The time for me to fly out for training in one of the Southern states and from there to the Middle East for another tour has rapidly arrived, in spite of all my denial and delay tactics. The morning is going to come all too quickly, and the first few hours will be pretty hard on all of us. The boy is still too young to understand that his Papa is going away for a long time, but Papa is acutely aware of all that he's going to miss over the next year. The boy is learning new words almost every day and he follows us around copying everything we do. I assembled a bed frame today, and he helped with the wrenches and bolts, usually mimicking whatever I was doing on the other side of the bed. Or trying to drop the nuts down the air register on the floor. I'm going to miss that boy and his Momma. We might get a chance to see each other one more time before I leave the country. They'll be staying with my wife's family in Georgia for a while so that whenever I get a few pass days they'll be within driving distance.
I put together a care package with paints, brushes, some files, and 1000 points of Dwarves so that if I get to a place where I have some room for a small desk or table I can have the wife slap a label on it and send it out without trying to find the right brushes or the exact colors I need. I've also got a follow-on package put together in case I get through the first box of figures. I've heard different things regarding the availability of internet access for my unit's assignment overseas, so I may or may not be able to keep this blog going throughout the year. If I do have access I'll try to post pictures of figures or my hobby desk away from home. I've also got a pile of RPGs and strategy games loaded onto my computer, so if I can't get any painting done I'll at least get some sort of gaming in.
I played through the first Dawn of War computer game during the last week or so. It was okay, although on normal difficulty it was just a matter of building turrets around my base, researching a pile of technology, and running a large force through whatever the enemy happened to have in the way. There were a couple of moments where I lost a significant portion of my force, but with a well-defended base I just had to build more units in relative safety and send them out to finish the job. The storyline was decent, I suppose, as far as game stories go. But the real draw was being able to build all the units from the Warhammer 40k Space Marines and run them around shooting Assault Cannons and Plasma Guns at Orks and Chaos Marines.
