Fuji's Touch of Zen

It's a rainy Sunday afternoon. I'm listening to peaceful ambient music without a care in the world today. Life is happening everywhere but right here, right now - there is peace in my home. It's a rare moment when life isn't calm here. I am blessed and fortunate. 

I don't subscribe to a specific belief system but prefer to say I'm spiritual: living with gratitude in the present moment and treating others as I would want to be treated. Fuji shared a card on his blog this summer which caught my eye with its touch of Zen; the ying and yang.  I commented of my desire to search the ends of earth for a copy. He made it so much easier for me. I only had to walk to the mailbox. Live in the flow and let life come to you. No, I am not high. Week upon week, your judgements continue. LOL.

Zen is not a belief system. If you are curious, check out this page.  No matter your beliefs or lack thereof, zen meditation can be part of any daily practice. The page link contains this snippet:

So, again, what is Zen? Stop now. Stop trying to get an intellectual lock on something that is vast and boundless, far more than the rational mind can grasp. Just breathe in with full awareness. Taste the breath. Appreciate it fully. Now breathe out, slowly, with equal appreciation. Give it all away; hold onto nothing. Breathe in with gratitude; breathe out with love. Receiving and offering—this is what we are doing each time we inhale and exhale. To do so with conscious awareness, on a regular basis, is the transformative practice we call Zen. 

The back of the card may be of interest to my science nerd pals.  'Nerd' is always a compliment in my book. So what did Sanchez do to merit his appearance on this card? All the zeros on the board behind his levitating image tell us he threw a no-hitter, one of only three Puerto Rican players to do so. The others were John Candelaria and Juan Nieves. This card examines the elasticity of a baseball. Only one bat came into contact with balls thrown during Jonathan's no-no, a long fly ball to deep center-field in the ninth inning. Also, the Exploratorium is in San Francisco which means the 'no Dodgers'  rule comes into play.  That is a rule, yes? 

This card is quirky and fits perfectly into my collection. Thanks for the surprise, Fuji!!

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Round Five voting is complete. Twenty-three votes with the winner taking thirteen of them. This means ten of you appreciated the 1986 Sportflics Rookies offered. It seems quantity won this election by a small margin. The Topps Traded sets go into the ballot box.  Round six will be up in a few days with a battle of baseball sets. 

Round Five winner

I hope you're enjoying these voting opportunities half as much as I am in offering them to you. It's fun to read your individual choices with reasons for your selections. If any of you are curious as to how I'm tracking your votes, here's a spreadsheet snippet:

Bo is leading the mail-in balloting! Winning candidates are highlighted in green. Votes are tabulated with auto-sum and highlighted in yellow:

After the final round, each voter's total number of votes will be auto-summed.  This number will be used to determine how many times the voter's name is entered into the Randomizer.  I am grateful for the copy/paste function! 

We've had 39 different voters so far. Two of these are foreign interference regulars. What's an election without it?  I'm not an excel guru so this format works well for me. Keepin' it simple! 

Thank you for supporting this blog. We have a month to go!!