mattn792

No worries! Just fix a couple letters and...voila!

The slow dribble of new books continues... Necessities first: Payment: In addition to PayPal, I will also accept check / money order / Zelle, though the book will be held until clearance (which is pretty much immediate with Zelle). Payment due within 5 business days. Shipping (domestic): Domestic shipping for graded books is included in the book price and will be by insured USPS priority. Shipping (international) - Shipping will be at exact cost, minus the US shipping cost. Please inquire first for an accurate quote. Returns: No returns on graded books as you know what you're getting. On the HoS? Probation list? Or we have some other beef (on my ignore list, bad con interaction, etc.)? Don't bother. Can provide board references if needed (no name dropping here), and over 1700 positive eBay feedback as well -- https://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=792mn. And I've got a fledgling kudos thread started (link is in my profile page). First posted in the thread wins a book outright (so don't PM it to me, a thread take it wins out regardless of time stamp). Offers always welcome. Superman 76. Batman and Superman learn each other's identities, Superman being Clark Kent, Batman being Skippy Richardson. That's at least how it plays out in my head. CGC 5.5 blue with ow-w pages, small bit of tape on the cover. $1150 shipped

About 24 hours later, the AAR on my 10 miler is very positive. My legs feel fantastic, and my right foot, though shrieking in the early AM when the baby waken me up half a dozen times, is feeling normal sore by midday. I think we’re in business. Interestingly, I find the mental aspect of carrying on a tad challenging. I occasionally find myself thinking, “I just ran 10 miles, how awesome! Wait, I gotta do more?!?” Can’t rest on the laurels, the build must go on.

Take these 3.

I wound up skipping the planned 2 for Wednesday and did the upper body exercises instead, then off Thursday aside from a 10000 step kind of walking day, and then my usual Friday yogurt lattes. Yesterday…5. Today…10! 21 total for the week I walked a little extra early on because I didn’t quite know how I’d feel once I passed 7 miles, but overall it went really well. The 8 mile boogey man reared its head once more with a handful of attempted calf cramps, hence the lousy 9th mile, but I’m really happy to say that a continued focus on form and relaxation helped me work through them very effectively. This run gives me confidence that as long as everything keeps trending like this, the 5k, 10k, and 1/2er are all in the bag. I need to get closer to 20 before expressing my feelings about the monster. We’ve also been discussing pace planning, and I think there’s a good chance I’ll walk at least the last mile of the 5 and 10k no matter how I feel. Call it load management. I don’t think that plan will interfere with staying at or under my goal times though, which is nice.

Now someone is talking sense. Why not also do that from the start?

And if Hero’s says “no” to this hypothetical posse knocking on his door, what then?

I appreciate the reading material as well. It’s never been an issue in my holiday threads, but I think this year I’m going to switch the format to where everyone donates direct to the cause and sends proof as necessary instead of me being the central collection point. Direct tax receipts for all!

I would think that as long as any donor could could provide proof of their contribution to the overall check that Roy cuts, it would work out, i.e - document what the book sold for, how it is associated to this fundraiser, and pair those with the tax receipt.

@DougC - any advice?

So Hero self destructed in July, and he was still taking submissions in August. I’m not a lawyeroligist, but with the totality of everything that has gone down since June, this may very well qualify as both federal mail and wire fraud at a minimum (assuming @altair43 lives in a different state than Hero’s Mike).

Well, the bug ended up lingering, and though it didn't slow me down for the wedding, it was enough to keep me from doing any extensive physical exertion until last Friday, when I got in a solid yogurt lattes session. Saturday we met some friends in the city and walked like crazy, but my foot was no worse for the wear. Hooray! That didn't last too long, because I got back on the 5k horse on Sunday with the energizer husky, and my foot was shrieking the next day. No biggie, me and the baby did 4 miles in spite of it. The "nice" thing about plantar fasciitis is that, once you start moving, the pain fades. I did still invest in a few compression socks, which I wore for the first time today, and I found that one of they're significant benefits is to keep the foot from tightening up during prolonged periods of sitting. I also ran two miles with it on, and it was perfectly comfortable. I'm going to do at least two more tomorrow, barring any unexpected obstacles. We're basically two months out at this point, so it's time to really buckle down. 3-4-2-2 is a far cry from 3.1-6.2-13.1-26.2, so the distance has to stretch each week now. Luckily our social calendar is pretty much empty up till race time, outside of the holidays. This weekend is going to bring at least the 8 miler, possibly 10. Want to at least hit 20 total miles this week, and ideally climb to 40 at the apex of training. Despite the setbacks during training, I honestly feel really good about where I am at this point. Just gotta keep the good times rolling and the miles building.

Of all the rants I have encountered across these boards, his was the most…incoherent.

Putting aside the other myriad problems wit this situation for the moment: 1. CGC tried very hard to tell Ghostzapper that he was indeed SOL. Had there been no CGC Mike to turn to, a costly trip through the legal system may have been his only other recourse. 2. As of now, Ghostzapper has $0 restitution in his pocket. He got jerked around once already, for all we know, CGC’s opening offer will be a free one year associate membership, or $200 in grading credit.

I hope you’re being facetious.

Lesson learned - apparently we now need to pack our books in a safe and clearly visible manner. Maybe I’ll put some flashing LED lights around each book in my next submission. Is it really asking too much that the person charged with unpacking a box do a thorough job? A FOOM 10 is now lost to the dumpster because receiving couldn’t fully empty a box of submissions. “Fun” aside - I got a $0 invoice from NGC the other day, and I know that my NYCC books were recently submitted. And I know my facilitator didn’t screw up. After Ghostzapper’s story, now I’m really wondering if my books are actually going to get where they’re supposed to go.

Bogus pedigree labels, a whole new level of yikes.

That is dedication

On the bright side, their stock price has been cut in half in the past two years.

I was otherwise detained, good luck to all who remembered to submit something

Tuesday and Wednesday brought back-to-back 5k excursions, both of which went really well. Today I wanted to squeeze in the planned 8 miler, but it was a workday, and I couldn't swing it on top of the rain and all the prep for leaving out tomorrow for my brother's wedding. Plus, I feel just the slightest touch of a bug...which better be gone by the morning if it knows what's good for it... I will go hot sauce and Jack Daniel's on your az!

I've only seen the first episode so far, and I enjoyed it, his buddy at Harvard being my favorite new character. If I remember right, the first season of the original show also took a minute to get rolling, so stay optimistic. I'm disappointed that the new show is stuck on Paramount+, but the first two episodes are also on Prime, so hopefully the others do the same eventually. I can actually get on board with the premise of the article. Ever since I met my prettier half, and especially since our daughter was born, I've found my connection to my comic collection steadily eroding. I've definitely been much less interested in the content, and much more interested in the value, while my buying has severely curtailed. The same can be said for seeing the new movies, or even rewatching the old ones. The interest just isn't there. I journaled about this phenomena in regard to the comics a while back, but I was attributing the lack of interest in the movies more to just getting older. That, and my hatred of Rise of Skywalker! But looking back, both the movies and the comics provided a convenient escape from a life that I wasn't particularly happy with (until I addressed some long standing mental demons), and my practice marriage was more of a chore than a relationship. Bottom line, I didn't have much to look forward to on a given day, and under those life circumstances, I did feel quite lonely. Notably, the loneliness also applies to the duration of the practice marriage, and there are few things worse emotionally than feeling alone while you're with somebody. Now that that's all changed, life's priorities changed with it. Granted, shows are still a blast to attend, but on a different level of enjoyment. Maybe it's time for another journal entry!

I successfully completed 2 miles and then a 10k over the weekend, as planned. Me and the energizer husky had our groove on, so she went with me for the entire 10k. Ten minutes ahead of goal pace at 1:04:28 and felt awesome My foot stings a bit today, but again, 8 miles in two days. Hoping the day off today takes care of it, but I’ll skip running tomorrow if need be. This week’s scheduling is a touch trickier as my brother’s wedding is this weekend, but that’s life.

Today's daddy/daughter 5k clocked in at 30:11, so well ahead of my goal time. Couldn't have done it without her support, napping in the running stroller and all. The question now is, do I actually want to move this fast on game day? This is a four day endurance event after all, and no matter the training between now and January, I don't expect to be able to run a 9:45/mile marathon. Especially after logging 22.5 miles in the three prior days. But...January is still a ways away, let not make any assumptions and see how these longer runs in the coming weeks go. My right foot is a touch sore now, but not the shooting pain that I had when the pf was at its worst, so I'm optimistic that this is just a side effect of logging 9 miles in three days. Next two days are off days from running, with no exercise on tomorrow's docket. Saturday/Sunday is a planned 2/6.

Howdy. It's been nearly a month since my last update, and unfortunately that's largely due to going back to square one with my running. My plantar fasciitis recovery plateaued pretty abruptly after a two mile indoor track run on September 11th, and my prettier half convinced me to take a decent amount of time off. Indoor track has turned out to be a key component in this problem, as I'd come to surmise later that all the turning on the roughly 1/8 mile track was significantly contributing to the very injury I was trying to kick. So much for the controlled environment being beneficial! When I officially started the re-build up on September 24, the weather was much better, so I got back at it outdoors rather than indoors. I started with only a mile, and since then have climbed back up to 4 as my longest run. Honestly, my foot feels almost back to normal at this point, and the rest of me feels great. I have a four run/week training schedule in place, and this week's longest will be 6 miles. The only hiccup so far -- two miles on the indoor track on October 7. Moved well, felt good during, but by that night I felt like I had suffered a setback. Since we were out of town visiting my brother, I took the next two days off and then got back to it outdoors. Nearly broke 18 minutes on the first two miler that I did, which was nuts considering I didn't even feel like I was moving at that fast of a pace. Me and the energizer husky have duplicated that effort multiple times, and we kept a sub-10 minute pace for our four miler, even with an honestly walk included in the middle. And I haven't felt like I needed to push to keep that pace, it's feeling very natural. So the results speak for themselves - being outdoors, with far fewer turns, and a much easier time settling into and keeping my proper form, has been key to my foot's recovery. The only downside is that when winter shows up, there's going to be days where I need to run but mother nature will be in a mood, and the indoor track is no longer an option for me. Cold, especially over 30 degrees, I can deal with. It's ice and snow that worry me. And I dread the thought of doing something like 16 miles on a treadmill, so let's hope it doesn't come to that!