My toe isn't broken, it's just genetically deformed. So that's good news. The doctor said, "On the x-ray it looks like it could be either a dislocation or a deformity. I'm not really sure which." So I said, "Well, do you want to see the other foot?" He thought that might be a good idea, so I took off my shoe and sock and he saw my other toe and said, "Ah, it's just a deformity then. You've got a matching pair of hammertoes." So far my hammertoes haven't actually helped me to do funky-fresh dance moves while wearing baggy pants, but maybe I just need to put some work into it.

I'm still plugging away at my Orcs and Goblins. I'm not really looking forward to cleaning the lines off of all my Savage Orcs, and the Snotling Pump Wagon looks like it's going to be an absolute beast to put together. The Forest Goblin Spider Riders shouldn't be too hard, though. Maybe I'll get around to actually painting some miniatures this year.

I signed up for a few classes this fall, so hopefully I can pass those and bump my GPA up to a slightly more respectable level. I may even get a degree out of it at some point in the next few years.

A Case of the Crud

Today I spent most of the day drugged up in bed, as I've caught some sort of energy-sapping runny nose/sore throat bug. I'm hoping that I feel better in the morning because I can't afford to be missing work.

A couple of hours ago I managed to drag myself out of bed long enough to clean up and assemble the rest of the Skaven in my possession. Maybe tomorrow I will prime them and at some point actually put some paint on the figures.

I just upgraded my blog to the new Blogger. I'm not sure what it means, but one neat feature is that I can add labels to my posts so readers who don't want to hear about my real life can just read wargaming stuff or look at pictures of my minis.

Speaking of photos, I meant to take some WIP pics of the Battle Nuns today, but as usual my camera battery was dead and I did not take any photos. I really haven't done much on them. Last night the paint on their faces dried and smoothed out quite a bit. They don't look nearly as bad as they looked before. They're not great, but the faces are certainly wargaming standard. Today I painted their sleeves and got a pretty good basecoat on their habits/tabards. Once I get a few more layers done on those, I'll just have various metallics and straps to paint. I hope it goes quickly because I have a project with a deadline coming up.

I went to the hobby store in Nampa today (Team Dewey Toys and Hobbies) to check out the details on their Reaper Mini of the Month painting competition. This month the subject is Wizards. To enter, you have to buy a Reaper wizard miniature and paint it before the 25th. Then they judge the contest and whoever wins gets a free mini for the next month's competition. I looked at the entries from last month's contest and I feel pretty good about my chances. I do need to learn to paint better eyes. There wasn't much selection at the store, so I narrowed it down to a couple of minis. My first choice had already been painted by someone and I didn't really want to do a repeat, so I got this mini instead. I think her hair and the unicorn head on her staff should be a fair challenge, but I should be able to do a fine job of painting her and hopefully place well in the contest. I need to get the Battle Nuns done and off my desk so I can get started on her. I only have twelve days, and I imagine the time will go a lot faster than I want it to.

I went to the doctor's office for my first therapy appointment today. I didn't really feel like going as my back feels fine now, but there are outside forces that must be obeyed occasionally, and She Who Must Be Obeyed wouldn't let me just slide on this one. Before doing any stretching or whatnot, the therapist hooked me up to some sort of electrical stimulator that supposedly relaxes your injured muscles.

He said, "I'm going to turn it up and you let me know when you get a comfortable tingling in your back." I let him go a bit too far and my back seized up and I made a gurgling sound, so he dialed it down a bit and handed the controls to me, along with some instructions on how to run the device. Then he set a timer for about 15 minutes and left to take care of some other patients.

I looked at the screen on the controls and saw that the device was set at 48, about half-power. I got to wondering how high I could go with it, so I turned it up to 60. My back tightened up and my arm twitched a bit, so I took it back down to 50. Then I decided to try 70 out. My back came off the table a little and I snorted a little before I took it back down to 50. Then I got to thinking that I couldn't just do my time without finding out what 100 was like, so I pushed it all the way to full power. It was pretty exciting, so I decided to see how long I could hold it there. My back arched all the way up, my arm was really shaking, and I was making funny noises and sweating from my forehead. Then I heard the therapist say he was going to come check on me, so I dialed it back down and returned to normal.

Today was a rather interesting day for me. Last night my back went out on me again, causing a fair bit of pain. I was able to finish my eight hours at work and get home, but when I woke up today I could hardly move around my house. So I called in sick and went to the immediate care place. The nurse seemed had a really hard time understanding what was wrong with me, although I think I explained it (with help from my wife) in very simple terms.

I explained it something like this: "My back hurts. It's been flaring up off and on for a year, and I've been to the VA Hospital about it twice." She was unable to grasp the concept, so we had to tell her several times.

She finally understood that my back was hurting and said, "Well, what do you want us to do about it? You're just here to get pain medication, aren't you?" I told her that I would prefer to find out what is wrong with my back and work on fixing it rather than just popping pills to mask the pain. She didn't seem convinced, and went off to get the doctor.

Luckily, the doctor seemed fairly competent. He told me some stuff that I can do to help prevent further pain, prescribed a few drugs, and maybe I'll end up doing some rehab-type therapy sessions. So I should be able to return to work tomorrow.

I was able to get some stuff done on my miniatures today. While my wife was watching American Idol I cleaned mold lines off of a bunch of Warlord figures. And after she went to bed I took them out to put primer on them and touch up the primer on my previous batch of figures. Priming is always an adventure, as I have to place the minis on some sort of stable platform, put on some latex gloves, grab my spray can, and somehow get it all out the front door, over the gate into the yard, across the yard, and into the shed. In the dark. I managed to drop one part of my Duke Gerrard figure on the porch while I climbed over the gate and I also dropped the freshly primed Duke himself on the dirt and dog-hair covered floor of the shed. Luckily, he did not absorb any dirt particles and I was able to respray the parts that got dinged up. Now I've got plenty of stuff ready to paint, and I just need to get on it. If that wasn't enough, I also got paint on my last good pair of pants.

I've been looking at pictures online trying to come up with a good paint scheme for my Battle Nuns. So far I've determined that the only color combinations out there are blue/white, black/white, red/black, and red/black/white. I think I'm going to go out on a limb and try a green/brown combo for my Crusaders army. We'll see if it works out.

I also printed out the Supersystem 2nd Edition rules. I figure I can rebase and repaint Heroclix figures until I start adding some other superhero figures to my collection.