Monthly Archives: May 2007

Not the only one to be dunked on by Nate

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Two summers ago I got to play with Jamal Crawford in an outdoor basketball tournament at Green Lake. Our honorary coach happened to be Brandon Roy. He was going to be a senior at the University of Washington and could not play in summer leagues. One of our first games was against Nate Robinson. At the time he had just graduated from the University of Washington. Unfortunately, this was the first time I had seen him play. Near the end of the game, the score was really close and Nate had a fast break. Of course I couldn’t give him an easy layup, so I went up to challenge the shot. I am 6′ 6″ and Nate is listed at 5′ 9″, but in real life he is shorter than my wife, who is only 5′ 5″. Before I could realize what had happened, HE DUNKED ON ME! He didn’t jump over me like it did Spud, but he managed to avoid my outstretched arms and get the dunk to go in.

2006-07 Topps Chrome Refractors #43 - Nate Robinson - Courtesy of CheckOutMyCards.com

Hard work pays off

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Andy Bird and I have been working really hard these last few months in an effort to make the best sports card shopping experience on the internet. After a very long week, it was extremely refreshing to get the following feedback just 15 minutes ago.

From: TIM CALLAHAN
Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2007 2:11 AM
To: staff@checkoutmycards.com
Subject: Comment On Your Site

I have searched a lot of sports card sites but this one beats every one I have ever seen hands down. I filled up my shopping cart with absolutely no doubts on what I would be receiving – another words, no surprises. The fact that I can view each card front and back is awesome. The discounted prices are great also but with such a fantastic experience shopping on your site, I found myself much more impressed with the quality of the site. Kudos to everyone involved and I hope to be filling my order very soon.

Tim Callahan

We are working hard to open up the site so that others can list their cards on COMC.com. Shortly we hope to not only have the best shopping experience but also the best inventory selection on the internet. Stay Tuned…

300% Performance Improvement

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Over the last several weeks we implemented several performance improvements to the COMC.com site. If you have used the site recently, you may have noticed sporadic glitches. I apologize for that. The site should be back to being fully functional, and we will do our best to keep it that way as we continue to implement many more improvements to the site.

It used to take ~6-10 seconds to perform a search, and sometimes the searches would time out at 30 seconds. Now we can consistently search in about 2-3 seconds.

It used to take ~10-15 seconds to browse all the cards of a given sport, and sometimes it would timeout as well. Now we can consistently browse in about 3-4 seconds.

We recently enhanced the list on the left side of the search page to let you filter by year, product, and set very easily. Once you start filtering down to a specific year, set, or player, the searches get even faster, typically 1-2 seconds.

Eventually we would like to get every page to take less than 1 second, but the current speed is fast enough that it is not too annoying. So we will spend the next round of efforts on adding new functionality to the site.

The next big effort is around allowing you to list your cards on this site. Stay tuned for more.

4 weeks later

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It has been nearly 4 weeks since my trip to the ER. My right cheek is still partially numb, but fortunately I am starting to get feeling back. The doctor says there is a good chance I could have feeling completely back within 6 months.

Not bad considering this…
Facial Fracture
Cross section of my head with my nose facing up.
Left Side=Right Cheek, White=Bone, Black=Sinus Cavities, Bulge=Swelling

Cat Scan Results 2

Cat Scan Results 3

The black eye and swelling only lasted a little more than a week. I was still able to fly down to Anaheim and speak at the Access Advisor conference with only mild discomfort. The most difficult part was keeping myself from smiling too much, which causes the muscles in my cheek to cramp. Other than that my only challenge is avoiding foods that require a lot of chewing. The right side of my mouth can’t really bite hard on anything yet.

I am hoping to start running and playing non-competitive basketball in 2-4 weeks, but after watching Steve Nash get beat up in the playoffs, I am not in a hurry to get back into competitive basketball. Fortunately the Everett Explosion is doing just fine without me. They are currently 10-2 and in 1st place in the Western Division of the IBL.