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About this journal

This journal was originally to record my thoughts on collecting and building my Netherlands Wilhelm III Gold 10 Gulden Set and other projects like  my modern silver bullion NCLT sets. When it got started in the summer of 2007 I was single, in my early 20's, and working on my B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering. Starting in 2016, with my marriage and the birth of my first son, Benjamin, much of my writing has focused on raising my sons to have a love of collecting coins and exonumia and discussing how my collecting occurs in the context of my marriage and life overall.

Entries in this journal

Family

So we wait...

Well, no grades yesterday. So that’s three weeks almost / 13 working days in “Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging” without getting grades back. When the submission arrived on 6/7/21 or 6/8/21 the listed turnaround was 49 working days and the coins have now been at NGC for 65 or 66 working days as of Monday. And I really don’t care if the turnaround now is 85 working days - it was 49 when mine arrived, it was 49 for over a month of the time they’ve been there, and it was only later raised to 61, and we
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Family

My Thanks, Again!

Well, NGC and PMG announced the awards today around lunch time. Let me first say Congrats to Mike. I was happy to see so many familiar names, but I was most happy to see his name pop up on both the NGC and PMG side. Also congrats to many of the others I've often seen on the forums: The Welsh Dragon, ChrisInJesup, Physics-fan3.14, libertad1998, lehigh96, Ray USMC,... Hopefully I'm not missing anyone there but, gosh, it is a long list these days. NGC is increasingly generous on that fron
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“I need it for my collection”

For about the last week or so Ben keeps saying that he needs things for his “collection.” He has a robot “collection.” His Legos are a “collection” now. His toys are a “collection.” He needs all my old dice for his “collection.” I’m not sure where this came from, but I really don’t think it was from me. I don’t think I use the word “collection” around him very often. I’m thinking he must have gotten this from one of his little shows he watches on Netflix – maybe even power rangers sinc
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5 Years

So yesterday was our 5th anniversary - we are over 6 years into the relationship. The 5th anniversary is supposed to be “Wood” so my wife had considered getting me a challenge coin / coin holder make of wood with the idea of putting a coin that relates to us / our relationship in it, but I don’t really have a coin that fits that bill - the closest I had was that Standing Liberty half she got me as an anniversary present last year, and, since it is in a slab, it wouldn’t have worked for this
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Parents 20 years ago didn't have to deal with this nonsense...

Off-topic but... Some days it begins to feel like a game of "What has my 4 year old managed to get me charged for this time?" A couple of months ago he managed to get us signed up to Amazon Music for a month. Last month he managed to upgrade my Netflix account to "Premium" - so now we can have 3 screens going at once instead of 2 - and it costs me $3 more a month. I was just looking at one of the credit card bills, seeing a 5 dollar charge and thinking, "Oh no... What did he
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Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Posting this a little late, but I thought I'd say "Happy Thanksgiving" to everyone. I found myself remembering a recent conversation with Ben, where he was wondering when he'd get his own cell phone (recall: he is 7), and we thought he'd probably get one in a few years, maybe as he's getting into middle school and starting to do things for school and such without us around or with him more, but we also pointed out that this would be subject to us having the money / funds available at the ti
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As it happens... (cheap) plastic ages! Just like I do apparently.

So I have a bunch of these old collectable miniatures that I used to play with in Junior High and High School. My sons get to slowly play with (and destroy) some of dad's ol "Robot toys" but I hold back some old special ones that were my favorites. A guy in a Facebook group was looking to buy some that I had some spares of - even unopened from back in the day - So I offered to sell and maybe get a few bucks towards a coin or note purchase. I have an open one too and he asked if i
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Well, that happened.

A number of months ago, when surprised, I just said, "Well, that happened," and Ben latched onto it and started using the phrase. Sometimes he would look to me when something happened and say, "Was that a thing that happened?" "Yup." We live in Houston as most of you who read this know and apparently, from my coworkers, news of our misery the week of President's day has been a topic even in the UK and Europe. Our water was in and out from Monday to about Thursday the 18th - but even wh
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Family

My Wife Just Used the ANA Money Museum to Tempt Me...

She loves to travel and she desperately wants to get out and take a trip somewhere and is brainstorming all of these ideas about where to go and what to do when this is over. She's looking at taking a vacation for a long weekend to Colorado. In the middle of her research she figured out that the ANA Money Museum is in Colorado and she's trying to use a day there to tempt me into getting excited and agreeing to the idea. Does she know me too well or think I sell too cheap? That is the q
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Children can be adorable when it comes to presents

My wife ordered my birthday present about a week ago. She was trying to keep it quiet but then Ben saw her and wanted to "help" and gave it away in a big way. I think she ordered something for my Zimbabwe note set but I don't know for sure so this has me trying to limit / hold off on major purchases for the next couple of weeks until she gives it to me. Ben has been very funny throughout this. First he insisted that he needed to get me a small present too that he had to pick out and then he
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It comes to a head: The 2nd revision

To borrow phrasing from my wife, Somethings have been odd with Samuel for a while. After getting a fast MRI (which had been delayed by him getting sick the day before the scan) the doctor wasn’t convinced by those results but was concerned by our observations of his behavior and wanted a CT. After getting a CT this morning, they told us to turn back around and come to the ER. We suspect a clog / slow failure – all four ventricle spaces have enlarged; some have nearly doubled. But they’re just go
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A little cuteness and positivity for the day...

Sam though quite recovered is serving out the last days of his quarantine because we have to go by 10 days from his positive test even though I'm pretty sure he'd been fighting it for a while at that point and he probably stopped being contagious days ago. As sometimes happens, he rediscovered some replica Morgans and Silver Eagles that another member here gave me for them, which he and his brother like to play with on occasion. At that point, for the next half hour or so at least a couple
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Family

We made an offer on a house on 4/20! ... and now we wait.

We put in an offer on a house on 4/20! We started negotiating on 4/19 but the seller didn't accept until 4/20 and that's when we put in the bid contract - which is the only thing that matters under Texas law. We're still waiting on confirmation that they have signed it to put the house under contract after most of yesterday was lost to hashing out a minor issue in the draft of the contract we signed and submitted on 4/20, so we re-signed and resubmitted yesterday and... fingers cr
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Family

Happy Father's Day

I know quite a few of us that frequent this place are also fathers. Shandy let me sleep in this morning and, when I got up, she had the boys in Star Wars shirts saying "I am your Son" and one for me that says "I am your Father." I mentioned elsewhere that I had an ebay auction ending late last night. I followed my practice of putting in my best number and going to bed. It so happened that, when I put in my best bid, i was winning it but my bid was maxed out and if anyone else had bid
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Family

Survived that weekend...

Well, we got the negative Covid test from my Nephew late Friday, but by then my wife and Sam were already at the ER because Sam gave us the scare of our lives when he stopped talking and we were worried he might be having seizures or some other issue and might have shunt failure. Two nights at the hospital later, short on a lot of sleep, we came back home on Sunday after a day of observation saying, "we'll watch for now, move up some of his other tests and appointments and see if we see any more
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Got the award / plaque, now to the Post Office?

A couple of weeks ago now I received the award I'd referenced previously. In true 2020 fashion I got to receive a professional award in a Punisher tshirt and sweatpants. Because the organization wanted good pictures with the newsletter we had to re-do this in a suit and I got the whole family in on it. As the corresponding (and surviving) author, both plaques were sent to me and its my task to mail the other plaque(s) to the other author(s), or, in my case, to his family.
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Not just marking time...

I posted on 1/12/2019 about winning the 2018 Journal award and mentioned that, pretty much at the same time as I found out about that, that I'd gotten a paper accepted for publication. I didn't really go into this at the time but it was a paper co-authored with my graduate advisor - who passed away on September 11, 2018. He's the person I decided to name Sam after. I didn't know it at the time but I posted that entry exactly 1 month before Sam's surprise early birth - the "first published" date
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Family

The first shunt revision

Well, when I was posting last time Sam was napping and we were getting ready to take him to Urgent Care hoping all the grabbing of his head and crankiness was an ear ache. It wasn't an ear ache. We had a shunt revision today and it looks like his shunt catheter, which we already knew had shifted, had nearly completely failed and it wasn't draining fluid and pressure effectively. He should hopefully be discharged tomorrow for a 1-2 week light recovery. We're told he "beat the odds"
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Family

"Hey, Dad. We should get a Penny sorter."

So Ben randomly pops up with the fact that he wants a "penny sorter," which my brain interprets to mean one of those automatic coin sorting and rolling machines. I hadn't thought of those in years probably but him saying this reminded me of the fact that I used to see those in Walgreens and other places as a kid. I always really wanted one and thought they would be so cool, but I could just never justify it (or talk my mom into it) and so I always just sorted, counted and rolled by hand. To
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Testing the capacity of an NGC Label and completing the move.

I've been talking and thinking about starting a set of the Innovation Dollars to show the boys as they get older and a seller on eBay gave me an offer for this after I watched it so I decided to bite. After shipping it cost me $20. At that price it just becomes fun impulse buy at a stressful time. I thought it was worth it to begin the journey of about 50 coins with this one. I think I will make a set of these, but in the near term I think my focus will be adding a few more presidents to that ol
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It's that time of year again...

My birthday is coming up. I never would have thought we'd still be isolating and limiting our contact with people for 6 months and I'd be looking forward to a birthday in isolation but... here we are. This also means it's another one of those moments where my wife starts trying to figure out how she can give me a nice surprise without me knowing what it is or outright picking it myself. So I've been updating my Amazon wishlist for her and others in my family because I know they check it.
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I have a coin for that...

My wife somewhat randomly brought up about a week ago that she and I are both "Tigers" - We were both born in the year of the Tiger for the Chinese Zodiac - 1986 specifically. She teaches English to Chinese kids and what brought this up was some parents had been asking other teachers if their young child was a "pig," meaning born in 2019, which was the year of the pig, which Samuel is, as it happens. So this got her curious and she looked up what we were and what Ben and Sam were and what t
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I think I might just be out of time on this one…

Sam was finally allowed to go home last night. We had a follow-up with his pediatrician today and he should get to go back to school and ease back into normal activity on Monday. Ben is still, somewhat comically, trying to get his new front teeth in. It was very difficult getting out of there. I have rarely wanted to call a nurse a insufficiently_thoughtful_person to her face so badly. They tried to give him 2 vaccines in his two thighs at the same time and didn't restrain his hands while I
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What I would be doing if I still didn’t have kids…

There are days when I really wish this was still the summer of 2006 and I could spend an entire week searching rolls of pennies looking for things to put in my Whitman folders or looking through rolls of dimes and quarters looking to see if there might be any old silver ones in there like I see other people talking about on Facebook and Reddit. There are times lately when I wish I had the chance to try to beat the personal record I set for myself when I made a 19.5 inch tall column of pennies th
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Progress on the new set is going a bit slow...

Well, I wasn't planning to submit this batch of coins until my membership renewed and I got my additional $150 credit on June 12th... The problem with this is that not having coins graded that I can pop into a set and not having a public set I can actually build has proven ... demotivating... when it comes to my research and writing efforts. It simply isn't as fun or as satisfying to work on a Word file with no pictures. So I've found myself pulled in other directions recently. B
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