Pat Falloon Autograph Card

10. X. Ten.

Ten days from now, I will lose my daytime job as a marketing consultant and translator at a market research firm I'd been with for over five years, after spending ten with another one before that. Both had been founded in 1984.

Which leads me to this Pat Falloon card I thought I'd feature today, featuring him wearing #10 with the Edmonton Oilers:

It's the (silver) signed insert version of card #205 from In The Game's 1998-99 Be A Player set, showing him wearing the Oilers' dark blue (away) turn-of-the-millennium uniform.

People like to rag on Falloon as a failed draft pick, and though the second-overall pick didn't reach the 1000-point or 1000-game mark, his 0.56 point-per-game average (322 points in 575 NHL games) is better than many. It just falls very short of Eric Lindros' (1.14), the guy who was picked ahead of him, relegating Falloon to the rank of "consolation prize"...

Which is how I'm trying to view my upcoming situation: I released two books in 2016. I played shows. I wrote new music. I have a shot at my first-overall passion, and I'm going for it; if it fails, I'll see what other options lie before me, and if and when I get there, I'll use it to make the best of both of us - the job and I - and how to use each other's strengths to make for a better team overall.

That's where I'm at, just past my mid-thirties.