Fitting That I Start Out This Way

Welcome to the first post from the new site! I hope everyone likes the changes that have been made. I couldn't think of any better "first post" at BlogSpot than this. This should have been said at TNB a long time ago.

I pride myself on my ability to recognize when someone does something right and more importantly something wrong. In my profession, it's imperative that I'm constantly aware and that I communicate to my employees and my assistants when they do something that requires my feedback.

When I was a lowly server at O'Charlies in Ridgeland, MS one of my bosses, Felix, made a statement that I'll never forget about how he approaches this topic. "Praise in public...scold in private." While, I've been horrible at scolding in private I've always felt that I did an excellent job at praising in public. Until now...

When Treasure Never Buried began at Wordpress nearly two months ago, most of you probably thought I had some sort of man-crush on Waxheaven's author, Mario Alejandro. Every other post was, "Mario is Nobel Prize material" and "Vote for Mario" and "Screw Mother Theresa, Allen & Ginter, give us a Mario 1/1 Cut Signature". Not that I used those words exactly, but you get the picture.


This was mostly due to the fact that, at first, Mario was the only person plugging my blog. I literally owe the first 1,000 hits to Mario alone. God only knows how many after that were from the "completist". I am thankful to everyone else that has posted on their own blog about TNB but WaxHeaven was the first to bring countless valued readers to my work. I can honestly say that there are some of you that I will consider "friend" until I'm old and gray. Without Mario, I wouldn't have met most of you. Dave of Fielder's Choice comes to mind. One day I'll retire to Tampa (my old folk destination of choice) and maybe we'll be both SunRays fans (yeah, they'll change the name again, I'm sure of it.)

So, all of the accolades I've given to WaxHeaven were justified in my opinion. Praise is definitely in order for all of the above mentioned facts...

however...

I somehow failed to give thanks to Mario in "public" for a package I received quite some time ago.

After TNB was off the ground and flying solo, so to speak, I went and rounded up all of my Andrew Miller cards. I had pretty much nothing but "crap" so I went to eBay to find a good looking, affordable game used, low number, or auto of Miller. It wasn't much, but I found a '07 Turkey Red Relic. Turkey Red game used have been, to this day, my favorite relic cards. I haven't found a design I like better (and especially for the price.)


I took all of the cards and packaged them up along with a great looking Jeter G/U and them sent them on their merry little way to WaxHeaven. It wasn't much, it wasn't even a great collection of cards, but it was my small way of "quantifying" a thank you to Mario and Tatiana for their support.

Days went by and finally the tracking number registered "delivered". I kept on eating, sleeping, and blogging. A week or so later, I came home from shopping with the family. We had been gone all day so the mail was still in the box at around 9 pm. As I was checking the mail, I noticed a package and I assumed it was my wife's since I wasn't expecting anything. Standing in the dark, in the middle of the driveway, I see WaxHeaven as the sender.

? ? ?

I rush inside to open the package. This is what I found inside...








WHY? Why did Mario send me these? Has he never seen the eBay value of that Andrew Miller? He doesn't owe me anything. He's already done enough by saying good things about my blog at his. This wasn't a trade and I didn't expect anything in return. This is just the kind of guy that Mario Alejandro is.

The Moments and Milestones Manny cards are the still the BEST Manny cards that I own. The Griffey American Hero inserts are from his SpX video break from a few weeks back. Even if this had been a trade, I definitely got the upper hand.

When someone does something good, you "praise them in public". You let everyone else around you know the type of person that they are dealing with. Mario Alejandro is one ____ of a guy! (Man, I need to be able to cuss on my blogs...maybe AngryChris was right and I should...lol)

Thank you, Mario, for my first ever "mail day" post and for being such an unselfish and great guy! You're one in a million, Man!!