I am mostly finished with my Space Marine Lieutenant. After taking the pictures I realized that I still need to drill out the barrels and paint the sling on his Storm Bolter. Other than that he is finished. Next up is probably a squad of Assault Marines.

My sister had her baby today. That's fairly exciting, I suppose. She and the baby seem to be doing fine.

I pulled out my bin of Reaper CAV miniatures and ran them through an army builder spreadsheet from the Reaper forums. It turns out I've got enough figures to build two relatively even forces. I bought the lot of them a couple of years ago, so some of the figures I like and some aren't my favorites from the line. I also don't have any vehicles included in the collection, so I may have to add some tanks and aircraft and whatnot at some point. For now I'll be putting the box back in the closet.

I also spent some time looking at GHQ's 10mm American Civil War figures and their rules for the figures. They've got a few historical scenarios posted for download on the website as well. It is an interesting thought, but it would cost about $100 up front to get into, and I'd really probably need more cavalry than those included in the starter sets. Maybe for my birthday. In addition I inspected the Perry website and looked at their 28mm ACW plastic figures, which have been quite a hit over on The Miniatures Page. They are a pretty good value, but at 28mm they will be a lot more difficult to paint than the 10mm figures. I also probably couldn't afford to field a very large force of the Perry figures. It's all theoretical at the moment, but 3/4 of the hobby seems to be window shopping and plotting future projects.

I don't really have anything new to post about as I don't really do anything anymore, but I feel compelled to post something fairly regularly. I wasn't very active previously but I have definitely become worse. I spent Valentine's Day writing a paper and creating a brochure for the imaginary parents of my imaginary students for the imaginary parent orientation.

My copy of the new White Dwarf showed up yesterday or the day before. I've flipped through it but haven't had time to read any of the articles. It looks like there is a huge 40k Apocalypse battle report featuring 7 or 9 Ork Stompas and a boatload of Imperium forces. There are also several new datasheets for some Stompa variants.

I've been thinking about the American Civil War again, probably because I am going to read a book on the war for my History class book report. I ordered Human Interest Stories from Antietam by Scott Mingus as my book of choice. If I am not mistaken he is the writer of this blog; the fact that his name is in the url is a bit of a giveaway I suppose. I am so far behind on projects that I dare not think about another project, even if I tell myself it will just be enough units for a small skirmish action. I can't even paint a platoon of Space Marines, so how am I going to get through a couple companies of Union and Confederate soldiers?

More of the same today. Remarkably, I have been able to stay on task for most of the day. Unfortunately this left no time for anything except travel vouchers and homework. I can feel a migraine coming on; I'm not sure how to stave it off. I get one every six or eight months and I can usually tell a day or so before it hits that I'm going to have one. We'll see how that goes. I've got one more section of math problems to do before Thursday, so there is a small light at the end of the tunnel. My History class hasn't been bad so far and my EdTech class is pretty simple, but Math and Cultural Anthropology are killing me. I have to be at least a week ahead in everything by the second week of March due to some training I get to do with the Guard, so it'll probably be all homework all the time until then. I'm hoping to grab an hour or two on Friday evening to slap more paint on my Space Marine Lieutenant. I've got such grandiose plans, but no time to enact them. It's funny that as kids we can't wait to grow up because adults can do whatever they want all the time. Then we grow up and we don't want any part of it.

I have not found any more time to get any painting done. This weekend I had to go play soldier with the National Guard and today I spent the entire day trying to get through my math homework. I am terrible at math. That surprises some people because nerds are stereotypically supposed to be pretty good at math but once I start seeing roots and fractional exponents my mind runs away, screaming in horror and pain at the task I have asked of it. I actually did have two hours of painting time set aside for today, but I had to run to the bank and then got stuck on one math problem for 1 1/2 hours and decided that between those two events I had probably used up my painting time. I am nearly where I wanted to be for today, although I get to start in on imaginary numbers tomorrow. That should be a joke. I really only want to pass this class with a C, but it's going to take some real effort and time just to do that. But enough about math and schoolwork.

I've momentarily decided to put the Imperial Guard on the far back burner as the new Codex being released in May is supposed to be full of changes, to the point that the army may not even be recognizable. I've got a metric buttload of Catachan Jungle fighters who can form the core of a Guard force, but I don't have much in the way of special troops, officers, vehicles, and heavy weapon teams. I have also put myself on a bit of a probation for acquiring most anything in the way of miniatures. I have got enough figures to build playable armies for Space Marines, Orks, Orcs & Goblins, two or three Lord of the Rings factions, two very large Mordheim warbands., and I believe two DBA armies that never got off the ground Then there are the odds and ends and incomplete armies like the aforementioned Imperial Guard with Baneblade, random Lord of the Rings stuff, Reaper Warlord and CAV figures, some Dogs of War and Regiments of Renown, additions for my Skaven, a handful of Foundry pirates, and portions of two Flames of War armies. It's kind of depressing to think about all those figures and all the projects I'd like to work on if I had some time and put in some effort. So in conjunction with a new plan to improve our living situation I will be scaling any purchases way back for the near future. Of course I will pick up a few things here and there, but on a more regulated scale. For now the projet is still to get the Space Marines painted to 750 points and then follow that up with 750 points of Orks, then alternate units from those armies until I can field each of them at 1500 points. After that I may try to work in some Orcs & Goblins and/or some Skaven. For now I think I will go to bed, as I've got just about 6 hours until my alarm goes off to wake me up for work.

I hate writing papers. In the morning and throughout the week I will hate math. Then I will transition back to hating to write papers.

I got assigned by my boss to go to a class here in town to see if it's something we should have other folks in the office attend it. I guess at the very least it's a change from the routine of doing the same thing every day, although I was just getting pretty well caught up from the last interruption in my work and now I'll be a week behind again. That's how it goes, I guess. Hopefully next week will be low in distractions and I'll be able to tear through my backlog.

The weather was nice enough today that I will probably ride the motorcycle into town tomorrow. I went out tonight and started it up to make sure there aren't any issues. I have to admit that I really miss riding it. The truck is just so huge and cumbersome that I can't help wishing I were on my bike.

I got absolutely nothing done after work today. I had a headache, so I took a nap. My wife was kind enough to just let me sleep for a while instead of waking me up to work on the paper I was allegedly going to write tonight. I don't know if my gamer's ADD will allow me to even finish the remaining few figures from my Space Marines without first painting some Orks or even some Skaven. I may at least try something simple like a unit of Gretchin.

Nothing really to write about tonight as I did my planned homework for today instead of doing hobby things. Technically that's a good thing, but I can't help looking at my Space Marine Lieutenant and wishing I were working on him. I did find time today to read some rumor-filled blogs and think about the new Imperial Guard stuff in early 2009 and Skaven stuff in late 2009. I found this model lurking in the Necromunda section in the back of my Games Workshop catalog. He's kind of gross, but I think he would make a great big creature for my Skaven.

Not much time for a post if I want to be able to get up for work in the morning, but here are a couple of WIP photos of the Space Marine Lieutenant. He's not going to win any awards, but he should look okay on the tabletop and paint up fairly quickly.

I was really hoping the Cardinals would pull off the win in the Super Bowl, but they couldn't quite hang on and keep the lead. It sounds like Kurt Warner is planning on retiring and I think they're going to be one-shot wonders as far as getting anywhere in the postseason in the future. This was pretty much the perfect situation for them to come away with a ring and they blew it. I just don't see them rolling through the NFC again next year.

I started blocking in some colors on the Lieutenant and got his cloak to a point that it looks okay from arm's length. Hopefully he'll paint up pretty quickly as I don't plan on making him too spectacular compared to the other Space Marines in the army. He's got a few extra details, but nothing too complex outside of that cloak. I will be drilling out the barrels on the Storm Bolter at some point.