A long, overdue, update....

Overdue Update, Explanation, and MOVING!!!!

Holy crap, it's May 2020!

The last thing I know (well here on this blog at least), was that it was April 2018.  

And then here it is now...

You're probably wondering "What in the heck happened?"

Well...the only real thing I can say is that "Life happened."

Things got weird towards the end of 2018 in our lives, (medical wise, family wise, legal wise, health-wise and job wise), and the more we seemed to solve issues the more issues kept piling up. Some of it was of our own making, but a lot of it was also due to us having to "adult" a family member that was living with us that essentially had no goals or initiative in their life to do anything other than play video games all night and sleep all day. 

Money became tight, and repair bills became constant. 

In the summer of 2019, I had an accident, which resulted in me being in a wheelchair for six months. I spent most of the months of Jan and Feb re-teaching my right leg "How to walk again."  I am now able to move pretty well. True I won't be winning, (or even running), any marathons in the near future, or wowing the chicks with my slick moves on the dance floor, but I can get from point A to point B pretty well now. Sometimes though I take my walking stick (aka "Kinderschlager") as a "just in case".

Due to life taking priority; gaming, (and this blog), took a place far on the back burner.

Sadly enough, earlier this year my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), and myself took a cold, hard, look at the reality and made the decision that "We have to move."

The reality of it was this:

1: Indianapolis is expanding like a cancer. Our current area is building up quickly (commercial wise).

Developers are looking at the residential areas where we live and salivating with the opportunity to get them rezoned commercial and thus make $$$.

2: As a result of this expansion, street repairs, and "enhancements" that should have been done years ago, are now finally getting done. 

3: As a result of this, our property taxes have continued to skyrocket. They've increased steadily over the last six years.  This will result in the people in the residences being eventually unable to pay their property taxes and thus be forced to move. The developers will then buy the residential properties, rezone them into commercial and thus make $$$ (See #1 above.)

4: Sadly also, our neighborhood, (which we have lived in for 14 years now), is becoming "A hood".  We've got a guy a few houses down from us that I am just waiting on him to get a visit from the ATF one day as well as the FBI coming around to ask about "his biker buddies with the swastikas coming over to visit all the time."

So yeah...we have to move.

Our current plan is to look for a nice little place out in the country. My wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), wants someplace "Country" so that we don't have to worry about it. She also wants to have a garden and perhaps a small backyard chicken coop. (You can take the girl out of the Kansas Farm, but you can't take the Kansas Farm out of the girl.)....

So small town living and country houses it is.

On the plus side, the wife has said that "I need a man cave." So one of our "needs" is a place where I can finally, FINALLY, get all of my gaming stuff unpacked (some of it since has been packed up since the mid 90's), and get it all together, and set up as well as a dedicated gaming table. 

So that is where we are at with this.

HOWEVER....

One of the biggest chores I have ahead of me is packing up the gaming stuff. During this time, I also did a STUPID thing, (silly man that I am), and counted and inventoried my unpainted lead. 

Honestly? It almost made me cry.

So I started slowly packing up the unpainted figures and labeling them for inventory and loading purposes.

This is where I stand right now....

My unpainted lead. 

Yeah....I feel ashamed....

The first two columns of boxes are just the 28's alone...

The big box on the left is my Reaper Bones IV KS...sigh; followed up by the second box being NON Bones KS Reaper figures, (all the Reaper figures I have that are not in the 4 or 5 KS). The black box is my "The Chicago Way" stuff, followed up by a box of the plastic sprues (28 and 15mm) from Wargames Illustrated Magazines. On top of that is the 1/43 (28mm Die Cast Vehicles),  finally topped of with the 28mm Boxed sets of figures.

The second column starts with a plastic case of NON-Reaper 28mm fantasy figs, followed by 28mm Odds and Ends figures (In the blue box), then #8 box is 28mm SYW/AWI.  Boxes 9-12 are 28mm Pirates, RCW, Colonials, and Western/ACW respectively.

All in all approx a dozen boxes for 28mm figures.

To the right of that, is ONE box holding all of my unpainted 15mm figures and the smaller square box holds ALL of my 20mm stuff (Vietnam war).  

So yes....the ladies are right...."Size DOES matter!"

The open box is currently all of the "odd stuff", (Dystopian Wars Fleets, 1/35th WWII, etc.)

So yes, this is all of the unpainted figures.

No buildings, no terrain, no scenics, nothing... None of the worktable stuff, etc...

And NONE of the painted figures.

Speaking of painted figures...

This is what I still have to pack....

As well as the figures in the Display Case.

And after ALL of that, I can then finally start packing up the worktable, and all of the supplies that I have, (paints, brushes, tools, lights, etc..)

To be honest I am going to need a small cargo van just to move the figures and gaming stuff...

And then there is the booze....but we will get to that later.

So, here's to coming back to this blog in 2020 and getting it going again.
I will keep updating as things progress.