I actually started this blog in the beginning of January 2019, but because I've been keeping a diary for the past year, I was able to go back quite a ways. This is by no means the beginning of my toy hunt, I've been collecting since before I can even remember. But it's a new era for me and my wife so I figure this is a good time to start the blog.
A little back story for anyone wondering. I turned 35 in November of 2018. I'm from Willimantic CT and moved to Maine in the summer of 2004 where I went to college and worked at Toys R Us until 2010. During my time there, I got back into collecting toys, despite not being able to afford it. I picked up a few pieces here and there but mostly got reacquainted with my childhood collection. This is also when I got into making my own custom action figures, mostly WWF Hasbros and Masters Of The Universe.
My wife wasn't working when I lost my job at Toys R Us so in order to survive, I sold off a ton of my action figures. I kept most of my Masters Of The Universe, GI Joes, Transformers and wrestling figures but almost everything else went. It kept us afloat until we could both get rehired at our seasonal job where we'd be able to stay on, possibly full time, even after the holiday season ended. Instead, the business moved to southern Maine, leaving us without our guaranteed jobs.
I took the first job I applied for, Ocean State Job Lot, and worked there for 7 years. Jaime bounced around a few jobs in management positions until the stores eventually closed before coming to work with me. One day this summer, they fired us both, along with our work friends and a manager we were close with. It was the best thing that could have happened to us as I'd been used and abused by that place since I started. 2018 was rather rough, mostly due to a poor work environment and struggling to make it in the publishing world.
But in the years I'd been there, which weren't all horrible, we became independent authors after growing tired of rejection letters from agencies. I got back into hiking and began leaving the trails behind in search of unknown wonders, which I now write hiking guides about. I even began rebuilding my lost toy collection.
After taking a couple months off to focus on writing, Jaime got hired at a job she'd been trying to get into for a couple years. Her current paycheck is what we were making combined during the last year, which gives me the opportunity to stay home and run Orange Rock Publishing. Despite not actually having a job, I typically work about 12 hours a day and we've released 14 books.
I've never been like other people. I don't do things other people do. Not to be different, but because I am different, and I accept that. I live a life of solitude, a far cry from my high school years in the inner city as a rapper. The things I've done in this life could fill a book, and kind of do, multiples in fact. I'm sure we'll get into some of those things in later posts but in being different, it means I don't collect what most collectors do. You won't find much for Star Wars or Pop Vinyl or Marvel and DC figures here. Which does make collecting rather difficult, especially in New England where all you see at comic shops and flea markets are Star Wars, Superheroes, Pop Vinyl and a few wrestling figures. But that's what makes it a hunt.
The majority of what you'll find in my posts are Masters Of The Universe, Thundercats, Wrestling, GI Joe, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dino-Riders, Battle Beasts, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Go-Bots, Lord Of The Rings, The Sectaurs, Super Naturals and if we're lucky, hopefully some Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors, Inhumanoids, Dinosaucers and whatever other random toys I had as a child. We'll hunt them down, reunite figures with their accessories, explore my collection, and piece by piece, rebuild what I sold back when I had nothing. It's about more than finding toys, it's about finding myself. These action figures, no matter how pathetic it sounds, they made me, and now it's time to make them mine.
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