This will be the final post of 2006 as I am going on vacation tonight through January 3rd. I would hope, after I quickly recap the year, you would all agree it is well deserved. I am not going anywhere on my hiatus. I have been traveling all year and am really looking forward to going out, spending time at home and hitting up a few shows (Gov't Mule at the Beacon - don't miss it, special guests each night)
All year I have kept a record of the signings I have done. It isn't 100% accurate as there have been quite a few "surprise" signings. You guys would not believe how many times something comes up out of nowhere and, next thing I know, I am heading out to a signing. I would probably say there are about fifteen signings (some small, some big) that I haven't recorded. With those in mind I have executed about 189 signings over the last 356 days. Keep in mind that many of those signings are team signings (with the help of just Dave V I did the entire Texas Western team signing, yeah Dave! I counted that as one signing. I also took part in team signings with the '86 Mets, '86 Giants and '69 Jets as well as with the Sack Exchange twice and Kiss. I counted those group signings as one rather than count all the individuals that signed the pieces.) According to my calculations I have spent about 111 hours on airplanes over the course of the year. I also tried to figure out how many miles I have traveled (not counting simply going to our office). I came up with 58,280. Those are serious numbers.
The best part about it is that I have pretty much (give or take a few roadblocks, cancelled flights, delayed flights) enjoyed every minute of it. I got to hang out with the Seahawks the day before they left for the Super Bowl. I was privileged enough to get to know Kiss (dude- KISS!) I made some new friends like my boy Chien-Ming Wang (the first and last Yankee I will probably ever root for without remorse) I flew to El Paso, Texas to work with Don Haskins which still remains one of the coolest experiences I have ever had.
Lastly , I have had quite a bit of help along the way. There have been many conflicting signings and, unfortunately, I can only be in one place at one time. I am working on that though. You will all be the first to know when I figure it out. With that in mind I would like to thank AJ, Dave, Brendan, Chris, Paul, Leonard, Steve, Bob, Robert and Larry for backing me up. I also want to give a shout out to the immortal Joe Cancel for preparing all the baseballs for signings this year. Without his efforts I would have been lost on several occasions.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. 2007 is going to be even better than '06 (for both us and the Mets) so start checking the blog again on January 3rd. In the meanwhile, and really always, take a look at the rest of the site. The end result of the travels documented on this blog are on every page.