Tag: crafts

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Kids and Carpentry…

…in which I talk about how I’m a terrible carpenter, but that doesn’t matter when you’re only 7 years old.

This weekend, Ansel wanted to do a woodworking project. You see, at his request, we bought him some tools for Christmas. Not toy tools either, but real, kid sized tools. I don’t do a lot of projects around the house, but with the occasional inspiration, or infrequent maintenance, I do have the tools out now and again. Often enough, it would seem, that Ansel wanted to get his own set.

Hard at Work

So when I asked Ansel what he wanted to do this weekend, he said he wanted to build something out of wood. I said, “Okay, but we can’t just ‘build something,’ we need to have an idea about what we’re building.” He gave it some thought and decided that he wanted to build a toy. Well, no surprises there. I asked him to be more specific and really think about what he wanted to make. He ultimately decided he wanted to build a toy boat.

Continue reading “Kids and Carpentry…”
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Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II makes me happy.

Even though it tanked my bank account and trashed two months of allowance with stupid bank fees when I forgot that I pre-ordered it on my allowance card, it’s still been worth it (okay, maybe not entirely, but I’ve been having mucho mucho fun with it). Corwin75 and I played for a ton of hours (okay, like 5) and as soon as he was out the door, I started playing my single player again and immediately saved over all our hours of play. I did this twice with Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and apparently never learned my lesson.

Other than that, this weekend I got my first TPK. If you don’t know what that it, then you probably don’t care. All I’m saying is, no party of four 1st and two 2nd level characters should ever face an Ogre and six Orcs. It wasn’t entirely my fault, I didn’t write the module, I just ran it and apparently had a really good day with my dice. I need to threaten to replace them more often.

I sanded 18 more boards on the wood floor this weekend and don’t feel nearly as shitty for it, I must be building up the muscles that involve hunching over and running a belt sander for 2 hours. We’re now over half way done. w00t.

I need a good camera to take pictures of the minis I paint. Heather’s old point and click digital camera just doesn’t cut the mustard because, while the macro feature is pretty good, it doesn’t focus on the mini very well and it still comes out looking like crap even after a great number of attempts. I’m beginning to think scanning the mini may be a better option. Oh well, back to the grind.

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All in all it was a good (three day) weekend. Friday I don’t recall doing anything of real substance. I stayed home the second half of the day as I had already worked over 40 hours that week and I wasn’t really concerened with comp time. I cleaned up the Confrontation minis and primed them so now they’re ready to be painted, if I ever finish the one I’m currently working on that is. We rented a couple of movies, that was it. We rented 28 Days Later and Johny English. We watched 28 Days Friday night. I thought it was really good, I mean really. Heather was concerned it was going to be gross, and really, aside from a couple bloody moments, it wasn’t bad. I think I only caught her looking away once. I definitely liked the original ending better than any of the alternate endings. Something still seemed amiss when it was all over, I think it was a bit too neat and tidy, but I’m not sure. It was still good and I can’t think of a better or different way to end it.

Saturday I went down to Garland for some more RPGA. It costs me a little much to keep going down there ($4 per game day, sheesh). I decided I wasn’t going down again this month, but then my friend Jon announced he was going down next week so I’m gonna bum a ride with him. Also, they’re playing two LG games I’ve not played and won’t be doing LG at all next month so it works out well. At any rate, I went to Hall of Heros and played a bit, got my 6th level back and now I’m trying to decide if I’m gonna pick up a rage real quick before continuing on with Ranger. Damn kitten. By the time I got back (which was a bit early afterall), Heather was already gone to the big to-do she had going on so I just kind of sat around a bit. Hmm, now that I think about it, it may have been Saturday that I primed the minis. Maybe Friday I finished puttying and cleaning and then by Saturday the putty had dried and I primed them. Yeah, that sounds good, you’ll believe that, right? Saturday night we watched Johny English. It was really funny, I busted up laughing through a good portion of it. I’m gonna have to watch for it on the used shelves. For some reason I don’t see it doing too well, so I half expect to see it in the “Two for $15” before too long.

Sunday, oi, we sanded the floor again, and there was no Karate to be had in doing so. Spent another back-breaking two hours sanding. My legs, my back, my shoulders and my arms were all screaming by the end of it, but now were, 1/5 of the way there (w00t?). After that I just laid down for, oh, an hour I think. I laid down half off the bed, my feet on the floor, the small of my back on the edge of the bed, bent backwards. It felt really nice, fell asleep a couple times. After Heather finished cleaning up all the sawdust and we showered, I actually went in and painted for a bit with a movie on. Felt good to paint, made some headway.

Monday, I got up late, puttered around, painted a little (did some awesome eyes on this mini thanks to this article. Got cleaned up, ate some lunch, and then it was game time!

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I really enjoy shopping for gifts and, unfortunately, tend to go overboard a lot. I love to give people things and as a result, spend more money than I usually want to on them. I was bidding on my dad’s gift on ebay and in the last 5 minutes, someone started upping my bid like crazy. I went about $11 over what I wanted to spend, but it is his birthday and christmas all at once, and I’ve been kind of lazy in the last few years so I hope he enjoys it.

Heather, this is about your gift, but there are no real spoilers, read at your own risk “”
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Well, no painting done today, but I got some shopping done and am eyeing something great for dad for Christmas/Birthday.

I watched Average Joe again tonight and I’ll be DAMNED if the big twist in this show is exactly what I predicted it to be from the first episode. I mean when Kathy Griffin announced the surprise, I was not shocked at all, only gloating with pride and glee that I was right on the money with this one. However, surprise or no, I’m actually more interested to see where it goes from here. I think that’s why I predicted it, it was the most interesting twist in my opinion.

RPGA activated the Master-Level GM test today. I failed it on the third question and can’t take the test again for 90 days. Bogus.

Aside from some problems late at night in the lab (thanks Steve), it’s been a nice evening. I’m going to bed.

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I spent another hour painting after Craig’s game and dinner. I feel like I’m getting nowhere, but I’m sure I’m actually making headway. If you can see in the photos above, there are some white stripes on his leg and a couple of pouches on his belt. the now match the lighter brown on his boots. Doesn’t really feel like an hour’s worth of work to me though. Anyone else out there who paints minis, what is your pace like?

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I painted for two hours last night. I feel like I made so little progress but I guess maybe I’m just very detail oriented and I try to be as clean as possible with my lines. I just feel like it takes forever and I can’t concentrate on it for more than two hours at a time. Even that was kind of a marathon for me.

Today I’m going to Craig’s D&D game. I’ve become more interested in it again, which is good. It was close to being dropped there for a while. I honestly think the move to 2:00 was good for it because now I can get home and spend some time with Heather rather than getting home, going straight to bed, and then going to work first thing in the morning. That just wasn’t really working for me.

I’ve got Christmas shopping to do, and for some reason, it’s not really exciting me as it usually is. I think it’s the whole money issue. I still want to buy stuff for people, I love giving gifts, but I’m concerned about how our money is flowing. At any rate, I’m waiting to hear on a gift for Heather. There’s an auction I’ve bid on, but it’s going to take too long, I think, to win the auction and get it shipped in time for Heather’s birthday, so I emailed the seller, but they haven’t emailed me back. I really hope to hear from them soon.

Oh well, I’ve already blown 20 minutes here when I should have been getting ready for Craig’s game. Now I’ll probably be late again. Until I write again, here are some pics of the mini I’m working on, in progress.

Herod Gale “”
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I made some new icons for Ben, who is still my friend, even though I may no longer be his. Apparently he didn’t see them or didn’t like them. Who knows.

I so intended to paint some more last night. I started painting a new mini on Sunday. I didn’t get too far, but I was pleased with my progress. I mixed a really nice burgundy for his pants, too. I just hope it doesn’t dry out before I need to do touchups. I wanted to paint it some more last night, but instead I got distracted by both Monster House, and Monster Garage, and then, while I was trapped on the couch, Heather changed it to Joe Average, and me being a pretty average guy in the grand scheme of things, I had to watch to see which “average” guy got the girl.

And I can’t paint tonight because I’m helping Fancy move stuff into her appartment. The curse of having a “mini truck” starts, not that I mind. I’ve used the bed of the Baja so little that it’s still a novelty to use it. I think I’ve only justifiably used it maybe once. Everything else we’ve carried back there could have just as easilly be carried in Heather’s Beetle.

I hope there’s no more games of telephone around the building today, I hate that shit.

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This web thing is starting to get really piss annoying. I’m not the web manager, no one is. I want to, but they can’t pay me to do so. As a result, they come to me to update stuff, but if it’s major work that won’t fit in my schedule, then they pass it on to someone else and then the design consistency is blown. The style is trashed. The website loses uniformity. Yeah, whatever. I wish they’d either own up, reclassify me and make me lab manager/web manager, or stop asking me to do stuff with the web page completely.

Anyway, I took photos of my pumpkins last night.

The “Beware” pumpkin was a lot easier to read before it started to shrivel. Also, I couldn’t seem to hold the camera still enough to take a good photo of it in complete darkness, sorry about that.

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Well, against all odds I got my the last part of my costume (okay the second part, but still) in the mail yesterday. I was checking up on the order info and found that it had shipping listed as 10-14 days. That wouldn’t have been so bad, had I not ordered it last friday. So I needed in 7 or less. Maybe I paid for faster shipping and I don’t remember, but I have it now and that’s all that matters.

We played the conclusion to the Homeguard storyline. I have no idea when we’re going to pick these characters up again, but we all seemed excited to see where they go next. We’re prepping for the next series though, starting out as humans fighting thugs again. I’m starting out as a street magician/martial atist. Kind of a David Blaine meet Kane from Kung Fu. Don’t know when we’re gonna start up again, or where the game is going to take place, but I’m looking forward to it. I think I need a break from Shadow Knight, especially after everything he’s been through recently. Some serious mind fuckage gone on, thanks Danny, excellent game!