"Into Every Life A Little Rain Must Fall..."

To borrow the quote from the Steve Martin movie "My Blue Heaven"...

And in this case it did, literally...

We are in what is known as "Storm Season" here in Indiana, and last night about 2-3 AM, we had a weird series of high intensity storm cells rip through the area like Bo and Luke Duke running from Rosco P. Coletrain.

The storm cells were fast and dropped a lot of water very quickly and then moved out, only to be replaces with another one right behind it. 

So much happened, that at 4 AM, the NWS issued a "flash flood watch" for our county.

So this morning when we got up, imagine our surprise to find water in our basement!

Later on we discovered that we weren't the only ones, so we were relieved to know that it wasn't a "just us" house issue.

TBH, it wasn't "Massive Flood" stuff, (I've been there and never want to do that again), but it was more like "Someone had sprayed the floor with a water hose enough to put water on the floor and to make the tiles slick. The TV room carpet was soaked though, (a mixed blessing)...

On the bright side, it gave me the "excuse and reason" needed to hit the DIY store and get me a nice 6 gallon/3 HP shop vac with extra tools.

However the clean up was more "Mop and Towels". The majority of the water had gone quickly down the floor drains, and what was mostly left was soaked up in the TV room rug.  With the help of mops, towels, and four fans, we had everything drying out quicker than normal. 

Once this is all done, I have to put the game room, (aka: "The Murphy-Cave/Bunker, etc...), back into operational order with some possible furniture rearranging coming up, and then use the polyseal water barrier I have and brush it on the brick to prevent an repeat of this.

The issue put my painting for the day back, and reveals to us that "Even 104 year old houses need work".

There is no "real fix" for this issue as the water saturation came up through the old brick and base foundation. The only real fix is:

A: Tear down the house.

B: Tear up the foundation.

C: Pour in a new foundation. 

D: Build a new house.

So I will be polysealing the bricks thoroughly to help repel the water.

On the bright side, nothing was damaged, and the rug held the water and soaked up the majority of it so it didn't spread further out onto the floor.

By tomorrow evening hopefully it should all pretty much be dry except the rug.

My neighbors also got water in their basement so like I said, it just wasn't a "my house problem". Thank goodness!

Here are some pics of the current status of the gaming room....

Gaming table currently holding the rug to allow the fans to dry it out...

Most of the water drained into this floor drain. The rug was above it, and this was where most of the game room water was...You can see that it is already mostly dry. The new shop vac (under the table), makes his initial introductory appearance...

The floor drying out...

Another view showing the wet floor...

Hopefully if all goes well this well be fixed up by this weekend!

Oh and I also did some painting on some 28mm Pirates, but that is going to have to be for another post!!!

More to come!

Paints and projects and stuff coming in!

 So I had finished my June update a couple of days ago when I had enough news to get a new update out...so without further eloquence, here it is...

Painting and Projects: 

After finishing off the bank, I decided to take a quick break from my Western buildings and do some figure painting. With the buildings set aside for a bit, I decided to dive back into one of my other fun genres that gets me going and that is...PIRATES!!!!!

I've a lot of sea scum and scalawags that need to get their paint on. So I took approx. 20 of them and started to work. These guys are a mixture of OG, Foundry, Eureka, Dixon, and some others. Most of them have muskets, while some have musketoons, and short arms. 

I started with a standard block paint style....

Arrrr matey! Basic colors to get the lads going! None o' that "fancy stuff"!...

The block painting continues with the initial whiting of the eye areas and more detail added...

With the block painting pretty much done, it was now down to the eyes, faces, and details... These guys are on their way to being done!

INCOMING!!!!!

So a few months ago, I ordered some figures from Wizkids, (back in Feb-March), and due to the shipping fiasco, only part of my order has shown up, and that was yesterday...

YAY! Part of my WIZKIDS order came in! Let's see what's inside shall we?

A couple of nice goodies in this box....

This Wiz Kids deep cuts set looked interested so I went ahead and got it. Everyone needs to have a royal court full of intrigue and shenanigans...

And a monster....a primed Gelatinous Cube...How exactly do you prime one of those things anyway???...

I'll be waiting on the rest of the shipment to show up "sometime"...

As well as my Reaper Bones V KS....
Stay tuned as there is more to come!!!

June 2021 update...Middle of the Year already?!?!....

 It seems like the blink of an eye since May and suddenly we are at the high point of June. Solstice and the shortening of the days. So I guess it is time for me to get on with another update.

CLEAN UP THAT ROOM YOUNG MAN!!!!!

Okay, so in tried and true miniature gamer tradition, I trashed my work area. 

Projects came and went, repair jobs are waiting to be done. Old projects coming back to life, new projects trying to start, figures needing paint....AAAAAAHHH!!!! *runs screaming*....

Okay...*huff huff*...I am back now...*wheeze*

So the other day I came down into the paint room and realized just "what a mess" it had become.

YIKES! My mom would kill me!

So I sucked in a big ol' gulp of air, put on some music, and went to work cleaning up the area, and the paint/work table.

Trash was thrown away, old paint water drained, dropper bottles and paint pots, back into the rack, tools and brushes back into their respective containers, stuff picked up off the floor, etc.

Finally I got it looking decent once again....

Now I can sit down and start working without "Stuff" everywhere....

After getting all of this cleaned. I got to work.

Projects Galore...

So with my D&D game on hold for the month of June, I am currently on a "Western" kick. I've been busy getting back into building my old Western town of Rimfire, and with dogged determination, I am finally finishing up some of the TCL buildings I started back in Feb of 2016 and stopped working on in June of 2017. 

First up was to finished the TCL bank building.

This wasn't so hard as it was mostly just putting in the walls and trim, and adding "glass" to the windows and a door to the wall. 

The setup of the bank before I started the final assembly....

With the walls inserted, and a rubber band holding it together while it dries. 

The outer framework and golden filigree for the bank. I went with golden trimming to make it look "more attractive", (err..."robbable"), than normal. And the gold on green gives it a nice touch don't you think?

The interior walls of the bank. Installed and ready for tellers to smile at you as they take your money...

Another view of the inside of the bank.

A nice angular view of the bank, showing the interior...

With the front trimming on the building, the bank is essentially complete. 

A close up side view of the finished building. Here you can see the reflection of the clam shell blister plastic I used for "glass" for windows. 

A further away shot showing the size of the building... This is a standard TCL size long building...

With the building itself done, it was time to set up a couple of figures for scale and reference. They look pretty good next to it, if I do say so myself...

After this it was off to complete the Sheriff's Office and jail.

I finally got off my duff and started redoing that mess I created of making separate jail cells. I added some walls, and got more parts installed.  This one is about 95% done....

Aided by an ice cold Triple XXX Root Beer, I got to work on the Sheriff's Office and Jail, and started base-coating some Arnica Montana boardwalks.

A frontal comparison shot of a small store, the Sheriffs Office and Jail, and the bank.

Looking down you can see the size difference in buildings as well as two interiors.

ARNICA, MONTANA...

One of the other things I wanted to do while working on these buildings was to get onto to building my Arnica, Montana line of resin buildings that I had for a couple of years. 

The Arnica line was purchased a few years back by Hawgleg, and is currently in a semi-retired status as many of the molds are seriously worn. Due to the conditions of some of them, Hawgleg only produces kits per special request order at the moment. We are hoping to have this fixed soon...

So I decided to start off with the sidewalks/boardwalks.

For these (and other resin kits), it is HIGHLY SUGGESTED AND ENCOURAGED that you clean (wash), the resin pieces in warm (NOT HOT), water with a mild dish soap, (Ajax lemon or Dawn), and a scrub sponge. Once the pieces are washed, rinse them thoroughly in cold water, and set aside and let air dry for approx. 24 hours.

You can then prime them how you want them.

After doing this, I went with painting the boardwalks.

For a base coast, I am using Burnt Umber, and a darkened brown. 

For a little more variety, I did the middle one with a light coat of "Burnt Sienna".

After this I did a little adding additional colors....

"Lookin' a little worn there, Tex..."  The color mixture is nice....

After this I will use a drybrush of cinnamon and a lighter drybrush of off white for wear and tear on the wood and to show the middle being worn... 

More pics on this to come.

I've also started the wash and dry process with two Arnica buildings; (The Hotel and The Mercantile)...

I will be priming these in the next day or so, and getting them ready for assembly.

So I guess I am back to building my Western town...YEE-HAW!

And for Father's Day, my wonderful wife, (Gawd bless her!), fixed me a German Apple Pancake and Bratwurst!

Hence the obligatory food pictures!!!!

Mmmmmmm......

And that's it for now. 

Actually there's more, but I think I will need to make another entry into the blog to catch up.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

More to come!

May Update: "Gaming, Minis, Painting, and a New Experiment!"

It's May 2021. 

Think about that.

We are almost at the halfway mark for the year already.

Where has the time gone?

And of course that means it's time for another irregularly timed entry into my blog that keeps limping along like an old dog going down a path in the woods.

This one, dear reader is a bit photo intensive, so please be patient as it loads. 

A NEW EXPERIMENT!!!

Okay, so being the owner of a house, I noticed that outside of our dining room and living room windows we had two large window boxes...with dead plants in them.

"Hm.." sez I.

I discussed this over with my wife and while she isn't big on flowers, she is big on herbs and such. So I went and dropped a few dollars, and am now trying my hand at "gardening", (to a degree). I researched up "best simple easy herbs to grow in Indiana", and then went with that. As I am an amateur dirt digger, I decided to go with something that was A: Easy to work with, B: Didn't require a lot of maintenance, and C: Well....easy to work with and lived in this Zone (Zone 5). 

And here's the results.

Box #1: This is Chives, Rosemary, and Lemon Balm...

Box #2: This is Chives, Rosemary, and Spearmint...

Not only are these "easy" herbs for beginners, they are also natural insect repellants.

I look forward to seeing if I have a green thumb or a black thumb...

And on beautiful spring days around the house, the flowers keep blooming...

An amazing assortment of flowers beautifully arranged around our home.

But...

That's NOT what we are here for. 

It's back to the "war room"...

GAMING...

Now that the game room has been established, we have gone ahead and broke it in with gaming, and every two weeks I am running a AD&D 2nd Edition Campaign.  We just finished our third setting, and the party is beginning to explore the ruins of an old haunted house. 

The Adventuring Party: (From L to R): Hanibar, Rakerzon, Mearig, Fargrim, Timos, and Caedrynn. All figures except for Fargrim the Dwarven fighter were painted by me.

The PC's discuss a course of action over what they should do about the "rumors of the old haunted house..." (*insert spooky music here*...)

No fancy vid screens and online "purty stuff"...This is Old School RPG'ing...

The party finds a mysterious clue!!! (*dun dun dunnnnnnhhh!!!!*)

Handouts and maps...Old School D&D...

The mysterious parchment fragment piece that gives a possible clue....What could it mean? What COULD it mean?!?!...

The D&D game weekends are especially fun because we get to visit with good friends, and have good times together and eat good food. This last game, my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), made chicken stacked enchiladas and they were scarfed down.

Always keep the game room fridge stocked...

But the game room is for more than just RPG's...

THE MINIATURES TABLE IS SET!!!

So the following Monday I cleared off the RPG stuff on the table and decided to set up some miniatures. Looking around, I decided to break out some of my Bongolesia stuff, as I haven't done an AK47 game in my third world African hell-hole in a number of years. I've been itching to do a cross border skirmish as I had been slowly building up a force for the country known as "The Fandango Republic", and decided to set it up for this. I also wanted to play more armor intensive this game, as well as test play some homebrew rules I am working up right now to see how they run.

So with a little flourish and some moving things around, I set up Bongolesia's Southern Border.

Looking at the table The border is visible. Bongolesia is on the left side and The Fandango Republic is on the right side...

Looking North from the Fandango side towards Bongolesia. One can see the checkpoints, and the UN monitoring station as well as the small Bongolesian Town of "Bungatown" and the current object of content, the facility known as "Charlie's Chicken Farm"...

Looking North into The Fandango Republic from Bongolesia. Bungatown is closest to the edge of the table.

The UN border monitor site, and the border area along known as "Checkpoint Chester", (named after amateur English ornithologist Chester Wellerfuller, who was reportedly eaten by ravenous hyenas in this area in 1907), which is currently manned by a mixed contingent of Danish and Pakistani UN troops.

The view of "Checkpoint Chester", from the Bongolesian side, including the Bongolesian Govt. border station across the road which is currently manned in this photo by National Police.

The actual border of Bongolesia and The Fandango Republic with the UN Station "Checkpoint Chester" and the Bongolesian border post visible. The current UN contingent on site is a mixed unit of Danish and Pakistani troops.

The UN conducts a border patrol operation while the Bongolesian National Police watch from their positions.

The UN Patrol moves out...what WILL they find???...

COOL STUFF!!!

I will admit that I was surprised this past weekend as not only did my good friends show up for another fun session of gaming but my "Bruddah frum anudda mudda" Dan Merchant brought me a pack of Wiz Kids Deep Cuts Pre-Primed Bugbears Minis, and my good friend Bryan Carter brought me a copy of  "Tank Duel", from GMT games, (still in shrink wrap). I was surprised, humbled, and honored by their generosity.

Looking forward to trying this one out!

And I can't wait to get some paint on these guys!!!

There's a heckuva lot more I can go about right now (including our plumbing problem with one of the bathroom sinks), as well as some of the work on my painting table, but I think I am going to call it quits for now. More cool and fun stuff to come!  

And as always, thank you for reading!