Fall Update!

Greetings to everyone once again!

A lot has happened since my last entry, (Aug. 2nd 2020), and there is so much to say on the home front and the gaming front for me to update you with. This entry is pretty long and photo intensive so you might want to get some coffee and relax as you scroll through it.

FIRST OFF: 

HOUSE!

Well, it's official. We have a new home!

In the last update, I had explained how we had needed to move due to the rising complications within the city of Indianapolis, and Marion County, Indiana in general. Rising taxes, and rising crime rates, along with the general overall craziness and a mayor that refuses to do his job, as well as changing factors in our neighborhood (Neo-Nazi Biker Wannabes moving a couple of houses down from us), had made us finally take action from our 14+ year long term rental. 

We had looked at a number of houses, and lost out on a couple, and dodged a bullet on two of them, before we finally settled on the one I had originally saved from Zillow. 

So we walked in, looked and made the offer. The offer was accepted and the sellers and my wonderful wife and I (Gawd bless her!), became good friends. All the deals and etc, went smooth on both our part and the sellers part with the listing agent being the only fly in the ointment, taking longer than usual to get required paperwork sent. But in the end, things worked out and The Lord blessed us with our new house. 

We had originally thought about calling her "The Grand Dame", but instead settled on "The Old Girl"...

She is 103 years old and is historically registered. I am lucky enough to have the entire abstract of title for the entire house, (showing the platte for the town and the area to be signed and authorized by President John Quincy Adams). She is listed in the Indiana Historical Landmarks Association as the best preserved example of Colonial Revival Architecture in the entire county.

Myself and my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!) after assuming possession of our new home...

So now that we had a place to live, came the new task...packing up all of the "stuff" and moving from the old home.

Now the old home that we lived at in Indy was never intended to be our "forever house". The original plan was for us to rent it for a couple of years and then find a place and move on to it from there, but due to issues with people living with us, (My wife's father, my son (three times), and my daughter and her boyfriend at the time (Bob)), as well as work issues, etc...the "couple of years" became "almost fifteen". 

But now we had found our forever home.

And it was time to start "Loading up the truck."

PACKING AND MOVING....

George Carlin was right when he said "A house is a place for you to store your stuff while you go out and get MORE stuff..."

And all I can say about that is "Amen."

The actual packing and moving of boxes etc, took approx. a month, as I would load a dozen or so packed boxes into the truck and take up to the garage. The idea was for us to get the small and medium boxes out and moved, and then hire a brute squad (movers), to get the furniture and big stuff.

And it worked, but it was horrendous back breaking labor. Packing items, labelling boxes, stacking them, loading them into the truck, moving, unloading from the truck to store them into the garage for unloading and unpacking later. We lost two of those days for auto repairs, and at the same time had to deal with other issues (medical appointments, etc). But we slowly got things done.

It's amazing how much "stuff" this hobby of mine, and the amount of figures and stuff and all the other little things, (paints, supplies, etc), makes this an ever expanding monster.

In the end, while packing, I did an approximate inventory of unpainted figures. I came out with a little over Six Thousand (6000+) unpainted figures. (This does not include terrain, scenics, etc.)

So I packed...

And packed...

And packed yet more...

Until all the figures were packed...

Approx. 6100 figures packed up and ready for their new home...

And it was books, glasses, pipes, steins, rules, games, magazines and all other sorts of odds and ends as well.

Truly, what kind of madman has stuff like this?

Skull glasses, VHS Tapes, Steins, and an Elvis Coffee Cup...a sure sign of madness...

My ORIGINS Award from 2006

An old Ral Partha Fantasy Wyvern from 1993-ish...Primed and waiting patiently all these decades to be painted finally and put into action...

And yet, another "Major Award" that needed to be gently packed and carried so that it could be displayed with pride in the window for the neighborhood to see and enjoy this Christmas...

And as always, some unusual, (and old), military gear. Here is a Vietnam Era US Army buttpack.

And of course no move would be complete without a careful relocation of my Legendary Velvet Elvis... This is perhaps the finest artwork that anyone could buy off of a street-vendor in Juarez, Mexico for ten dollars...

And I had to pack up my cigars and humidors...

As well as my pipes and pipe tobacco...

And the wine jail...

That's a lot of bottles of hooch!

And it was time to pack the bottles of "The good stuff..."

The Weird Stuff...

One of the things about packing and moving is that you always, ALWAYS, find those "things" that you forgot about, thought you had lost, or even didn't even know you had. And there is also always "The odd and weird things", (especially with me)...

Well it IS an election year...

My old company/unit patch. C Co. ("Cobras"), 3/34th AR BN. 2nd BDE, 1st AD, Ferris Kaserne, Erlangen, FRG, 1984-1986.

A complete set of the old "Dark Cults" horror storytelling game, which came out in the early 80's. The artwork is amazing, and the game play is very good. It does require a player with good imagination to make the story-play go. This is a rare and hard to find game, and is actually complete, (including the decal). Sadly, I believe that it was ahead of it's time. There wasn't a market for card games such as this in the early 80's, and something called "Dark Cults", just didn't seem "right". I mean, ALL of those parents, and teachers, and clergy had seen Tom Hanks go crazy in "Mazes and Monsters", right?...right?..

And speaking of cards...

Some of my old cards from the "Deck of Many Things" in Dragon Magazine. Back in the nineties on a slow day at work in Korea, I printed them out, colored them, printed the backing, stick glued them, and then laminated them for use. 30+ years later the full set is still in excellent condition. They've only been used in one game....(and it wasn't pretty)...

Custom engraved glass mug for my ACW reenactment unit. 

Hmmm...not really sure where this came from...but still...it's a nice addition to my bookshelf...next to the jar with the brain in it...

Hmmm...another odd book that "just seemed to find it's way" onto my bookshelf...

And Great Cthulhu appears! And he doesn't seem to happy about having to be packed away into a cardboard box...

Neither does "The Great Elvis Cthulhu"...

And it wasn't just stuff that I had collected either...

Way back in the early 1970's, when my mom was getting divorced from my crazy, murderous raging, alcoholic father, we stayed with a couple of her sisters. Along the way, I played with my toy soldiers. And when we moved to Texas, some of them were inevitably left behind, "Forever on patrol"...

A few years ago, when my mom died, the last surviving sister, (one of my aunts), brought this to me. She had found it in the backyard soon after we moved...And she had waited over 40 years to return this old soldier back to his commander.

He now sits in a place of honor on my shelf.

Ready for action....for over 40 years....

A coffee cup, "liberated" from "The Blue Ox" on Sandhill and Flamingo Road in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The "Ox" was the place where the local gaming group that I was part of would go at night to eat, drink, and tell our "no shit there we wuz" gaming stories, war stories, and tales of life. For some reason, I had to have an escort with me whenever I went there, because if I went there alone, I always, ALWAYS had an issue with one of the waitresses. If someone went with me...no problem.  It was one of those "Murphy Weird" things that people simply could not understand....

Anyhow, the cup reminds me of days and games long ago gone...Good memories, good friends, and good times.

A 2005 promo badge for D&D announcing that "2005 is going to be the BIGGEST YEAR EVER for D&D...", along with a rare Dungeons and Dragons Metal Business Card Holder... Just the perfect thing for your office geek...

After all the packing the items were empty and loaded....

The once full display case...sadly empty...

As well as the crowded and every populated and busy painting desk/workbench...

From this...

To this...

And finally the last truckload was packed before the Brute Squad would come in to move the big stuff and the furniture.

And as a finality...

The lowering of the National Colors and Flag of The National African Republic of Bongolesia and it's base of operations in Indianapolis, to be moved to it's new home. A somber occasion for everyone.

And the last plane out of Bongolesia (for now), took to the skies from it's old location, journeying to it's new location in the future. 

(*Cue the theme song to "The High and The Mighty")...

And that was it. 

The house was packed. The Brute Squad came in and moved us, and we were outta there...

The end of an almost 15 year "Temporary stay" and into our (hopefully) "Forever home"...

The next part update will be on the house, and the new "Man Cave" so, STAY TUNED!!!!

Gencon 2015

So at the last minute, I ended up going to Gencon.

Well, I can say "last minute" but it really wasn't.

My wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), volunteered to work in the crafting room, and as a result, I registered for the full four day extravaganza.

I hadn't done the full package in a few years, but I kind of knew what to expect. 

The approximate crowds at Gencon this year was around 61-65K (yet another 10% increase, the sixth in a row)....

Speaking of six...

The floor of my parking garage....

IMHO, parking this year was kind of brutal.

There was construction going on at the city circle, and two of the garages were also closed due to "construction".

If it is one grip I have with Indianapolis, it's what I think is the lack of parking. When you have a six floor parking garage and 2 1/2 - 3 floors are taken up with "reserved" slots...there's a problem.

I ended up parking all the way over by Barcelona Tapas and humped it to the ICC.

The sky was indeed pretty blue though, and Indy is a nice city/town....

Not a cloud in the sky....

Egads...they still exist!!!! (and this one worked, and yes...
I checked for change...old habits never die...)

One of the more interesting buildings around here is the "Circle Tower". The front and the insides of it are done in what I can only call "Egyptian Style Tomb Motif".  I need to get some inside pics of this place. I do believe they might have a pharaohs sarcophagus on the 13th floor... Either that, or this is a nexus point for Gozar The Gozarian.

The entrance way....Who ya gonna call?

And here we see the crew "hard at standing...errr.."work", on the Indy Circle"....

But the downtown circle and monument is pretty against a blue sky....

And Ali-Babi asked the genie for a "Sure fire way to make some money in Indy during Gencon..." And the genie granted him...a food truck....

Registration at Gencon was pretty easy. Of course I had a will call badge, and there were some of the usual hiccups when thousands of people descend on something in the first opening day, but I was okay. I got through Registration pretty fast...

Registration....

According to Gencon, that piece of plastic with my name and barcode was worth approx $90.00... I'll leave it to the other people at Gencon to vouch for it was worth it.

Meanwhile some of the ads at Gencon....Games and Councillor Troy....hmmm...

 

Room 209 the SPA (Spousal Activities, Crafts Rooms, where my wife (Gawd bless her!), spent her Gencon....

So I hit the Vendors/Dealers Room/Hall/Lair:

With CS Forage Cap on, I made my way through the crowded hellishness that was the Vendors Room. Little Wars Attendees will definitely recognize that cap....

And yes the room WAS crowded....

With people buy "What'sits" and "Whosit's", and other fine fancy stuff....

One of the games that they were demo'ing that I wanted to try was "Mysterium". It looks amazing and if it sucked, I figured I could use the cool props for miniature stuff...

And of course there was this.....

This is definitely "THE GAME" for IT Service Professionals.....

While wandering through the aisles, I came upon this old school beauty:

I've got a copy of that "somewhere I do believe....and if you see the original $4.95 cent price, you can also see the "newer price" in the bottom right of $24.95....something things don't change...some things do....

Meanwhile, out on the streets of Indianapolis....

Yes we know what you want to say....(Go ahead...it's all right...)

While during Cos-play Saturday...we had Evil Queens and Sweet Princesses....

And bears...(Thankfully NOT Pedobear).....

And certain suave and charming 3rd World Dictators showed up, to show people that "Swaggering, Overbearing, Tin-Plated Dictators with Delusions of Godhood", can be well...."sexy"....

The man of the hour....all hail!

Glasses on....glasses off....A comparative analysis in modern political oppression, disdain of the people, and all things "Dictator-ness"....

And and nice full pose body shot.....

Stirs your heart with feverish nationalism, doesn't it?.....

But enough about all of that!

While there I spent money.....

I sucked it up, plopped down 20 bucks and bought the D&D 5th Edition Starter Set....

(I'll review this later in another post)....

Hopefully they didn't make it an upgraded 4.0 train wreck....

And being who I am, I also grabbed the DM's screen...

(At a quick glance of this, I can tell you that I am NOT impressed....)

And I bought some miniatures...

First off was some Reaper P-65 series, (which I had never heard of, but later found out that they were doing in resin and these were the metal releases).

So of course, I got "Strumpets".....

"Hello Ladies......"

And then I stopped over by the good ole' "Midnight Syndicate" booth....
For those of you not in the know, MS, makes a lot of "Soundtrack CD's." I've already got 13th Mansion, and some of other tracks purchased via DL...
But I wanted a copy of the D&D soundtrack they did, and while there I also picked up their "Monsters of Legend".
They make great background music pieces for games...

I'm actually looking forward to listening to them while gaming out...probably painting figs or building terrain....

Wandering around I saw a wonderful dealer with LARP boffers, and found one I really liked....

"What ho! That black handle long-sword seems just to be what I need to keep door to door salesman at bay! Let me check ye olde price upon yon sticker...."

"Hmmm...Handcrafted by The Danes...."

"GADZOOKS AND FORSOOTH!...Ummmm....No thanks...Not today...." (That's one of my college loan payments right there...)

So the really cool LARP weapon didn't come home with me..

But what DID come home with me was yet another bunch of miscellaneous figures from the Ral-Partha Bins, including four (4) cobras, some type of Jungle Cat, some floor terrain pieces, and of course, slave girls, bondage girls, and "damsels in distress"....

All ready to be painted and well...."rescued"....

That's GOTTA hurt for these ladies....

"Snakes....why did it have to be snakes?"...(oh and some terrain pieces and some poor wench stretched out on the rack...)

And yes...some more poor unfortunate lasses in various forms of physical discomfort and in need of rescuing....

But perhaps the coolest part of the entire affair was this....

Out of 60,000+ people there...

In all that crowd....

And all those events, and rooms...

Who do I run into?

The one and only.....

My son....

"The Geek is strong with these two...."

I spent 3 1/2 of 4 days at Gencon and had a good time. Didn't play as many games as I wanted but jut enjoyed the people, the experience, and getting stuff, talking to dealers, and buying yet more dice for my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!).

Gencon keeps getting larger each year, but I am sad to say that this will probably be my last major four day full Gencon experience, unless something major happens. I'm just too old and it sucked up too much energy from me...

But next year...we shall see.....

And a big thank you to the City of Indianapolis for making it happen!!!!