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The past several months of work have been particularly frustrating.* From server issues, to programmer problems, to hackers, and more.* I'm thankful I have baseball cards and writing as an outlet to relieve the stress.* My wife, on the other hand, had other ideas this week.

She decided that she wanted to go to the gun range.* With as much as I don't want to admit it, I've never fired a gun before, so we opted to take an hour lesson to get a handle on shooting and gun safety before buying one.* Our instructor looked and sounded like a bad guy from a James Bond movie, which made things interesting.* The hour lesson ended up being closer to two.

He spent a lot of time with my wife, and was a little too "friendly" with her for my tastes.* I started thinking to myself "is he being too comfortable with her?"* Before I had a chance to consider telling him to back off a bit, it was my turn to shoot.

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...129_180917.jpg

BULLS EYE, BABY!* Wait ... what.... what is this strange sensation I am feeling behind me ...

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...129_180837.jpg

Wait ... uhmmmm ... excuse me Mr. Handy McHands ... I shot *perfectly* ... surely I don't need any hands on help with this?* Ack!* What ... what are you doing, dude?

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...129_180841.jpg

Needless to say, I don't think we'll be going over there anymore.* #YIKES.* I guess at least it got my mind off of work issues.

A friend of mine who is the batting practice pitcher for Canseco wanted me to do a card of him for his collection of Jose playing for Pittsburg.* I bet you didn't know he played for Pittsburg, did you?* The Pittsburg Diamonds, that is!* Yes, I'm blessed to have a favorite player who has played on several minor league teams post MLB career, and no I didn't spell Pittsburg wrong.

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...12/frontsm.jpg

This has inspired me to do a custom Post MLB Minor League set of Canseco at some point - stay tuned!

I was also sent this cut auto to do something cool with...

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...201_150004.jpg

Cool Papa Bell!* Here is what I came up with ....

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...203_102318.jpg

Staying in the same design, I decided to knock out a few customs for my own collection using some of the autographs in my pile of TTM/IP signatures I've acquired over the past year or so.

Should I pick John Goodman, Ronda Rousey, James Earl Jones or Henry Winkler?

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...202_144741.jpg

After doing the artwork for a Babe Ruth cut signature a while ago, the person I did it for ended up giving me this for free ...

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...202_142620.jpg

I figured why the heck not?* So, I whipped up a cut auto of Stan the Man Musial and Ronda "Rowdy" Rousey ... she even personalized it to me:

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...203_111709.jpg

As you may know, I'm a big fan of obscure cards / variations from the 80's & 90's.* One thing that has piqued my interest in recent days are the 1998 Select cards.* I sure wish they never went bankrupt, because they came out with some gorgeous prototype cards.* Only a select few players were actually made, and they were set in a five-tier "Quasar" system.* One Star, Two Star, Three Star, Four star and Five Star (the bonus one).

These looked great to me, but Canseco didn't make it in the set.* Oh yeah, and neither did Chuck Norris.

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...5/12/chuck.jpg

Did you know that Chuck Norris was in all six of the Star Wars episodes?* He played "The Force".

There used to be a street named after Chuck Norris, but it was changed because nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives.

Chuck Norris has a bear skin rug in his front room ...its not dead it just doesn't dare move.

Death once had a near-Chuck experience.

Ok, I'll stop.* (We love us some Chuck Norris facts around here!)

I decided to do one of Jose as well ...

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...Untitled-2.jpg

(Chuck Norris doesn't turn the lights on, he turns the dark out.)

Instead of just doing one of the Quasar designs, I figured, what the heck?!* Let's do ALL of them.

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...Untitled-1.jpg

(When Chuck Norris enters into a courtroom, the judge stands up.)

I love how the art work looks, but let's be honest - we are all card collectors here.* They aren't really collectible until they are actual cards.

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...203_225330.jpg

and another view...

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...203_225538.jpg
Here are the backs of them ...

btw ... did you know Chuck Norris once drowned a fish underwater?* Just checking.

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...203_211822.jpg
So, that's all I got for this episode of mouschi weekly.* Thanks for reading!* Always remember:* Aliens DO exist.* They just choose not to visit earth because they know Chuck Norris lives here.