Ah, it's crazy. So... It sounds like she's been doing well, like, financially speaking. She's always done really well. That means she's good at her job, then. Yeah, yeah. Is your wife from Dallas? She lived... She lived in probably as many states as I've driven to. Wow. Yeah, but... But a lot of Texas, Louisiana... Okay. ...time, but she's literally... You said she's Cajun, right? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And influenced. Cajun inspired. Living down there. She cooks very good Cajun, from what I understand. Like I said, I don't eat it. But everybody does. Why? It's so good. I think it's part of it's a texture thing, I would think. Like the rice? Or the budan? The budan, I've never really... I probably honestly have not tried the budan. It's like sausage, right? And I don't do... Yeah, I really don't do a lot of seafood. Oh, I love seafood. So, you know, like the crawfish... Oh, yeah. And, you know, the crab and all that. Oysters or fresh oysters down there. I love shrimp. And alibut. That's it. Alibut is delicious. There's no more seafood. That's probably my favorite white fish, and I miss that so much from Alaska. Beignets. You can't go wrong with that. I don't even know what a beignet is.  Is that the little round tube thing? No, it's like... It's kind of like...  No, I can't... I don't know. It's kind of like fried dough, and then they put powdered sugar on top of it. They serve it at Cafe Dumond in New Orleans. Oh, well, if it's for fried dough, it's sure. Right, yeah. How can it be bad? It's like a donut. So, yeah, I would say I probably do like that. I knew we should have gotten donuts for lunch. No. That's breakfast food. I will eat a donut any time of the day. I don't, but I would love to. You sound like my son, Trent. We're driving down the road, and he'll be planting his fuel stops under which one's got a Dunkin' Donut. Smart. And the whole crew's amazing. Their coffee is good. I'm going to put it out there and say that their coffee's better than Starbucks. I truly believe in my heart that it is. Doesn't matter. Yeah, it's good. I don't drink coffee, but I've heard that it is the best. What do you get? Oh, caffeine, soda, Pepsi, Coke. And tea. I'm a tea toddler. You drink tea? I drink hot tea. Are you from Great Britain? Nope. Nope. Tea time? I'm sure that went, no, there's no none of this. I'm sure that came from my mother's influence. She drank tea. Yeah.  Mmm, me too. But I just never required the taste for it. Or when you grind it, like at the store with fresh ground. It smells great. But there's not enough sugar to make it taste good for me. When I went to, in Ireland, we went to a tea house and they had like little tea cakes and like the little sugar cubes.  And my friend comes in there with like 10 layers of jackets on because it was so cold and she turns around and all the tea cups were like clink, clink, clink. Oh my gosh. It's terrible. Funny. Did they say bowl and bowl? No. Bowl in a china shop? Bowl. Oh yeah. Bowl in a china shop. Not a bowl. Bowl. Bowl. I can't say that word. Bowl. I thought you said you were from Arizona. Bowl. Yeah, this truck doesn't beep. It doesn't have the beeping, beeping deals. For what? Smart drive. Oh, sure it does. Is that what it's called? I just haven't given it a reason to beep. Really? Really. I feel like some of the other ride-alongs that we've done, they beep at everything. Like that one driver that cut you off? Well, I applied the brake, which kept it from beeping. Oh, that makes sense. There are ways around it. Basically what it's trying to do is to keep you from hitting anybody, but it's trying to remind you that maybe you're too close. Keep a safe distance. Keep a safe distance.  It's when you stay in the gas and keep riding the bumper, the alarm goes off. You get messages sent to the DDM. It's my job to watch those videos. What do you call them? Performance counseling? Is that what you call them? Yeah, I think it is called performance counseling. And then if you get, you know, you're trying to keep a low score like golf and you want under 25 points or anything over that. Does that have bowling as too? Because my bowling scores are always very low. Well, depends on how you play it. Some people play it that way. My wife plays it that way. So how was your ride along with JR here? It was good. It was really fun. I'm really happy that we got to know each other a little bit better and it's funny that we both lived in Alaska for a little bit of our lives.  Yeah. Is that what they said? Neither of us were born there, but... But we were residents. Yeah, we were residents for a little bit.  He pretty much must have been, you know. Oh, well, anyway. So how about you, sir? How did that go, JR? It went great. It was been fun. Yeah, how was the, what was any other place that we went to? The dressing room. The dressing room. Oh, yeah, the dressing room. Yeah, that wasn't so bad, huh? It's a weird name for a restaurant. Yeah. And there was no place to put clothes on in there. It was good. It was good. Yeah. I'm going to have to go back for the quarantine. You can do that tonight on the way home. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, thank you guys. I really appreciate it. It was fun to do. Thank you for coming along. I hope that all of our drivers do well and never have to get phone calls from you, sir. I hope that you too.


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebrakes.com back from Chicago and we're kicking off today with the 2023 Tops Chrome Hobby Dual Case Break. 24 boxes total, pick your team six and we have another pick your team loaded up on jaspyscasebrakes.com. All card ship, a lot of great stuff here and it's a longer break so let's get the show on the road. Big thanks to this group for making it happen and we will do an autograph recap plus any lower numbered cards and other special cards towards the end. Thanks everybody for making it happen. Matt with LastBodMojo with my Dodgers. A lot of people in on it. Anybody in this break watching live? Excuse me. This is the hobby case right there. This doesn't angle up as well as I wanted to figure that out. Well the National was a lot of fun. It turned out to be even with our abbreviated schedule turned out to be a lot busier than I thought which was good.  There it is 2023 Tops Chrome Baseball Hobby Edition. One Chrome autograph per box on average. Richard's here. I would love to see some train whistles. Jan got all of the Chronicles cards. Nice home grooms. Very good. Excellent. Good to hear. John Samuelsen in this rig. Yeah I saw you with a few teams in here. Good to see you. The National was a lot of fun. It helped Nick out a lot with a lot of card buying. He's got a ton of cards that he picked up at the National. If you go to jaskyscasebreak.com there's a there's a blog area there. And I haven't done my final update from the National but you can see some of my National notebook blog posts. You can get a little a small window into what we are doing. Met with the Fanatics people. Had a nice meeting with them. Kicking off FanEx live which will be starting more in earnest. I think when my week resets on Saturday or on Sunday. I think of our first of many Fanatics live breaks. So we'll be on Fanatics live probably seven nights. Seven nights no. At least a good chunk of the week. Some of the days will be me. Some of the days will be some of the others but yeah. Once we get a concrete schedule we'll share that later this week. BW is here. Met's and Pirates. I see you Brian thank you. Good luck. It's a long break ladies and gentlemen. I know it takes Jason about hour 40 minutes. We're not as fast as Jason. It'll probably take me closer to two hours but we'll grind through it as best as possible. Here's box one. I did not get any national promo stuff for myself unfortunately. Here's our autograph Nolan Jones. 136 out of 250. Purple Mountain Majesty going to the Rockies that'll be for Tim. The Rocks. Little color match there. Good start. We got a gold O'Neill cruise. Four out of 50. That's one for BW. The Pirates. First of many I hope. But yeah no national promo stuff for me Jen. Just didn't have time. Busy buying stuff. Making deals. Keeping our eye out for some good stuff for the shop and for future hit packs and big hit express products. So that's what we've been keeping us busy. So no time for too many personal stuff. Here's a Jordan Walker refractor for the Cardinals. That will be for Steve and here's a Corbyn Carroll prison parallel for John and the Diamondbacks. Nice. Do I PC anything? No. But I have to tell you walking the floor at the national far more than I ever have in any previous national because usually we've just been working morning to night just breaking. But in doing that I have to say that starting to get interested in starting some kind of I mean over the years I've purchased there's Dalton Varshow for the Blue Jays that's gonna go to Kevin but over the years I've gathered some stuff here and there but it's really not a not really a carefully curated collection at all. It's just a random box I get here and there blah blah blah blah and so I do have stuff laying around. I've got some extra stuff that I need to clean out that's for sure but you know naturally being in the hobby and you're gonna tend to gather stuff but but I am now starting to think about this should I start collecting something a little more seriously. So I think so far I'm kind of going with yeah maybe some not well one non-sport grizzled bees I'm thinking some Star Wars stuff kind of looking at graded Star Wars stuff PSA 10 kind of add that to the personal collection. I picked up something from 2021 Topped Chrome Star Wars Galaxy there's like three cards in the base set that look like kind of old World War two propaganda photos so I wanted to collect those try to find some PSA 10s of that and some F1 and Phantom McLaren and Lando Norris so maybe I bought actually a card right out of the storeroom floor got a rookie sapphire of Lando Norris it's a short print too I think now it's a PSA 10. I think it probably mostly be PSA 10 I might I don't know how speculative I'm gonna be on stuff though so that's so that those are a couple cars I also have a it's something I bought a couple years ago but I also have from Topped Chrome Baseball artist Kendrick Lamar in a Dodger's uniform Dodger's jersey and hat throwing out the first pitch got a big smile on his face he's like a kid again it's a refractor and it's a PSA 10 so I have one of those sitting around got a nice adley rushman Titans insert he had Gemma and Joe I also I also bought at the so I'm sure some of you're familiar with your free plug so everyone's familiar with those Zion card case carrying cases they come in various sizes and they're actually pretty awesome here's a bow nailer orange wave autograph six out of 25 for the Guardians that's gonna go to John Samus and Cleveland this is for you and for John and so I bought a little case for myself for those graded cards I guess I just can't just leave laying around the house but I'm gonna start loading them up it just as I think it's like the smallest kind of carrying case that that they offer we'll start there we'll see what happens yeah I saw Jan someone with the person I bought that Star Wars card from also had the C-3PO error card PSA 10 he had selling at $40,000 he also had various other cards from that famous set from the 1977 set rated at PSA 10 I think the cheapest one was like $15,000 I don't know if I'm gonna need a U-Haul just that case alone surprisingly not as many not as much f1 stuff there as I thought there was yeah we're just chatting about that now Daniel if you go to jaskyscasebrates.com at the top of the menu next solve the sport there's a section called jasky's HQ where I've been blogging about the National you can get some deeds there I got to do one couple more posts to put a bow on that national I got to do a Saturday post all that but anyway a lot of fun busier than I thought it would be even though our trip was abbreviated saw a lot of cool stuff I have no idea who won Jordan's car at the National I think that was happening they opened up ladies and gentlemen another 200,000 square feet of space and it was still packed and very hot you likely we've sweated off some pounds too Oliver was asking earlier I think it was Oliver who was asking earlier about the what we ate ate a lot of good food there we sweet one night we went to the Capitol Grill sort of a fancy place had a nice state other place that we went to we said we go I think we went to went to an Italian place called Carmines that was really good a clam linguine with a spicy red sauce which was awesome yeah the Capitol Grill was it did end up being a little pricey there's rice churang to 99 we didn't have to pay for it though we were taken out to dinner by a business associate it was very nice of them Carmines yeah that was pretty good we went to so there I guess there's a Harry Carries restaurant downtown that's more of pub food bar food kind of place but there's one in Rosemont that they dub an Italian steakhouse their shea lang lears and so there I had a shrimp scampi linguine in a white wine white sauce very very light sauce a lot of garlic a lot of deliciousness there pretty awesome good food tucked away in Rosemont it was impossible to get into Gibson's and impossible to get into Giordano's we definitely wanted the Giordano's pizza experience but I think every time we we got around to being like oh yeah we're hungry yeah Tommy I'll tell you why it was 60 to 90 minute wait every time I forget if they do reservations but I think those are by the time we call early in the afternoon they're all booked up and then if you just walk in they're like 60 to 90 minute wait we always kind of forget to be like oh we should put in a reservation or we should this or that so no it's shockingly no pizza on the on the docket John is from Chicago Giordano's isn't that great for deep dish it's close to the convention center though so so what's the spot is it's like a is this like a pat in Geno's I think is that those are those the cheese take places in Philly is it like one of those I guess I feel like there's a lot of deep fish pizza places around you curious but it'll that will vary depending on operation operation yeah a lot of people are doing it everyone I feel like everyone has a different structure to how they compensate their breakers most places I guess some people may do hourly some people may have a fixed I mean I don't know honestly so it's gonna vary from place to place and depending on the size and the scope of their operation I would imagine most most places are a commission type structure I think we're on like a little bit of a blend I don't know I don't do that part of the business Daniel but I think it's usually a blend of hourly and commission there's Spencer steer he's I mean I season 31 out of 50 gold wave for the reds that'll be for David I mean it's a it's it's it's better than digging ditches Daniel but I don't know if it fits as lucrative as people think it is sometimes some of these group breakers there's a little bit of oh there's a nice Gunnar Henderson 209 out of 499 I think there are some guys out there that try to you know try to you know buy expensive shoes and watches and try to play like they're they're a baller nice one for the oh is Sean Maddock they're in it more for the hey I'm a live streamer as opposed to you know so I don't know who knows it all varies ever you know depending on what kind of wholesale prices you can get it's all the thing how much of all you can you do or break or whatnot a lot of people forget about all the all the overhead that's there they just think oh you break some cards you ship them out right it's not that easy I try that hot dog place that cooks or fries or duck but no I did not Tommy but I remember that sounding really good we just didn't really have time to a lot of people think it's a lot of people think it's a fun trip but we're on the working side of the trip not on like the visiting side of the trip so it's not as not as much time to do all the fun stuff that we'd like we would have been able to carve out a their cubs were in Wrigley we would have been able to carve out Wrigley game possible but we were usually going to trade nights and meeting up with some old customers and shaking hands kissing baby that's right Chris will be we make this business running this business that's really not a lot of people to pay a lot of stuff there's a lot of materials to buy Gilo what's going on triple great yeah we I was just we've just been kind of talking about the trip I've been writing some some blog posts Gilo if you want to check that out jasky's case for age comm click jasky's HQ see the blog post there it's only right a Saturday night post and then a little wrap-up post but yeah overall is good busier than I thought it'd be hotter than I thought it was gonna be you know we had to let him go grizzled these it's Josh young prison and a Royce Lewis pink speckle it's to 350 yeah he was not a good person yeah it would have I think in Gilo I don't know if you've been keeping track of what was going on at the National itself but extremely hot just outside temperature which is extremely hot and think the National had record number of people going through its doors here's Tyler Freeman 115 out of 499 autograph refractor autograph for John Samuelsen the Guardians this is for you so so yeah so and the air conditioning didn't seem like it was it was operating really well and it was just the temperature the indoor temperature was it was awful I heard I we were hearing rumors that someone had someone had bought a thermometer and put it on their on their death their booth and that it looked like there was like that it allegedly had gone up over 90 degrees indoor temperature you watch times and you've barely seen any Tigers hits maybe if the checklists for the Tigers isn't that big they can get a little tough sometimes but I think thankfully those are price rules should reflect that but let's hopefully we can find some here yeah I don't know how the Midwest does it to you though it was there were some thunderstorms at night saw a lot of lightning thought it was you know we don't really have thunderstorms in Southern California in the summer just in general but yeah a lot of good food a lot of late nights a lot of a lot of crazy trade nights yeah the the lowest hotel down there for the last couple nationals in Chicago the lowest hotel has become known as the place where you go to after the national to go to go there for a trade night like people just set up in the lobby and the hallways and everything and then just sit down on the ground set up cards in front of them they just start they just they just hang out there start trading doing all that sort of stuff and it was it was pretty well the first night we went there Nick got some deals done and it was pretty crowded then the second night we went there and it was twice as full and eventually the cops came and broke it up it's 157 out of 299 Vinnie Pascatino speaking of Jilos Royals that goes to Zach and then there was a there was a rumor that that someone had and these are these are all crazy rumors get started but at someone had defecated in the corner of one of these areas I don't know how true that is but I think that precipitated the cops being called in the the party being broke up quite quickly after that allegedly we got Jared young for the cubs that will be for Spencer and Chicago cubs Sandi Alcantara 24 out of 99 Marlins that'll be for John and onwards to the next box so we are about we are halfway through this two case break could have been could have been breaker hype rose causing a ruckus but it's just wasn't even breaker but it's like buyers too there's a lot of a lot of guys out there a lot of people just there just to collect and they're bringing their giant like Zion cases and other flight cases and stuff to to travel and bring all their goods and wares and pretty well I can't believe it still blows my mind that they added a whole other room they had it a whole other 200,000 square foot section filled it with a bunch more tables and filled it with a bunch more tables and it was and it was still packed everywhere respect I couldn't believe it our breakers I think we're still there not as many as is before I feel like every year there's fewer and fewer breakers in that breaker pavilion I want to say some guys just just set up a booth there and just end up just giving away swag I guess do more outreach type stuff instead of actually breaking at the booth a lot of different breakers a lot of different breaker names a lot of people trying their hand at this crazy hobby met a few people that are that are customers of ours we usually meet up with Steve Locke and Brittany they usually come out to the National hang out with them it's Taylor Ward to 150 I think he took a hit-by-pitch to the face I think he's out for a little bit angels Steven the Nolan Gorman prison will go to Steve G Brian Vornberg stopped by it's all what always surprises me at the National when people come up to us oh look at this let's talk about this first ultraviolet Shohei Otani these generally fall one per case or maybe even shorter than that that's Stephen Carney with the angels there you go very nice do these fall exactly one per case set that up right there and the autograph is bow nailer 131 out of 250 Cleveland this is for you and John Samison did I run to you nice run it ran into Dan ran to Brian Vornberg ran into some of you may remember Z how who buys into a lot of our basketball breaks ran to that ran to I was gonna say before the Otani interrupted me I'm surprised I'm always surprised at how many people are just just hanging just viewers a lot of there were a couple parents with their kids I remember one guy and his young son were there and he said specifically so I was like I got to go see Jasper so I spent a little time with him gave him some Jasper stickers and everything and couldn't have kind of been more than like nine years old eight years old maybe but that was really cool I'm surprised on me people are just like we're just like just kind of tap my shoulder really quick and just like a quick hey Nick and Joe love watching you guys been watching guys for years and you know one breaker pulled me aside and was like hey you're the reason why you're the reason why I got into break he breaks a lot of Disney stuff I think he was a customer years ago as well but but but yeah he was like it's just crazy to see I guess and then I realized oh gosh we've been doing this for a long time huh yeah Gilo you got to go to the National man next year no I appreciate it Dan next time bother me you can you can bother me for even longer than that but I suppose so I mean I just I don't think of it like that it still feels like we're still in year one or two but Daniel we've been doing this for nine years almost 10 yeah appreciate everybody we said hello that's at the national about a little closet space we were in before the store oh yeah in the early years we were breaking out of the garage the next house we were always coy about the location we were always saying it's like a hidden location and deep in the heart of the South Bay of Los Angeles but but no we were we were just in their garage we those are the days where we're where we posted and sorted and shipped our own breaks and all that sort of stuff and Chris Bryant back in white yeah I got I got strong hands in and a nice Miguel Vargas hopefully he gets back on track 153 out of 199 Aqua wave autograph for Matt and the Dodgers last spot Mojo strikes again correct yeah the garage the early years were the garage and then the when we got a when we moved into our store it was just a small like what 800 square foot store in like a sort of like a business center that collected a lot of like a commercial center that collects a lot of like office buildings not even like a strip mall or anything like that but the next one or Franco to 399 and so we were in that little space where we had a studio and then another small little office and shipping area over there and we were there for a number of years until we moved into our current location sometimes we feel like we feel like we're running out of space which is kind of crazy to say I don't think ever would have thought to say that in fact when we first moved in here I think we're like it's not enough space sorry Brad I'll pull some Riley greens for you usually our shipping team kind of takes care of that part of it especially especially for the for these long breaks sorry it's already gonna be a two hour break I started sleeping Riley greens and I'm gonna start sleeping everybody else and then this suddenly every extra person I have to take care of will suddenly turn into a two and a half three hour break next one I spot all the little seven aside for you but I think really for the purposes of it for top-scrolling baseball I think it's like Corbin Carroll Jordan Walker probably only two guys that are really getting the extra treatment from the outset some rushman's as well hobby box from the first case result has to have that second case to go over there there's a Riley green about that mid-80s design refractor as well for Brad and the Tigers boom JD Martinez to 350 Tristan Cosas refractor and I'm spotting all these guys suppose yeah Josh Young were fractured our team will probably sort out as well the JD Martinez goes to the Dodgers that will be for Matt and our autograph is this guy you guy Rosario so Riley green have ink in this we never had a space near LAX though John are you confusing us with someone else the original space Redondo Beach not near an airport there's William Dennis to 125 yeah we were we were we were deep in Redondo Beach and then we moved slightly north to Hermosa Beach this is as close as we've been to to LAX we're not too far from LAX though yeah you might we might be able to get some deals on commercial real estate but yeah I mean where we were John I mean I think you can probably take up no traffic can probably take a 20 minute ride chair right down to right down to our shop I mean we're not right by LAX but we're close enough you'd be surprised at how many I'm always surprised how many people especially like international cuz like people that are going back to like Australia or something like that or sometimes people traveling to Hawaii they'll have longer layovers at LAX so we hear a lot of people who go yeah I don't I had a I don't know some great seven-hour layover so I'm so I wanted to jump down at Jaspies for a couple hours before I go back we hear that a lot but we're still fairly close to close to the airport though very easy to visit us if you'd like we've got a Hampton Inn just north of us ride chair all a lot a lot of ride chair options but yeah Gila was mentioning earlier yeah you definitely got to go to the National it's just make sense if you're if you're if you're trying to try to get into that world a little bit that's definitely definitely a place where you got to go I say another Riley green for Brad here let's try to find a refractive number cards we got a brand loud for the rays photo negative there's a Logan Ohabi 149 out of 299 purple speckle autograph for the Angels Stephen Carney who's on his way to a nice season before that injury so it's probably something to someone to hold on to yeah you got to hit the Mecca I mean if you think those local car shows are strong you should see you'll be can't do it in a day either I almost guarantee you that it's JD Martinez to 399 oh nice are you setting up a table good if you have vendor this touch you're actually setting up a table hmm are you are you strictly selling or will you be buying because people ask some places are cool enough to rent like to rent out like actual glass like showcases so maybe maybe get one of those you can put your card inside a nice little showcase you will buy them bring a lot of cash to buy whatever your budget is be prepared you have a price gun you can you can bag up all of the cars that you want to sell and put a and on top of that plastic team bag you can put a put a price on it Nick has a Nick has a little little roll when he's buying if he generally he generally unless he knows the person he'll generally pass on people that don't have their cards priced because he feels like I don't know he feels like they can just make up prices whenever they feel like it there's Jake McCarthy 31 out of 99 you have a lot of sealed product there's Jake McCarthy green wave John in the Diamondbacks I feel like a lot of people had sealed box at the National that were priced a wee bit too high and we got a Louis Varlin rookie auto for the twin that's gonna go to Michael in the Minnesota twins so sorry camera there you go yeah the auto focus is being a little goofy today usually it's not usually it's a little quicker and maybe it's trying to look at that Otani it's just excited about that Otani here's a Bregman to 350 that's gonna go to the Astros that'll be for Jared you know we got a new camera we got a soul still trying to dial it in but yeah price those cards get those prices and then everyone is gonna ask you do you have room on it you know so kind of build that in as well all right last box of the first case I guess just be patient and have fun enjoy it talk to people you know get to get to know people you know in your in your area in your industry just to make just even even for just networking purposes when I'm shuffling through yeah maybe it's not just focusing fast enough we'll dial it in we'll dial it in Brett we're still working on it it is exhausting that's part of the game though just just think that's what I'm saying just accept the fact that everyone's gonna ask hey do you have room on this you know do you have room on this what do you take for this you know comp everyone's ask everyone's comp this comp that everyone fires up their phone go well the last one sold for so jeez just be prepared for that as well you kind of have to do your research beforehand as well and be like you be like well yeah but that was one of the 10 cards that were sold and the other 10 were at this price you know you don't have to you don't have to kind of work with people on that sometimes you'll get some we'll get some precocious kids teenagers will come up to you that'll try to try to get you with the comps be prepared you know the rest of this just gut instinct just just like hey it's just a car do you think you value the player it's gonna go up maybe you don't have to move on that player maybe you think the value is gonna go down maybe you move that player a little bit sooner had a player that you've been sitting on for a while I just want to move it get it out of get out of your inventory you got to do that we got a zander bow guards 92 out of 99 green speckle for the Padres I feel like I've seen I forget but I'll ask Nick if I remember or next time you're in the stream and you see or hear Nick in the background let me know I can let you know what what app he uses another zander bow guards not number but a prison parallel but yeah everyone there there's a few apps that everyone that a lot of people seem to use and here is here is a tiger Brad tiger uppercut germane palacios rookie auto for motor city there you go Brad we've got an orange mookie bets 21 out of 25 you know what I think that's what Nick uses card ladder that sounds familiar I'm pretty sure that's what he uses to quickly to do some quick research whenever he's looking for stuff so I'm gonna set this group of autographs aside here let's move these parallels here let's start Michael Michael is at the national on not work not a work trip for Michael just him and his fam went out there what cool stuff did you see Michael at the national what cool buys did you make nice the letter card oh yeah yeah nice classic But I ended up flipping it like 30 minutes later because I got a good offer. It's wheeling and dealing out there. What does that mean? It's got a little silver strip right here. No silver strip right there. Hot box? Jan, yeah, I will look into that top Star Wars living set. You got the tops email blessed in that Star Wars chrome about to come out. Yes, that does look pretty nice. No, I was looking for some F1 stuff. I couldn't find a lot of that. Blando, yeah, I'm gonna be flaring. Only PSA 10s. Gemmin Joe. Yeah, me and my uncle bought our tops chrome box so we can get those ashtray packs. It was really painful. No? It was really bad. Not good? Not at all. Hobby box? Yeah. What was the auto? The red is picture Ashcraft. Graham Ashcraft, all right. It's okay. The guy was just the base auto.  And I was like, yeah, he's like, Do you want one? Do you want a trade? I'm a Reds fan. I was like, dude, you can just have it. What was in the net? Did you get national specs? Yeah, no parallels. I got a Vargas rookie and a All right. Here's the first box of the second case, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sure we'll have some of that Star Wars stuff. You see a lot of F1 stuff at retail store. I'm not sure. I've got some stuff at this retail store here. It's not your F1 showcase. I don't know how much F1 he has. It's Rafael Devers to 150. I guess I could start buying like Tops Chrome F1 sapphire boxes. Like what 700 apop or whatever they do right now. Devers, by the way, we'll go to John. John B with that one. And our autograph is Bryce Johnson 136 out of 299. Purple speckle autograph for the Giants. That'll be for Jeremy. So it turns out it's just a regular box. But the packs? Yes. It turns out it's just a regular. Yeah. And I thought that pack was going to signal something interesting. But no. And then we got a Javier Assad 80 out of 250 for the Cubs. That'll be for Spencer. All right. Next box. Yeah. So that was the national.  Went to a nice hotel in downtown Chicago. And met some random people at the hotel bar. There was this cool sports bar like half a block from the hotel. Millers allegedly opened since 1935. So hung out there. Looks like it was still kind of a kind of a local Z sort of spot. So I was cool. Met some random chicks. I guess there was an Ed Sheeran concert that night. There was a lot going on in town at this hotel. There was tons of like I feel like I saw three different wedding parties or bachelorette parties or something like that. Some random dude next to me who said told me he was the owner of multiple companies in town to buy some more. And a lot of strange people. But yeah. I enjoyed some adult beverages. Maybe maybe one too many. But managed to get back to my hotel room safe and sound. All bar tabs paid for. All credit cards still in my wallet. And I woke up at a reasonable hour. Went to the museum. The art institute. This art institute of Chicago is beautiful. It's gigantic. Yeah. That is Chicago. People are awfully nice though. It's better compared to LA. Midwestern men and women are awfully nice. Well the girls who from the girls that I ran into. They were they were like moms but they were like young moms. And they went to like Ed Sheeran shows and they were there. It was like girls night thing. They were really nice. They were from St. Louis. Can't believe I nice people are in the Midwest. I thought that was a I thought that was you know. Rumors, lies. A regional stereotype. But no for the most part people are really cool. The museum was beautiful. I mean I spent hours and hours there. And I felt like I still rushed through. I feel like I rushed through the entire joint. But saw the Van Gogh exhibit that was there which was pretty cool. Yeah John you think that is actually true about the Midwest everybody. Yeah you hear like that stuff about LA but that might be true for LA too. No there's a generally if you find people that grew up in LA. They're not as as as snobby as you think they are. But I don't know I feel like there's a lot more. Oh no I guess Chicago is a big city too. I feel like there's a lot more people who have an angle in LA. You know but but yeah John's been around. John's been around the United States. So I guess I'll take his I'll take his opinion over most. There's Michael Grove to 199. And there's Matthew Batten 65 out of 250. Right Brad I just got into I'm like I was just on autopilot. I just got into it's in my head now. So I was just I was just going with it. John Samson with the Padres with the Friars. You get a nice little focus on there. Yeah the camera is acting weird today. Yeah goat exactly right pleasant personality goes a long way. Yeah I feel like I feel like every city gets their worst qualities will be magnified by by people who've never been there. I think that goes for all major cities. And there's a Hunter Brown photo negative. Yeah they John can barely afford to buy and breaks. And that guy is yeah the guy I saw at the bar met at the bar was like he's buying companies. It seemed very seemed I was not convinced that he was telling the truth. It he had the companies that he claimed to have owned seem to be all didn't match up. He was like I own a senior care business and a parking business and a landscaping and a construction thing. It was just like kind of all over the place. And I was just like I feel like that's yeah I didn't really talk to him that much but he was he he roped in another couple that was here for a wedding. And I talked to them afterwards and I was just like how hilarious was that. It's very odd. I don't venture on to the sticks in the Midwest. I have been out to the sticks in the Midwest. Dyersville Iowa where the field of dreams is very quaint town. They were nice to stay in Dubuque. That was a number of Chicago Nationals ago. That was my little post national. Hey I appreciate it Dan. I'm glad that we were able to meet each other. That's always the fun part about the national. Sometimes there's a lot of work but it's always nice when you finally get to get to put the faces with names and stuff like that. Yeah John yeah I feel like he was he was kind of on social media without being on social. It was kind of funny but I'm glad I wasn't roped into that conversation. I think he had had a number of a number of adult beverages which should not surprise anyone. He was a nice Adley Rushman refractor for the O's. That's for Sean Maddock and the O's. So yeah delightful town, delightful people, a lot of good people watching. The museum was beautiful. I have to go back again and then take another spin through that museum. Chris Sale to 125. And I wanted to pop I just there were so many cool things at the Art Institute. I didn't even get to pop out and do like a touristy bean sort of thing. Didn't even did not see the bean. Here's Josh Smith. The other Josh. Rookie Hutto for the Rangers. It's going to go to build. Focus is off today for some reason. What's going on camera? Why are you being goofy today? Is there something I can fix here? What if I set the manual focus right there? How about that? It's a little too little. My hands are usually set right around there. So if I just do that how about this? Let me know if this if this is better. Because I can't look at the cards. I can't I guess I can monitor myself up there. Is that a little bit better? There's Michael Sophanic for the Angels. Have not been to the planetarium. Last time Gila was in Chicago. Okay. Sorry about that. Thank you. So it might not might not see the action in the background, but we'll at least the action of the foreground will be set. But yeah. Last time Gabe was in Chicago. You were at a bar. Talk to the fan a fan dual executive who just happened to be there in the middle of the Draft King's collusion thing. You kind of pressed him about it. He said sorry, paid for your tab and gave you a $50 credit code thing. Nice. You think this is a C-suite guy? Think you were talking C-suite or just maybe just a VP? You do like that. Yeah. You can put any cameras here intensely at the Serrat painting. I did the one on the banks of the Sen, the Sunday on the Sunday one. I forgot how. I didn't realize how big that painting was. I guess in my head, well it's been a minute or two since I've seen the movie, in my head it was a lot smaller. It's wall size. Yeah. Takes up a whole wall. I thought it was like 11 by 17 inches. It's like 11 by 17 feet. But the Van Gogh exhibit that's there talks about Van Gogh and his short time in Paris with the other dudes. A couple other dudes. I bought a book. But regarding Serrat, it was kind of cool because I was like, well how the hell do you do that? You don't start with that. He did a lot of sketches in a little, a lot smaller. I guess that's what a lot of the giant pieces, I was like, it makes sense. They do smaller versions of them first. And then they expand out to bigger versions. My artistry is limited to smaller canvas sizes. I can't really do that. I think American Gothic is there. I couldn't find it. I didn't see it. I did see the Picasso. One of his blue period Picasso's was with the guy playing the guitar, which is a pretty cool. A lot of modern stuff. A lot of post impressionist stuff. A lot of modern photography. It was pretty cool. It's O'Neill Cruise. There's a nice little fountain in the middle. Had lunch there. It was a delicious cob salad. It's fantastic. Nice little lunch. Spent too much at the gift shop. I justify it by saying I'm supporting the museum, which I am. There's a Simeon Woods Richardson, 12 out of 25. Orange auto for the twins. That'll be for Michael Stapleton. You know, he was pretty well dressed, you'll say. Could be a C-suite guy. Maybe flew to Chicago on the PJ. It was Byron Buxton to 99. Art Institute also has a lot of Claude Monet. There are some day guys there too. But a lot of water lilies that I've never seen before. So that was a good time. Next year, yeah. Gilo mentioned this too. Next year, next national is in Cleveland. And the one after that, has that been announced yet? I don't know if that one's been announced yet. I think the national vendors did vote on it. Well, no, I think Chicago after that, they were voting on 2026. 2024 is Cleveland, 2025 I think is back to Chicago. And 2026 is TVD. I think it might be Chicago again. Oh, they announced it September. I think Atlantic City might be 2026. But I don't know if the majority of the vendors or the visitors like Atlantic City. Atlantic City is fine, but this is supposed to be a family event.  Atlantic City is fine. But this is not for me. This is for the families, for kids.  You're almost guaranteed to either spend more money to fly into Atlantic City. You know, and then I guess take a shuttle or something like that into the city proper. Or you're driving from Philly or Newark. And you're renting a car for the entire week. Yeah, the Wi-Fi wasn't very good. The Wi-Fi is almost never good in any location that we've been in. But maybe they're, I think Chicago is what did feel a lot better though. But everything's spread out. The hotels aren't really, they're kind of farther apart. They're not really clustered together like they are in Chicago. Chicago is just so easy. And there's, and Rosemont has a lot of things to do in the area. Oh, this is cool. My trout relic. Nice. So kind of hard to see here, but KV082893. If you go to mlb.com slash authentication, you can punch in those numbers. Stephen Carney. And then you can see what date that jersey was from. And you can look up the boxboards, see if Mike tried anything special that day. Player like him, the likelihood is high. There's Ian Hap. But Chicago is super easy to get to. That's why most, most vendors love going to Chicago. Cleveland's, I've never been to the Cleveland one. Nick says that it's actually, it's actually kind of far away from everything. Like downtown Cleveland, I've stayed there and it's actually kind of nice. Rock and roll, Hall of Fame is there. The football stadium is there and just a couple of blocks away, the baseball stadium's there. A ton of hotels, a lot of nice bars and restaurants in that downtown location. Like downtown itself is actually pretty nice in Cleveland. But I think it's actually, the convention center is actually a little bit further away. So it takes you maybe like 30 minutes to get into the downtown area, the Viacar. 91 out of 150, Simeon Woods Richardson. Blue ray wave autograph for the twins. That's going to be from Michael. There's Andrew McCutcher for the Pirates. Purple speckle to 99, to 299 that is. Yeah, you heard the last Cleveland was not well received. Although I think they, I think since then, I think Nick was telling me this that since then I think they have renovated that place extensively. It's still sort of a weird area. I think it's more in a suburb kind of area. Maybe close to the airport, but there's nothing really around it. But yeah, why can't we have one on the West Coast? Yeah, I think Nick might. I think for, I think the general answer is that it's too expensive. And there's a lot more East Coast dealers than West Coast dealers. So a vast majority don't want to go all the way West. Chicago is a good middle point, mid city, second city. Ben, what's going on? No, I think you are off a break. If you look at the break schedule, it'll tell you this is the dual case break. This is the hobby dual case break. But yeah, Chicago Grizzly Bees, you're right. It is a great convention city. Yeah, Chicago one is in the suburbs, but it's more stuff around.  Kansas City, that could be interesting. And so there are good nightlife restaurants around Kansas City afterwards. Things open late. Things are open late in Rosemont, too. I think that also helps. But yeah, West Coast, I think is usually, I think they're worried about attendance. And I think West Coast convention centers, I feel like they're more expensive. So there's a price issue as well and a transportation price issue. Yeah, Minneapolis, Kansas City, could be nice. Yeah, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, I wouldn't mind Texas at all. I have some family that used to live in Dallas. They don't anymore, but visited. DC could be good. They used to do it in Baltimore. The Baltimore used to be in the rotation. I feel like it's not anymore. But yeah, I would love to see something on the West Coast. Well, it's no secret that Fanatics has already been announced. And Fanatics has started the events arm of their business, Fanatics events. We ran a couple of the Fanatics events guys. And that might feature some more stuff on the West Coast. There's Leover Poguerral, 441 out of 499. Refractor Autograph for the Pirates. That's going to be for Brian, Brian W, BW. And from what I understand, at least initially, subject to change without notice. But I think their initial idea for Fanatics events is going to be a little less card showing and a lot more eventy, I guess. So it's more activities for non-collectors. There's Miguel Vargas at 350 for the Dodgers, Matt. With the intent of just kind of broadening the sort of sports event landscape, but then ultimately turn into collectors, maybe have some Fanatics Live Breakers there. Yeah, the rotation has gotten smaller over the years. When was the last national on the West Coast, maybe Anaheim in the late 90s or something like that, early 2000s? After the wire they stopped. Yeah, Nick was saying, I think a year before I started with Jaspies, Nick said he went to the national in Baltimore. And he said it's a fine area, but felt like there were a little, not as bad as Atlantic City, but he felt like there was a little sketchier areas around there harder to walk around at night. But yeah, I think Fanatics Events will start seeing more events that may be connected to the hobby. Should be interesting. Should be autograph signings, stuff like that. 2012 was Baltimore, a couple of years before Jaspies. All has been Cleveland, Chicago, Atlantic City. Really, I think they should do it in Chicago every year. Okay, so the last one on the West Coast was 2006 Anaheim, that's what I thought. Yeah, if I had my choice, I mean if they don't want to expand the rotation, I'd just be like, you know what, I did hear some people say Atlanta, they would love to go back to Atlanta. I'd love to go to Atlanta, never been. But short of expanding the rotation to different cities, I would just love to have in Chicago every year. I don't mind that, I like Chicago. Yeah, eventually they're going to need newer venues, right, ones that can have more modern Wi-Fi setup and modern air conditioning. There's Kettle Martay, John with the Dimebacks. Yeah, but Chicago teams sink. Doesn't matter about the teams, we're not going to see ball games at the national. We've seen a good place to collect, to gather and collect. 93 out of 199, Aqua Auto, Aqua Shimmer, Aqua Wave, Aqua Shimmer, Aqua Wave Autograph, Drew Waters to 199 for Zach and the Royals. Are the next dual casers down to 11? We've got time to squeeze one in. If nothing else is sold out, if something else sold out before then, then we might not, but we might. There's Ramon Laureano, 399. Did I show you all these cards? I think I did. You need to play, I agree, Tyler, you need a place with air conditioning. It's just, especially if one of the national is in the middle of the summer, end of July every year, hottest part of the year for the, probably the hardest part of the year right in the United States. Ooh, Palm Springs. Is there a nice convention center there? I don't know if there is. I don't mind Palm Springs. A lot of places to stay. Vegas would be dangerous. Palm Springs Convention Center is a hotel. That might not be big enough then. What's the size of the Louisville Convention Center? Yeah, I don't know how I'm trying to look up really quick and I'll look it up later, but I don't know how many square footage the national took up this year, but I know they added 200,000 square feet. You got to have a, it's a combination of can you get there easily? Is the convention center big enough? Are there enough hotels around to accommodate thousands of dealers and vendors and over 100,000 people in hotels over the course of a week? Does it have late night food options or things open late? Are there enough places to go to? Enough things to do afterwards. A lot of vendors, you know, flush with cash, maybe looking for, maybe looking for a casino to go to. Obi-Wan, what's going on? Let's see, according to Chicago, some sort of Chicago website. As of 20, yeah, this was a recent article. I think I, where is that in the article? We need 600,000 square feet. A floor space. That's what it was this year. So Louisville is not going to cut it, Jan. Sorry. Apologies to Louisville. We need bigger cities or bigger convention centers. That's why he said the fairgrounds. I'm not sure if it's ever going to be at a fairgrounds. Do they have the power, the electricity, and the internets that we need? Is there enough indoor space? It's never going to be outdoors. And I don't know if we may have the, may not have the Wi-Fi capabilities for everybody. There's E guy at Rosario. Rookie autograph for the Padres. That'll be for John Samuelson. There have been trade shows there. This isn't just any trade show, Jan. I don't think it's not, it's not any city can't really host it. There's Oswald Paraza to 150. Is all that indoor space? What's the air conditioning situation there? I've been to some fairs and I've been to many fairgrounds in my life. A lot of those, a lot of that space is usually just giant, you know, I mean, there may as well be like airport hangar. Airport hangar actually might not be, might not be bad. Yeah, I think so. And then you got to think about traveling and accommodations. How many direct flights are there for major airports to Louisville on a daily, on a daily basis? Are there enough hotels that can accommodate, you know, the amount of people coming into town for that long? Yeah, it might just be, I mean, Chicago really still stands as the easiest option. Gigantic airport that can fly from anywhere, multiplies from anywhere in like what, 10 plus hotels within a half a mile of the convention center. That can't be, that's unparalleled. All right, next box. It's Cagadavalli to 299. Yeah, I mean, no offense to the city of Louisville, gin, but I just don't think it's big enough. And I think I don't think the infrastructure is as strong enough. Vegas, no, Vegas is miles nicer than Atlantic City. Vegas is not like Atlantic City at all actually. I have not pulled any taco fractures. I forgot about those. They're in this set. We've got Nick Prado. Rookie order for the Royals, Zach for the Royals. Might be better, Daniel, by the time the dust settles on Otani's career. Vegas would be awesome. I just think that Vegas is, I want to say like, there's so many conventions there, so much space being taken. I think it's just hard to get into the rotation for a convention of that magnitude. And I think price still remains a concern for, you know, conventions aren't cheap. You know, I think a lot of the Vegas convention centers can get a little pricey. But the infrastructure is there, I mean, especially in the middle of the summer too. I want to see a taco fracture though. Vegas does have In-N-Out. That In-N-Out, though, that's closest to this strip, I think, is an extra. I mean, it's like, you're in line for an hour. Almost at any time of day. Except for maybe breakfast hours. You'd have to drive further into the Vegas suburbs to get to a decent In-N-Out. To get food at a decent time. Wait, were the taco fracture supposed to be in this set? Jan, part of the Louisville Chamber of Commerce. Those are one-off events with a fraction of the people for the fraction of the time. I wouldn't hold my breath for Louisville. Not for the national. Something else, maybe. Hey, here's James Altman. Nice. 37 out of 50. Playing was in like a two-month slump, I feel like. But I think he's breaking out of it. Let's take a quick look at the stats. Yeah, last 30 games, he's hitting 280. Three home runs, 11 RBI's. Five stolen bases. You know, an OPS of, what, 785? Close to 800. Even better in the last 15 days. 15 games hitting 326.  But that is pretty nice. Playing well. All right, see you, Michael. Yeah, Dodgers. That's the last spot in Mojo, Matt Lieber. And the Dodgers. Dodger Joe Mojo, congrats. I don't think a town like Louisville has ever been considered grizzly. It's not that size. Almost got, well, an NBA, again, an NBA team is different from sustaining a week-long event with hundreds of thousands of people walking through the door and staying the entire week. Joe Ryan, 17 out of 99. We're comparing apples to oranges. Right, yeah. The Kentucky Colonels, I'm sure, we're drawing 100,000 people in a week span. It's a cool, old-timey technical. Yeah, I tell you what else is there to do in Louisville. Yeah, listen, I'm not knocking Louisville. I'm just saying, I don't know if the, I don't know if the, you know, if that's the right spot for them for the national. Have you ever been to a national jam recent in the last five years? They've done the national in St. Louis before. That's not a bad option. Does your food here or in the... I can just leave it outside. Thanks, Matt. Timing that order perfectly. I think they have a different kind of cardinal in Louisville, though. Grizzlies aren't in Louisville.  Convention centers, especially more modern ones, are not cheap. And there's like vendors that have been going to the national for decades. We were, we just wrapped up the 43rd national, so there's been vendors there that have been there since the first one. I think, I don't know, maybe they have some more favorable pricing locked in or something like that. Want to show you dancing? No, I'm good, sir. And we'll see you tomorrow. Yes, sir. Yeah, well, the national won't be back in Chicago for two years, so I'm sure that's plenty of time for for the Donald D. Stevens Convention Center to make the adjustments they need. Yeah, none that I've noticed just yet. There's Jordyn Alvarez, awkward at $1.99. I feel like those would be different enough where they would just jump out at me. But all card ship, if I happen to miss one, you'll, and you'll get it. Here's our second to last autograph. Connor Capell, $142 out of $2.99. Purple, a speckle autograph. Purple, speckle? Yeah, speckle autograph for the A's. That'll be for Jared. And we've got a blue Anthony Rendon to $150 for the Halos. That'll be for Steven. And the 24th box coming up. Good luck. Oh, talker fractors. Gabe is reporting our number to five. So, yeah, so there is no wonder. Wow, we have not pulled them. I feel like we've done a lot of breaks. The word, this is dual-k, dual-hobby case picking team six. We're about to rip Jumbo 11 later tonight. After my break, check the schedule. So you're telling me we haven't? You haven't seen one of those yet? Crazy. One, two, three. All right. Well, there's another dual case down to 11 teams left. And another Jumbo case down to seven teams left. We've got time to squeeze in, but we've got time to squeeze in both of those, I think. If you want. Close the month strong before we go to August.  Got to come up with a sans serif font. And we were talking about the national so much. We didn't even get it. Maybe I'll do that in the Jumbo break, but we'll speak a little more extensively about the trade. The trade deadline? Is that tonight? Or tomorrow? Tomorrow? I think tomorrow. August 1st, midnight, east coast. So 9 p.m. West coast time will be the trade deadline. Let's see if there's been some fun deadline stories of a contract didn't get didn't get faxed in or mailed in on emailed in on time. The PDF didn't attach. We've heard some of those stories before. Let's see if there's a little more action happening at the trading deadline. We'll talk more about that in the Jumbo case. That's coming up a little bit later. After I wrap this up, we're going to take a quick little break. We'll do a Jumbo case. We'll do a filler pack. And then hopefully by then we'll have something else sold out. Because I think if I'm looking at my give or take 15, 20 minutes, but I'm pretty sure we'll still have at least two and a half hours, if not a little bit more, to do some more breaks. So still got plenty of time to squeeze in another one of these. Maybe a Jumbo, another Jumbo version. There's a Zander. What's this? What's that Brett Beatty? Here's Zander Bogart's 42 out of 50 for the Fryers. That's John and the and the Fryers. Look at this Brett Beatty. What is this called Jilo? Doesn't seem to be numbered. This has got to be a short print though, right? Radiating rookies? That's pretty cool. That's BW, B-dubs with New York Metz. That's pretty cool. Maybe a case hit perhaps? We would love to do that hip-rated baseball, Jimmy. Always down to do some hip-rated baseball. That's down to some full spots and the last filler. The twerkels might be numbered, it's not. Not a case, okay. Jan's saying it's not a case hit, but Jason has pulled some. There's Cody Belanger to 199. Aqua Lava. Cubs saying they're not going to trade them. Their playoffs have improved in the last week or so, and I think that's changed their mind. And there's G. Juan Neve. Going to B-dub, Brian W. and the Pirates. And that was our final autograph. Any low-numbered cards? A taco fractor before? No, no taco fractor, but a gold Christian Yelich 28 out of 50 for the Brewers. Yeah, the radiating was not numbered. And that's the break. That's 2023 Top's Chrome Baseball Hobby Edition, two-case break. That's 24 total boxes in the books. So here is a quick autograph and other special card recap. This was from the first case. It's Gunnar Henderson, some nice stuff here. A lot of nice color. And that Ohtani Ultra Violet. Your turning violet, violet. Here was the second hobby case. Got that radiating rookie just now, the Outman Gold. Some, a lot of nice color and some nice autographs here. We've got a Relic, Mike Trout Relic, Corbin Carroll Fractors, and we started off with that Bryce Johnson. And there you go, gang. I'm Joe for jaskiescasebreaks.com. Back in LA, back from Chicago, and ripping stuff with you here on a Monday. I will see you next time for the next break. Bye-bye.


Well, hey there everybody. It's Sandy and I've got some vintage storybook watercolor cards for you today. And I want to start off by introducing you to Anita, if you have not ever seen her book. It's one of my favorite little books, great little illustrations in them that she's done. And she has a brand new book, Will You Be My Friend? And again, great illustrations, love her style. It's so loose. And she is now making stamps with Colorado Craft Company. That is so exciting. I can hardly tell you how I squeed when I saw an email with the stamps in it. There's a little care package I got that started off with an enamel pin. Then we've got Wishing You Happiness. It has pups. It has mice. It has paint brushes. What could be better, right? So I painted this little card. I made my own easel by painting a background and just leaving the panel for their painting and added a couple of little legs for the stand of the easel. Very simple to do as far as creating a scene without creating a scene. And then I did one with just a simple background, blue on the bottom, black down to gray on the top with a little passage of light going through the middle. These are so easy to make cards with. You're going to be delighted with them. Snow Happy has both the bunny feeding the deer and the bunny feeding the snowball to whatever you want him to lift the snowball up to. The sentiment or something would be cute. And I painted the background and then the branches and then the deer. And after I had all that done, I put snow on with a pen onto the surfaces that would catch snow and some spots on the deer and falling snow. And the sentiment I'll put on the inside on this one. Ice Cream Day has cats in it. There's two cats that are already merged together in one stamp and then there's two separate cats. And you can use them together or separately. But ice cream. Ice cream and cats. I had a cat once who loved ice cream above all other human food. So this is an ode to my old cat. I used to love Double Fudge Chocolate Brownie. I think I've talked about him on YouTube before. But I merged all the stamps together so I could put them all in one picture and painted them. Next up is kittens and mittens. The kitty on the right hand side in the threesome is the same as the separate kitty all by itself. And there's snow if you want to stamp your snow. But I love to draw my own snow. So I did that and painted my kitties with a pink background. A pink sky and yellow mittens and scarves and boots. Because they're so cute. Christmas Tree Cat. This one I had a challenge with. I couldn't get a background to work with it for some reason. I just didn't like any of the ones I tried. So I did it without a background. And I stamped it to completely different. I used Distress Oxides and did some layering with it. And it was really complex. I finally got it to where I liked it. But I'm going to have to practice with this one more. But I had the peeled paint underneath and then some black on top in certain places. It was yeah. It was one of those misty kind of cards where I had to leave it in the misty and keep painting and then adding ink and then painting and adding ink to it. Next up. Birthday Wishing. Two different sets of little birthday images. This one has the bunny and there's a little friend you could put with them as well. Looking at the balloon and just wishing you a happy day. And also the ones that are doing the gift giving. There's I think it's two rats giving a gift to a mouse. And the mouse is separate. You can use something else there. But I decided to use it for a Christmas card that they are hiding a present from the mouse. They're going to surprise him. I'm not really sure what's going on. But I just added a stamped sentiment from one of the other sets in this collection. So easy to make that into a Christmas card too. A few stamps I didn't use are the stripes and dots and the this is us and wall words. The two sentiment sets here which I'm going to use because they're cute. I just didn't get around to it. I was too busy excited about the painting. And finally better together. This is the one I decided to paint for this particular video. Bunny, a fox, a hedgehog, a squirrel and a mouse. Really cute. Got little bugs in it. Really fun sentiments. It's all about being better together. And I love that. I love the unity theme of it. And I turned it into a Christmas card. You can do this of course as anything does not have to be a Christmas card. And I'm probably going to do a whole series of cards for my own stash with lots of different scenes in it. So I'm going to show you how to make a soft edged background. I didn't do that very much in the other cards that I showed you. So this one is going to be a little different than those. Just to give you an idea on how you can control some watercolor edges. I'm going to do just that sky in the background and I'm starting off by painting clean water first make sure it's clean water. If you use dirty water, you'll end up with a weird yellow haze around the outside edges, which is not particularly helpful when you're doing a blue sky. Don't ask me how I know that because yeah, I found that out the hard way. So I use just super clean water to start off with and I'm painting enough that there's almost a puddle here not a huge super thick puddle but I wanted enough water so that by the time I mixed up my color to put in here, all the the sheen will have worn down to just a sheen instead of puddles because you don't want puddles when you do this, but a good very wet sheen will really be helpful. So start about oh, I don't know quarter inch eighth inch inside of where the outside edge of the water is because that gives the watercolor a chance to bleed out into that area instead of trying to work its way all the way up to that area. If you go too close, then you'll end up with hard edges like I did on those other cards. Now you may want that and totally that would be a great way to go as well. Painting the water first just helps everything to move better. So if you have trouble getting your color to move, that might help. Also, once this is really wet, if you need to tilt the paper back and forth to try to get things to even out, you can certainly do that and it'll go right up to that wet edge. Now I'm taking a baby wipe and dabbing off where that water area is because I want to make sure that I don't get super hard edges on this. I will get some because as soon as that water, the paint travels to the edge of wherever it's wet, it's going to stop, but I can control a little bit of that. And depending on the color you're using, which here I used iridescent electric blue, depending on the color, if it lifts, you can also lift some up after you get it all done and dry. You can kind of scrub it off with a baby wipe just a little bit and soften an edge or two to clean that up. But I've got a really nice, soft background now. I wanted that to just sort of disappear so that everything else is in focus. While I had the blue paint in the palette, I just made a little bit of shadow underneath of the critters and also added some footprints for them because they all have to walk up to wherever they're standing. So having a little bit of must-up snow is certainly appropriate. Next, to paint the animals. The one to pay the most attention to is the big bunny because if you nail the bunny, you could just put a flood of color in the others and it'll be just fine. And I decided to mix up my own brown because I'm not really thrilled with the browns that I have in my palette anymore. I'm kind of trying to figure out if I'm going to throw them to the curb or if I'm just going to mix my own.  This is probably thicker than you might want to use. If you're trying to do this for the first time, make it a little thinner of a wash because that'll scare you less. But I wanted this to be good and strong so that I could illustrate for you the way to do lifting, which is when you remove paint that you've already put down. So I'm trying to put down a nice heavy coat of this and if you want a lighter bunny, obviously you need to do lighter color for that. But what I'm going to do after I finish this, while it's still wet, you need to make sure you do this while it's wet, is rinse my brush really well and then wipe it off on a paper towel and push the color back into the area that you just painted. And I'm doing that with the brush. It's a dry brush that's clean so I'm not putting more color down. I'm not adding a ton of water but I'm lifting up that edge and I can create a softer edge for the bunny. So he looks a little softer and the colors blend a little bit more gently. I'm going to do a couple things here that you may or may not decide to do. I wanted to make him a little bit darker so I added a little bit of neutral tint, a little more of my burnt sienna because I wanted some darker areas and while it's wet I'm dropping in a little bit more color in a few spots. Not everywhere you don't want to line along his back but I put some color down. You can see how it's still moving in most of these areas because the paint's not dry yet. If you wait until it's dry you're going to be in trouble. Right there I used a dry brush to try to move things and that did not work. It started lifting color so I went back and picked up some very wet brown paint and then started painting back into this area because everything was drying really fast for whatever reason in my studio everything's drying but this allows me to illustrate for you that you can go back in again and lift things. So here I've got a much darker bunny than I started off with so if you want to adjust the color you can and you can go back in and light in some of those edges and lift up that color again. As long as you keep things wet you can still work with it but it's a matter of knowing how wet your paint is and you also want to keep an eyeball on it because if you end up you know overdoing it or something and then you can get a hard edge as it dries you might look back at it in you know two three minutes and be dissatisfied with it. The rest of the animals I'm just going to throw some paint in and you could start with just one coat of paint. I'm using the same mix of colors that I used to make that initial brown so that everything would feel kind of related. I didn't want to have like totally different crazy colors in it so I'm using variations in combinations of different colors to make the different animals and while they're still wet I'm painting fairly quickly while they're still wet I can add a little bit of darker color into each one of them. Now I'm quick enough at painting that I'm going to get all the animals in here and then add some darker color. You may find it more helpful to do that and one animal at a time if you're not used to painting with watercolor very much because that might help you more but I'm you know adding in I added a little water onto the squirrel so that I could soften his edges and that sort of thing. I'm just doing different kinds of browns in each one of these and different amounts of water and different amounts of pigment so that they'll all look a little bit different even though they're related but here I'm adding the thicker pigment in order to make shadows on the back sides of my animals and you can see how as long as it's wet the color will move you just need to decide you know is it wet enough and if you start in and it's not wet enough then you need to start figuring out what you're going to do to recover from that because sometimes that can be a challenge but a second layer while it's wet gives you kind of a nice soft edge but you can also do without that if you nail the bunny then feel free to just do one coat on any of these animals and you'll probably be just fine so next up I wanted to paint a little bit of a background and I'm going to do some trees in the background I'm going to take some water and just mix what's left in my palette juice down to a little wash a very very light wash this is actually darker than I wanted it to be and I'll show you how to fix that in just a minute but I'm going to paint just some tree trunks and some of them will be a little thicker some of them will be a little thinner going to make them a little uneven because trees don't grow in perfect order or anything and I can take a baby wipe and just dab off some of that color so I end up getting something soft and light and then in order to get a more fine point on my number eight silver black velvet round brush I'm drying off the brush and then picking up paint just on the edge of it because I want just barely any lines there for some of these tiny branches and if it gets too thick and blobby just dab it off and if you're using really pale color and it's not a staining color like if you use a phthalo blue you're going to end up with some staining on there but a color like this will lift quite nicely and you can make them just bare minimum trees in the background so I'm going to do the same thing on the other side and then add another layer for a couple of the trees after this is dry in order to add a little bit of depth to the trees themselves but what I want to talk to you about before we go is I want you to tell me in comments here and or on the blog I want you to vote for which one of the other stamps that you would like to see painted in a video because I want to do another one of these because they're so much fun and I want to be challenged to start making some watercolor scenes in general watercolor offers a lot of challenges to us when we're making cards because I don't know this the the stamps are not always designed in a way that lends themselves to a soft background like this and the images like they're so hard-edged hurt any dis images are just so soft and beautiful I really like what she brings to them and it affords this kind of style to work really well and I want to play with more tiny watercolor scenes it's just really hard to do tiny ones on cards I'm used to doing big paintings so let me know which one you would like me to do in the future because I'm going to keep these stamps these are not going in my stash of surprise giveaway stamps because I like them so I'm keeping them there's not many stamps that end up in my forever stash but these are going to be some of them so once I got all my trees done and happily the way that I wanted them I just added snow using my uniball signal white gel pen and called it done for Christmas card so pictures of all of the cards if you want to just look at them individually and make your decision about which one you want me to do in a future video you can go look on the blog and see the individual pictures and then use them for your inspiration as well see if you can achieve a background like I did on them and vote for which one you want to see now I may not do that exact card I might do a version of it I might do something with a different scene or different colors but I'd like to know which stamp set you would like to see all right I will talk to you guys later have a great day go make something beautiful and I'll see you again soon bye