Left to my own devices

 My wife was at Target today while I was at work, and she found a hanging box of Update, and got it for me. I have whined a little about Update, but when you're starved for opening packs like most of us have been lately, I was happy for the chance at some new cards. 

One of the cards was of Reds lst Baseman Matt Davidson. What I first noticed about the card was just how the photo looked like a posed shot that almost looked like the background was photoshopped and reminded me of an 8 by 10 that would be sold at a team souvenier store. 

The second thing that I noticed is that he is wearing a smart watch in the photo. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the first card ever showing someone wearing a smart watch. Has anyone else noticed a smart watch on another card?

This kind of got me thinking about other kinds of technology and devices on cards. I know there have been cellphones on cards ever since the '90's, and that Rob Murphy's '90 Upper Deck card even pictures him on a laptop, but the card that really stood out to me was Jason Johnson's 2006 Topps Heritage card. 

Jason is on my Favorite Player List because both of us are Type 1 Diabetics. I'll try to keep it short, but I do want to explain in short what treatment options a Type 1 has (and if you want to know more about the disease, the last link has some). In order to live with diabetes, both me, Jason, and all other Type 1's need to take injections of insulin in order to help get our blood glucose level in a normal range of 80-150 mg/dl. Some people choose to use shots, and ever since the early/mid '90's, there has been another way to get insulin. A person without diabetes has a pancreas that produces insulin and makes more when you eat food and the blood glucose level goes higher. A diabetic has to check their blood glucose level constantly, and eat food if it is low, and give the correct amout of insulin when it is low. There are different types of insulin, some types that work slower to keep the sugar from raising while resting or sleeping due to inactivity, and other types that are faster acting and help sugars not to get too high immediately after eating. People on shots usually take a slow acting insulin twice a day, and fast acting insulin before they eat. Depending on how many times you eat a day, that can be a ton of shots. In the early '90's, insulin pumps have become popular. It is basically a device that looks like a pager, and holds a few days worth of fast acting insulin. There is a small tube coming from it that is attatched to you via a small injection site that stays in you for up to 5 days. The device is programmable, and it injects insulin in you throughout the day (similar to a long acting insulin), and is also able to give you insulin when you eat and your glucose level is too high. During the last 10 years, a device has come out that can be attatched to you for 5 days like my insulin pump site, and the device measures the glucose level in the top of the fat cells, and is wirelessly transmitted to your insulin pump, and if your sugar goes above where you want it, it will give you enough insulin to get it at a good level again. It does wonders for Type 1's. 

*Update* Here is a picture of my pump. 

Back to the Johnson card, I never realized it, but I was looking through my cards of Jason a while ago, and looked to see if I could spot his pump, and sure enough, just above his glove on the '06 Heritage card, is a black rectangle, which I easily knew was his pump. You can get a real good view of it on his 2004 Topps card, which I think will end up going on my Top 12 list soon. 
The '06 Heritage card will always hold a special place in my heart, and I'm stoked that I found the '20 Update Davidson card, and hope it becomes a card on bloggers want lists, just like the '72 Topps Billy Martin middle finger card, the '93 Upper Deck Mike Perez card, and the 1997 Collector's Choice Omar Vizquel card. 

I also wanted to give a shout out to the bloggers out there who did posts showing what they were thankful for. This year, for me, I'm not going to lie. A ton of it sucked. People went crazy at the store during the start of the pandemic, and I'm still scared I'm going to catch it from a careless customer or co-worker and pass it on to my immune-compromised wife. We have seen a shortage of card product on shelves, and tons of small businesses (like card shops) have closed.

But with all of the crap, there still are things to be thankful for. I still have a job, and will probably come out better financially than the year before due to more overtime and our company giving us gift certificates to the store every month or so. My wife has had 2 surgeries recently, and although they are always challenging and sometimes require me to fulfill the role of parent and guy who cooks/cleans, I think we may have found one of the problems with the excess cerebral spinal fluid, and perhaps we can get it at a level that won't give her the constant nausea and headaches. While there hasn't been much card product on the shelves, I have opened hanging boxes of Donruss, Topps Series 1, 2, Update, Heritage, Stadium Club, Opening Day, and Big League. Not the volume of a normal year, but just about the same number of products as usual. My LCS has also stayed open. Also during this crazy year, my 4-year old son has got into opening packs. When going up to Gainesville for appointments/surgeries, we've found packs of 2020 Topps MLB Stickers, so I got the book, and probably about 20 packs, and he's enjoyed opening the packs and putting them into the book. I might have to make a wantlist for that pretty soon. My wife and I stumbled upon the Nat. Geo. Wild channel a few months back, and have watched some of their zoo documentary programs, and our family has been hooked. We love the one about the Columbus Zoo and the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa (one we've actually been to). It's cool learning about the different types of animals and how the zoos are trying to breed animals and how they are cared for. 

I really hope 2021 will be better for everyone, but even if not, we'll always have stuff to be thankful for. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy