I've been very inconsistent with my posts as of late and that trend is likely to continue for some time. School just started back up for me (14 credits seems like a lot when you're working full-time) and I've been putting in extra hours at work evenings and weekends to help make up for the other person in my section who is out indefinitely with an injury. We also have a lot of folks in our section at various training courses, so we're a bit short-handed all around.

My wife and I have finally just about got out of the trailer and moved completely into the house. It has taken a lot longer than we'd hoped, but that's par for the course for us. With work and school keeping me so busy, my mother has been very good about helping my wife with the last bit of cleanup before we're out for good. The good news is that we found a buyer for the trailer and should be able to get that done and over with. It will be nice not to have to make the house payment and pay the lot rent for the trailer.

I've pulled out all of the figures for my starting Ork army and if I get a free weekend sometime soon I'm going to assemble them and try them out against my Space Marines list. Although it is heretical to play with all those unpainted figures it seems a shame to finally have space for tables and not get some use out of them. So I am going to paint as I can while assembling everything possible so I can have at least a large collection of game pieces rather than a large collection of boxes collecting dust. I will roll out with the Space Marines if I play in public though as they are for the most part painted.

In my class last night we had to introduce ourselves and say something that people might not guess about you. So I got ready to say I have a Basset Hound. The introductions went around the room and the lady just before me said, "I'm so-and-so, my major is such-and-such, and I have a Basset Hound." Of all the things she could have come up with, she said the very thing I was going to say. So I said that I also have a Basset Hound. Later in the class she leaned over to me and asked, "Does your Basset Hound smell bad too?" I think all Basset Hounds smell bad and steal things to chew up/eat and play with/eat.

I went to the store today and bought some stuff for lunch, and when I got my change there was a penny from 1947 among the coins. I like getting old coins in my change. The oldest one I've received as change was a year or two ago with a date of 1918. Prior to that my oldest penny was from 1927. I find it interesting that a coin can hang around that long and pass through so many pockets.

A Room of My Own

We are pretty much moved into the new place, but we still have plenty of cleaning to do and probably a couple of pickup loads of stuff still to move. As far as I can remember I've pretty much kept my pledge not to buy new figures for a while. I actually sold a few things on eBay to help us fund our move; mostly stuff that I wasn't going to get to for a while and is readily available on the market if I ever need to reacquire it. Anyway, I have most of a room to myself at the new house. My wife's desk is in there with her computer, but the rest of the room is mine. This first picture is my painting table. You can see my lamp, my airbrush compressor and the paint rack, as well as some Space Marines and Star Trek ships.

And this is my bookshelf. It's got my gaming books, some other books, and a few boxes of miniatures on it. My toolbox is there too. I didn't take a picture of the closet, but I has my comic books, the painted figures, a game mat, and some of the unpainted stuff that didn't fit on the bookshelf. I also didn't take a picture of my desk, which will hopefully not be overcome by hobby stuff. I am trying to separate my hobby things from my schoolwork and whatnot as under the old system without a painting table I had to do a lot of shuffling in order to work on one or the other.

Just so I don't appear too selfish, my wife has an area for her hobbies too. The utility room is very large and right next to the playroom, so she will have her sewing and craft tables there. That way she can work on her hobbies near the area the kid will be playing in. And speaking of the kid, he's getting to be quite large and mobile. Here he is pulled up on the baby gate and making a drooly pirate face.

And here he is rubbing his teeth together. He likes the playroom as much as he likes any place with space to roam, but the older nieces and nephews really enjoy it. So that's nice.

I have returned from my two weeks in the desert with the National Guard. There isn't much else to talk about really. I went to Hobbytown but I didn't buy anything. There are some neat things being released, but I have a big pile of figures I still need to work on.

A friend invited me to go to a Magic: The Gathering informal event at his friends' house. I did not do very well, which should be expected as I am not an avid player and these guys had every card back to 1993 memorized. I think that I am safe from having the desire to buy into Magic anytime soon. It's a huge money sink with new sets coming out quarterly. I'd have to give up my other hobbies and focus exclusively on that.