CyberErik's Success Thread- just starting out, feedback and help welcome!

[cyberer]

Thanks guys! Sorry for the delayed response to your responses.

That's terrible about the TWolves, IDK why the teams think it's ok to treat fans like this. It doesn't exactly make me want to buy season tix like they intend- it's the opposite. It makes me distrust the organization.

A young lady from the sixers called me to ask about my experience and I told her about everything that we discussed above. IDK if it will change anything but we will see.

I have a few auto experiences to update.

I did the dodgers on arrival a few weeks ago. No one signed off the bus. Overall it was a pretty crappy night.

I ended up walking down the street with Yasiel Puig and Adrian Gonzalez for about 4 blocks. Puig wouldn't budge (I didn't need Gonz I have him already).

But what did happen was I ended up talking to Adrian about autographing for the entire time and his perspective on it and gave him my perspective. Basically, he said by hassling them it makes them not want to sign.

Basically, I said that by being unpredictable about when they sign, and by not signing for everyone, they create an environment where people are anxious and desperate to get them because you never know if and when it's going to happen. And oftentimes bad behavior (i.e. following someone) results in getting a graph, as stupid and rude as it may be.

He asked me about my career and stuff, it was not a rude conversation. I told him he has always been a gentleman about signing and I got him a few years back in Boston, so I didn't need him (I was just asking puig).

That night I did get Alex Wood



And Andre Ethier, although I can't for the life of me find the Ethier at moment.

Changing gears, last night I did the Colts on arrival.

Andrew Luck signed off the bus, but he shut it down right in front of me. He signed for maybe half the graphers. He skipped me in line 2 different times. He seemed very friendly but in a rush (he would say- I'm only doing 2 more guys! then shut it down and say he was sorry- his security guard was rushing him).

Then about 10 minutes later, I ignored a tip from a tip from an experienced grapher and didn't go out and wait for luck by a side door because I was getting some offensive linemen in a different place. Turns out, Luck came right out that door and signed. So I missed him twice! I was livid.

Here are the offensive linemen- Tyler Hoover, Daniel Adonge, Early Okine, Alongo Daniel, Jonatthan Harrison, Jack Mewhort, Anthony Costonzo



Then, I botched a chance to get Vinatieri because I couldn't get my stuff out fast enough, it was pretty much the worst graphing I had ever done at that point.

A while later, I happened to see Luck's same security guard walking towards a side door on his cell phone. And I was like, "™™™™, I bet he's going to get luck." So I followed my instincts and ran towards the side door.

Sure enough, Luck came back in the door. He signed but there were about 10 of us again. He did 5 and then shut it down RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME again. I don't know why he kept shutting it down rather than doing my stuff.

I noticed he was struggling to find a place to put the marker down. So I said, very loud, "cmon Andrew, I missed you the last time too because you shut it down in front of me."

He quickly signed my SI and put the marker down on my SI.



So all in all it ended up being a great night, but it was almost a horrible night.

[steeltowninwv]

awesome Andrew luck........I want a luck bad..guess ill send thru the mail to him and hope for the best

[cyberer]

Yeah man it was a great success. If I got a duplicate I would have sold it but sorry this one is now buried pretty firmly in the "Keeper" pile.

[cyberer]

Wow, somewhat recently it looks like my thread went over 100,000 views. You guys are unbelievable and really help make graphing fun for me! Thanks for being a part of my successes.

[cyberer]

Building off my last post, I did get out and graph the mets at the ballpark. Granderson stood on the top step of the dugout and did literally about 50-60 autographs. Went at it for 10-20 minutes or so. Class act. Got a much better signature than the other time I got him this season.



No one else signed either after BP or after pregame warmups. Pretty dismal night. Oddly, Cespedes was in the lineup and I didn't see him take BP or take sprints before the game. Odd. That team got terrible.

[cyberer]

Got out graphing 2 nights this week- did the cubs. I won't say much except to say that they are mostly terrible. Bryant did it during the trip, but not the days I was there, but otherwise a dismal team. It was frustrating.

I got Hammel on the sweet spot of a ball, against my better judgment, just to get on the board.





But I did get a kind of funny surprise. Lester is generally a terrible signer. He snubbed everyone all weekend. Finally, a guy got so fed up, he ripped up his 16x20 photo right in front of lester and told him to go eff himself.

20 minutes later, Lester comes back out and signs for all of us, being really nice about it. Clearly, he was just doing it to spite the guy who destroyed his nice item.

I am not complaining, as I got him on the cubs SI cover.

[cyberer]

Went to the chickies radio shows in south philly tonight. The lineup is being held constant all season so this will probably be my only time going, plus they are obnoxious with the format- 1 per, personalizing in some cases, etc. It's not mike vick or shady doing it anymore guys, relax.

Runyan was a childhood (or young adult) hero, when I saw he was there I almost decided to burn an Eagles mini on him. For some reason I thought he was in the HOF. Turns out, my memories from my youth were inaccurate- he was a good, but not great, player. Anyways I got him on a pretty nice Eagles logo item.



Kelce was also on the early show. During the broadcast he took full responsibility for the fumble snap, and said he didn't want to hear about the officials or anyone else- it was his fault and his job to get it right. I told him I appreciated his taking responsibility and that he's a standup guy. He seemed really sad in general but said thanks.



The last player on the early show was Malcolm Jenkins. Happy to get this guy as he's been making plays.



Then, the "main event" started- Connor Barwin in the player's lounge. They said all along barwin personalizes everything. That's fine for my collection, but sucks because people always spell my name with a C rather than a K. So I wrote it on the piece of cardboard that was holding the 8x10.

He was cool about it, signed the photo in the perfect spot where I asked him, and it came out great. Happy to finally add this guy to my PC.

[grifnutz]

Sweet pickups! That Bars in pic looks sweet w/ the snow!

[cyberer]

Long time no post. I have some really great experiences to fill you all in on, hopefully you enjoy them as much as I did! I will list them in chronological order.

1^st experience:

My wife and I were out for thai food on our anniversary in Philly. We were enjoying our meal pretty uneventfully when my wife says “look at that cute dog!”

I turned to look at the dog, and recognized the tall man who owned the dog. It was Nerlens Noel.

I told my wife who it was, and she’s like no way, so I went up and asked if I could take a photo with him and he said sure. I told him whenever someone is taller than me I tend to take notice. He was a really nice guy, which jibes with the experiences that I have had getting him to sign inside the arena. Seems like a class act.



2^nd Experience:

As mentioned upthread, my wife and I are huge fans of the rock band Breaking Benjamin, as they are from our hometown. And so my wife and I decided to go to the Louder than Life Rock Festival in Louisville Kentucky last week. There were a ton of bands, including breaking ben.

We got in position to watch the breaking ben set, when suddenly my wife’s phone went off. Turns out, since the band was from our hometown, so was their tour manager. I went to high school with the guy. He saw my wife’s facebook post that we were there, and he texted us “How would you like to watch the last few songs onstage?”

Umm… of course we would!

After some crowd fighting and security fighting he managed to hand us some backstage passes and get us through, and get us upstage for a huge rendition of “diary of jane,” one of their biggest hits. My heart was pounding; it was truly an unbelievable experience. Here is a selfie I took of myself as Ben was rocking out in the background to a crowd of nearly 100,000 people. As the band left the stage, we got to high five them coming off and get a guitar pick as well.



After the show, we got to spend the whole rest of the night backstage, hanging with the crew and the band, drinking all their beers and taking all their TShirts (it was the last night of the tour so they were trying to get rid of stuff). We got out pics with most of the band members, including ben himself here:



Experience 3:

I got out to do some actual sports graphing. As many of you know, I got Drew Brees years ago on a football, but I don’t really collect footballs. Getting him on it was a last resort because my brother was late in showing up with my flats.

So, for years I have wanted to get Mr. Brees on a flat worthy of him as one of my favorite NFL players of all time.

So with the Saints in town, everything seemed perfect and set to go. I graphed them on arrival, but Brees said he would get us on gameday (which is his routine).

I did manage to get Cameron Jordan, Kasim Edebale, and one other graph that I cannot recognize (lower right). Any help IDing it?




So I went back the next day (today) for Brees. It was a big crowd of about 30 people, counting random walkups. But it was an orderly crowd, we had a path set up with 2 guard rails, about 10-15 people on either side, nice and orderly. We were all optimistic, saying that he would go up and down both rail, easy.

Suddenly, the saints security guard came out and freaked out, saying that there wasn’t a path to the bus (which there was clearly between the rails). He rearranged the barriers so that instead of 2 crowds with a walkway in between, there was 1 guardrail.

In effect, he turned a controlled, orderly environment into a mosh pit. Drew Brees came out, and sure enough the pushing and shoving and items in his face starting.

He signed about 10, then just gave up. I was lucky in that he signed a Jersey for the guy to my left, which I was then able to position my magazine on top of his jersey, so that when Brees was done with the jersey there was no other item for him to do in his reach except my magazine. He did it, and it came out great.




But over half the crowd left unhappily, which sucks because he is such a nice guy and good signer. The security guard really screwed the pooch for no reason but a power trip. Oh well, I left happy.

Now I am going to sell the aforementioned football that I don’t want anymore. I have it listed on ebay here if anyone is interested. Price is negotiable.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201446936752?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p39 84.m1555.l2649

So all in all, the last month of graphing/celeb experiences have been great for me, and I am pleased that I could come back and update the thread for you all.

[cyberer]

Another night of graphing tonight.

A buddy of mine is a sixers season ticket holder so I got him to take me along to the Sixer's "Meet the new Sixers" event. The guest list was headlined by Okafor, but there were other players as well.

I paid my friend a few bucks for the ticket, but it was a nice event, including dinner and an on-stage interview with the players. It was a bit annoying that it was billed as a Q and A, but fans themselves couldn't ask questions, just the host.

After the Q and A, they broke out for autograph booths. I saw in advance where Okafor was going to be and made sure I was in his line. I was about #10 in the line. I had a risky SI that required a silver to come out right (I saw some invisible ones on ebay signed in blue), but decided to go for it. He didn't disappoint- he took the marker and did it, and it came out GREAT.



I was psyched to get him.

After I got him, I noticed that not everyone that was at the event was getting him. Turned out, they CUT THE LINE OFF due to "scheduling" so that everyone didn't even get him once. What?! It's a season ticket holder event with 100-200 people tops. How can you treat people this way? It really says a lot that the sixers always try to pull fast ones on people like this. Anyways, I am happy.

I also knocked out some smaller names that were there on team cards.



Richaun Holmes, Kendall Marshall and Pierre Jackson.

I hope you enjoy reading! Though I am a bit bummed my last few posts haven't had any comments... Oh well I'm still out there racking regardless!