It's been over a month since I have posted something, which is very rare in these pandemic days... Which, as usual, isn't to say that things haven't been busy.
Family - In the intervening month I got my second Pfizer shot. Julia got her first and second Pfizer shots. Grace got her first and second Pfizer shots (the last just 2 days ago). Amp was fully vaccinated long ago for her job. We believe in science. And in 2 weeks, we will be as vaccinated a family as we can be (two weeks post-Pfizer). To those who believe that these vaccinations are a way for the government to microchip you.......if the government had that capability, they've already chipped you...so just get the shots please.
Grace is nearing the end of her junior year, and nearing taking her driving test. A big milestone. Applications for band leadership positions have been submitted for next year, her senior year, and having been a Field Major this year, she has applied for Drum Major next year. Fingers crossed. These milestones come too fast these days.
Art - I haven't painted anything in a "fine art" sense since I last posted something here, but I have been painting, just of the Dungeons and Dragons figure variety. I have been having the urge to get back to oil painting these last few days, though, and there is a blank canvas sitting on my easel now, just waiting.
And a personal note - I was going to post a tongue-in-cheek entry titled "Farewell to an Old Friend", as of this morning. It was going to be in recognition of the fact that the iMac computer that I have had here on my desk for the last 10+ years, and has been the computer that I have written every post on this blog since late 2010, seems to be in its death throes. It is labeled a "mid-2010" manufacture and has served me more than admirably, contributing in excess of a decade of service. I'd like to see your PC do that... Anyway, starting a few days ago, the display sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, and the poor old machine randomly shuts itself down to rest. The exhaustion of old age, I guess. It is running the Mac OS that is three entire versions back since it doesn't have the ability to be upgraded any further than it already has been, and there is modern software that it cannot run... I write this post on its successor, a late 2019 manufacture iMac purchased shortly before the pandemic in November 2019. Despite being the newer machine, and far better in capability, it got relegated to the basement, used intermittently while I plugged away on the old one. I'm not 100% sure why. Creature of habit I suppose. But everything has been transferred to the new machine, and I hope it can give me anywhere near the service the old iMac did. So...tongue-in-cheek, farewell to a very old friend. In a strange and ridiculous way, I will miss you.
The reality check that made this intended post seem superfluous was a text earlier this evening from my "other brother" Leo letting me know that a wargaming friend of ours passed away yesterday. We are in our mid-50's, and this friend was a good bit our senior (into his early 70's I think), but I had known him for the last 20 years or so. It wouldn't be fair to say we were close, or that my contacts with him in the last decade or so were anything more than random meetings at the various HMGS wargaming conventions a few times a year, but it is a shocker nonetheless. He was a good guy, and the world will be a bit the lesser without him. In the sense the actually matters... Farewell Old Friend. You will be missed, and remembered.
