The Bar is OPEN!!!!

So welcome to the new place. Glad you could make it. I still have some touching up to do, like figuring out how to get that photo on the top to go across the whole screen. For the most part, however, we’re open for business.

If you read my old blog (Tampa Sports Wasteland) you pretty much know what you’re going to get – a lot of sports, some card trading and other various little things. I’ll also throw some observations about moving to Chicago. For instance it’s a lot easier to go drinking “downtown” when you take public transportation.

I imagine some people reading this are not familiar with my older work so an introduction of sorts is called for. I grew up in Maryland, just south of Baltimore, went to college in Florida and lived in the Tampa Bay area for about 12 years. Thanks to a stint of unemployment I had the chance to look for a job in a new city, a city that my girlfriend and I both wanted to live in. The search ended up with me securing a sales job in Chicago – if anyone runs a business and needs some excellent pricing on computer hardware, networking, or software drop me a line in the next couple of weeks.

The teams I tend to write about are the Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay Lightning, Baltimore Ravens and Liverpool Football Club. If you look at that list you’ll know that the last few years (excepting the Ravens) haven’t been very good to me sports wise. That’s the bad news.

The good news, at least for long suffering Chicago sports fans, is that the towns I live in tend to win championships. My resume:

My family moved back to Baltimore in 1983 from a brief stint in Germany and the O’s won a World Series.

I moved to Florida after college in 1998. Within six years two of the worst franchises in professional sports (the Bucs and the Lightning) had both won titles in their respective leagues.

I was in the building for the Tampa Bay Storm’s fifth Arena League Title.

The Rays went to the World Series while I lived in the Tampa Bay Area.

So I’ve seen some good times in the towns I’ve lived in.


If you’re interested in sports and trading cards stick around. I will try and post regularly (i.e. more than once a week). The want lists / trade info will be added soon.