End of May Update.

 So the month of May has quickly sped by, and now we are down to the Memorial Day weekend. 

I'm a bit surprised at how little I have done game wise, or gaming wise, or even in the hobby.

This is explained a bit below.

Those "Post Convention Blues"....

I'll admit it. I have it. 

I reveled in the joy and fun of Little Wars, and have the fuel for the fire for next year, and "The Crew" and I have already been planning. 

And as the month has passed, due to the myriad of things going on, that fire is settled down some.

First off is the major amount of housework going on.

For those thinking about it.

1: Old houses are amazing.

2: Old houses are problematic.

3: Old houses are often expensive as practically nothing is "repaired", or able to be repaired. Instead it has to be replaced.

For those of you that have been following on TMP, and here, I am having major plumbing and contracting work being done.

We now seem to be in the home stretch.

We are working on 3 of the four bathrooms here. 

This house was built before "code", and the previous owners did a lot of half ass cobbling things together to make things work. We are now working on making it work "like it should". 

The bathrooms are the main case, as is the drainage line.

I've included some pics to show "some" of the work that has been done.

(Click on pics for larger version)

(Removal of the old broken tub, old line, old drainage line, floor section, wall section, etc, to include toilet, sink, and vanity...)

With the new flooring and tile in, it looks a lot better....

 

 

While working in the bathroom, our wifi fears and suspicions were confirmed. 

The interior walls of our house are between 6-9" thick depending on which wall. With most of them also being lathe and plaster, with 3-4 inch support beams, and now it seems coated in support grid metal. 

This essentially makes each and every room in our house its own separate, individual, Faraday cage. 

And we had to get a new drain line for the kitchen and get it re-piped through the basement.

(This also includes working on the wall, which was damaged during pipe removal....)

(And the new pipe is in....)

With all the work being done, they were working on everything but the kitchen sink.

Oh wait....

(New sink to go with it...)

In order to get the new bathtub to work property we had to remove the 108 years old valve system, (Mostly copper, steel, and brass)....

Dang that thing was heavy.

Bathtub removal was courtesy of a sledge hammer.

It was the original cast iron bathtub, crafted in Sept. 1918.

As this has been going on for over a month, we are starting to see the end of the projects and going forth from there, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I'll keep you updated for when the work is all finally done.

But this brings us to our next dilemma, which is known as "The mess that is my game and painting room"...

Due to all the work (As well as the convention prep), both my painting room and game room were completely wrecked.

All of my Little Wars loot and swag that I got is still sitting up in a corner in the dining room because I simply have no place to put it downstairs due to the construction mess.

First up is the disaster known as "The Painting Room"...

(Yowza! What a mess!)

(The disaster known as "The Painting Table"...)

(The even bigger disaster known as "The side table"...)

I started working on it, by starting to clean, reorganize, and relabel Shelves #3 and #4.

So far so good.

(It looks a lot better than it was looking at the start....)

Then I decided to get an idea of the game room.

And wished I hadn't.

(An ominous warning I think...)

(EEEEEEEKKKK!!!!!)

(And double "EEEEEEKKK!!!")

So I went back and worked on the painting desk and side table, and got it more or less kind of straightened up.

(Not as bad as it was, but still could use some more work...)

(This is better also...the table that is, and not what is under it....)

I did take part of a day in Lafayette and stop by the LGS, (I won't call it a FLGS because while it was "Friendlier" than in the past, it still wasn't "Friendly".)

I picked up a couple of GW pots, (the brown flesh, and another pot of Agrax Earthshade) as well as some Vallejos and a new bottle of Zap A Gap. 

Meanwhile I stopped at the local Goodwill store and picked up a couple of plastic storage boxes for 1.99 each.

I can use these in some capacity so they will come in handy.

Figures:

My painting table still has two trays of almost completed figures on them. One tray holds a nice selection of British Marines and a civilian lady, while the other tray holds a group of scumbag pirates.

(Arrr...'Tis be a group of scumbag pirates!)

And I was able to finally get some of my figures back in the display case.

(Quite a collection of figures for the genre and age...)

And for terrain ground purposes, I was able to get a nice piece of felt for groundcloth.

Meanwhile my wonderful wife, (Gawd bless her!) was out at a friends farm, playing with mini cows and the rest of the barnyard animals.

I was also able to pick up some books while at Goodwill.

They all look interesting and "do-able"...

(Recipes so simple, even I can do them!)

(Martha Stewart would be proud....)

(And she'd even smile about this....)

And I tried out my Dracula "Robber Steak" recipe.

(From the oven to the plate...)

(Not bad, if I do say so myself....)

And I had to get to work on cleaning up the wood pile in the back yard.

(Starting to get this mess in order...)

(Finally done...and it's all gone...)

After getting the wood burned, I enjoyed the rest of the day with a nice, cold, Spotted Cow, and a Hoyo De Monterey "Excalibur" Cigar, while listening to Cleveland lose to the Cincy Reds, 3-1 on Sirius XM.

(A stick...)

(And a drink...)

I was also fortunate enough to be able to order some more Mezzo Mix. It's been out for a while, so I was overjoyed at it's availability.

And "someone" decided that I had "slept enough"....

And so the month of May is closing and I will close this out.

The next post for June will highlight my recent bookcase purchase, the clean basement gaming room, (hopefully), the rearrangement of the gaming room, and some of the things we have seen and done while on some road trips to some yard sales. 

Stayed tune for there is more to come!

Thanks for reading!

My Little Wars Loot and Swag!

 So I am recovering this weekend from Little Wars.

The house is in a complete mess due to massive plumbing and contracting work going on, so I am currently unable to access my game room. I can get to my paint room, but man, does that need a thorough cleaning.

So all the stuff I got from Little Wars (and some more stuff), is sitting in a corner of the dining room right now.

I was finally able to sit down and essentially look at most of my loot and swag from the Convention, (vendors, prizes, registration swag, a couple of gifts, round 1 of the flea market, and a side trip to Friends Hobbies in Kenosha).

This year I wasn't as interested in figures as I was in terrain and scenics, but I did pick up some figures, (go figure)....

(CLICK ON THE PIC FOR A LARGER VERSION FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE).

(The main haul...free stuff, registration swag, and purchases from the hobby shop not included.)

The first item I got in the flea market was a copy of Panzerblitz.

Yes this game is an oldie but goodie, and for new/novice wargamers, it is still a great board wargame teaching tool.

All parts there, in very, very good condition, (a little box wear), and only 4 bucks.

FIGURES:

The figures I picked up were a wide variety.

(Figures plus some ladders from Gaming Accessories...)

Knuckleduster always gets some of my money.

I can use these for my future Rio Bravo game.

(Indeed...good guys....)

(Meanwhile, in the cantina....)

I also picked up the "Gentleman Pirates" from Crusader Miniatures.

(Some fine fellows that have taken up the code....)

My next purchase was a bit of an "impulse", (and I don't mean "impulse drive").

I was wandering through one of the vendor areas and came upon these.

I know I will never use them for gaming but decided to get them anyway and paint them up.

(It pretty much confirms that I still like a tv show I started watching in 1973...)

My final figure was another impulse buy. I needed a figure to be able to do a size comparison buildings, so this pathfinder figure got me as his new owner.

Where there I also picked up the Army Painter miniature hand drill. I had one of the smaller cheap ones a while back but it vanished, and it was also a killed on my hands and fingers, so this one will be a welcome addition. 

(A welcome addition to my tool set...)

TERRAIN AND SCENICS:

One of the things that is true is the "Ooh" and "Aah!" factor in tabletop miniature gaming.

For me, it has to do with a nice visual appeal and attraction.

So for most of my shopping at the vendors this year at Little Wars terrain and scenics were the priority.

I started off with some ground cover.

These ground tufts are from Shadows Edge Miniatures and they are half the price of stuff coming from Army Painter. While I am not familiar with this company, I have decided to give them a try and do the comparison/contrast thing in a later write up. 

(Pretty, pretty, ground cover....)

Here's some close ups to get an even "closer" look at them. 

After getting the ground cover, I hit a couple of more vendors for some printed buildings and dropped a few dollars on the plastic sloop from Firelock Games.

(Think of it as "Property Development"....)

I also picked up a set of ladders from Gaming Accessories. I've found out that I am always needing things like ladders and such, so I went ahead and got this.

OTHER STUFF:

While at the convention, (I missed the Sunday close out), I was also able to pick up some stuff and was honored by a couple of gifts.

(Here we have one of the HMGS-MW Little Wars 40th anniversary edition dice, along with a gifted "Good Idea Fairy" Pin.)

After the convention was over with, Noah and I made a side trip up to Kenosha.

While there we stopped at a Hobby store and I picked up two Ospreys and a Wizkids figure.

(A couple of nice Osprey's for reference...)

(This is the fellow you meet when you suddenly realize that "Actions have consequences".)

And before we left, we stopped at Woodmans.

(Look what jumped into my cart!)

(And a small bottle to sample of Willett Small Batch Bourbon...)

And then we headed home with our loot.

That's it for this post, but more is coming.

Stay tuned!