The Year in Review 2014 - Distractions and Diversions

Having covered the most important stuff - family - in an earlier post, I'll cover the remaining odds and ends here...

Hiking and Outdoors
I spent less time doing short little hikes around home than I have in any recent year, but there were two very good trips that did happen. The first was an overnight trip to Rickett's Glen State Park in northeastern PA in April, and the second was a three day trip to West Virginia in June.

Rickett's Glen was a two day trip, the second day to actually hike the park, the first day to drive up. Dave and I left early and did a bunch of geocaching on the way to the hotel, which was one of my more interesting caching expeditions of the year. The hike itself was truly spectacular, and everything it was hyped up to be.

Rickett's Glen

The West Virginia trip was also memorable for the scenery, the companionship, the hikes, and the marvelous campsite with a view of Sunset Rocks.

Sunset Rocks WV

The Sunday we spent hiking in the Dolly Sods Wilderness was a hot and grueling day, but the scenery was some of the prettiest I have seen in the East. I would gladly go back to that area again.

Dolly Sods Wilderness WV

With one of our regulars planning a big trip to Ireland for his 50th, there will not be a big trip this year, but the plan is to make up for that by squeezing in a few long-weekend trips, like West Virginia was this year. There are a multitude of nice places to go within a 4-5 hour driving radius, and I'm sure we can come up with something good.

Music and Concerts
I didn't get to see as much live music as I would have liked this year (not counting musicals and special events with the family). Anthony and I saw The Musical Box in Wilmington in January, and I saw Justin Hayward again in Wilmington in May.

Justin Hayward in Wilmington at the World Cafe

The Tedeschi Trucks Band near home in Aston in June was the last concert of the year.

Tedeschi Trucks Band in Aston PA

2014 also saw the arrival of yet another guitar in the house, an Epiphone EJ-200CE acoustic electric. I'm still a hack, but perhaps a little better than before. Actual practice would improve that, but for whatever reason, it never seems to happen. So you get what you get. And speaking of getting - no more guitars. Probably.

Epiphone EJ-200CE

Reading
As always, I read a ton this year, with only the tip of the iceberg getting documented here. Fifteen fiction books (posted about separately), lots of short stories, lots of history and wargaming materials, and lastly (and quite unexpected) I think I read through an entire file box of old Dungeons and Dragons stuff I had kept from years ago. That jaunt down memory lane sure brought back a lot of fond memories.

Writing
Blogging would also have to be considered a hobby unto itself given the time and effort put into it. All told, across three blogs, I have written more than ever before. This will be post number 138 for this, my main blog, and I have also managed to squeeze in 28 posts on the D&D campaign blog and 19 more on the food blog. Perhaps I should do more and write less, although I certainly do enjoy the writing on its own merits. It's a balance I guess. Most of these posts are fairly easy and quick to write, and it has proven very nice to be able to go back and reread posts and look at pictures from as far back as 2009, when I first began.

Dungeons and Dragons

From a hobby/fun-time activity perspective, this is the year I remembered how much I loved playing D&D as a kid, and started playing again as an adult. Five of us have played four sessions beginning in October, and may get one more in over the holidays. I love the pure unfettered creativity of it, and we all seem to be having a good time, which is all that counts.

Kingdom of Alsberg

Cooking
I may not have blogged about too many recipes, but I think I probably did a better job this year than usual in actually trying new and different recipes out of all the cookbooks we have accumulated over the years. Most used book of the year was without question Giada at Home by Giada de Laurentiis. Every one we make turns out great so we just keep trying more. Grace continues to show some interest in cooking, so it is nice to have a helper in the kitchen with me sometimes.

25 Year Old Easter Treat

Geocaching
It's pretty safe to say that I have become an occasional geocacher at best. I still enjoy it, but more often than not it's really only something that hits my radar screen when I will be traveling to someplace new or unusual and have a chance to grab a new state or a new county. The modicum of interest that the kids had in the first year or two that I did this has worn off for them, and they have no interest in going out with me, so that limits my interest in going out just to go out. Geocaching as a solo endeavor doesn't hold much appeal anymore, although if I have an opportunity to get out in the woods for a walk somewhere, I would still rather pick a place that has geocaches than not. I guess in that regard, I have become a geocacher very much like brother Dave has always been. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Geocaching our way to Rickett's Glen

Perhaps the best part of writing these year end posts is not in the remembering of what has gone before, but to begin to think about the future; not what have we done this year, but what experiences are yet to come. Places to go. Things to see and do. Interests to explore. In other words, life to live.

The Year in Review 2014 - Literature

After reading almost no fiction at all in 2013, I got back on that particular horse and managed to get in a decent amount of fiction reading this year.

At the halfway point of the year, posted in summary here on June 30, I had read 11 books by ten different authors. Over the second half of the year I was mainly reading history and wargaming stuff, but did mange to get in 4 more fiction books, all by authors I had read before.

Total books: 15 (by 11 different authors, including 6 new ones for me).
Total pages: 4,386.

Best books of the year for me in 2014 (in order):

• The Painter by Peter Heller. A marvelous work by someone I hadn't read before. My only five star book this year.
• The Son by Philipp Meyer. Another sensational (and big) book by the author of American Rust, one of my favorite books of 2009.
• A terrific pair by Wiley Cash (another new author for me); This Dark Road to Mercy and the almost equally good A Land More Kind than Home.

There were other good books, but these were cream of the crop this year for me.

Full year summary (new authors for me in italics):

• 5 - The Painter (Peter Heller)
• 4.5 - The Son (Philipp Meyer)
• 4.5 - This Dark Road to Mercy (Wiley Cash)
• 4 - A Land More Kind Than Home (Wiley Cash)
• 4 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz)
• 4 - The Realm of Last Chances (Steve Yarbrough)
• 4 - Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather [Stories] (Gao Xingjian)
• 4 - St Burl's Obituary (Daniel Akst)
• 3.5 - Netherland (Joseph O'Neill)
• 3.5 - The Burgess Boys (Elizabeth Strout)
• 3.5 - There Must Be Some Mistake (Frederick Barthelme)
• 3.5 - The Brothers (Frederick Barthelme)
• 3.5 - Drown [Stories] (Junot Diaz)
• 2.5 - Two Against One (Frederick Barthelme)
• 4.5 - The Vintage Caper (Peter Mayle) 

I was fortunate enough to get a pair of fiction books for Christmas that I have been looking forward to reading, and I am partway into one of those but will likely not finish it before the end of the year. (All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - absolutely terrific so far).

The Year in Review - 2014 - Family

December is winding down, and my thoughts wander back across the year that is drawing to a close. First and foremost, the girls (all three, big and little) are healthy and happy. I could stop there and consider the year a success.

But that would make for a very short year end post, so I will soldier on....

High School and Musicals
Julia is in the middle of tenth grade and doing well. She is beginning some preliminary job training, and is involved in a lot of activities. She's a very busy young lady.

March was probably the highlight of her year, being involved in the production of Les Miserables, her favorite thing of all time.

Les Miz - Makeup call for Bystander number 2

I am especially proud of the amount of time and work that she put into the play, and equally happy that despite all the work she wants to be involved in all the musicals going forward. This continued with The Little Mermaid in December where she was a chorus fish in the Sea Chorus, which included a new part time career for Amp as a costume designer and seamstress.

Les Miz Opening Night w/Uncle Let

Julia also puts a lot of time in cheerleading with the Spirit Squad, and competes in three or four local area competitions every Spring. I should also note here that we are all very grateful to the local Whole Foods Market and the Whole Foods Foundation, which made a very generous donation to the squad to cover uniforms and other costs.

Spirit Squad

Julia also continues to compete in Special Olympics bowling and swimming, where Grace is a "unified partner" and swims relays with her sister.

Special Olympics Bowling

Wrapping up Elementary School
Having a daughter the age that Grace is now is a constant (and somewhat unwelcome) reminder of just how fast kids grow up. It seems like just yesterday that we were carrying her around because she was so little and she couldn't keep up. Now I can't keep up with her.

She is doing very well in school, but one of the more gratifying things for me is that she is involved in a lot of musical things, and shows a very good aptitude for it. She is about one year into piano lessons, and her teacher calls her "my little prodigy." She is also now in her second year of clarinet and is doing well enough that her teacher recommended that she move up from the starter (plastic) clarinet to a real wooden one. Have I mentioned how expensive real musical instruments are? Egads. Anyway, as much as I love music, that is an expense I'll gladly deal with. Between the instruments and chorus, there is something musical going on at all times (which is how I would choose to have it).

Casted ankle - January

Gymnastics continues as well, along with the periodically gimpy ankle that comes along with that. Six weeks in a walking cast seems to have helped some, but not completely. Apparently, this is something that they believe she will just grow out of. Fingers crossed...

Glasses in August

I couldn't possibly be more proud of both of them.

Around the House
Having been in this house 17 years now (really?!?), there are no shortage of rooms that we would like to re-do and other projects that need addressing. Grace and Julia both some new pieces of furniture this year, and I am in the middle of finishing up the crown molding in Julia's room and then repainting it. The main floor powder room got a complete cosmetic reno including crown and trim moldings and a repaint.

Printer table

Lastly, we put some power tools to use and made some new custom furniture for ourselves. Julia got a modified version of a console table, and I got a perfectly sized printer stand and end table for my office. I still have a hard time looking at the printer table and believing that I made it with my own two hands (it looks too good).

Getting Out and About
One of the commitments we have made to ourselves is that we will try to expose the kids to as much culture as we can, and hopefully do it in a way that they will enjoy. This year we got them to see a Cirque de Soleil Michael Jackson show in Philadelphia, Stomp at the Dupont Theater in Wilmington, Aladdin on Broadway, and Mary Poppins in Philadelphia to round out the year.

Aladdin on Broadway

We also got to Washington DC again in the spring (to see Mount Vernon) and Avalon NJ in the summer (for the beach), as well as many trips to our in-laws in New Jersey.

Mount Vernon

Thinking about what all we did this year makes me start thinking about what we can do in 2015. Most of all, I just hope that everyone stays happy and healthy. That would be plenty.

The Year in Review 2014 - Figure Painting

I am getting a jump on some of the blogger-required end of year recap posts, as we have family coming to stay for the holidays soon, and I expect free time will be at a bit of a premium over the next week or so. Specifically, with the basement painting table cleared and briefly put into storage, the chances of me getting any substantial painting time in is unlikely. I may have some time next week (I hope to...), but whatever I accomplish in those last few days won't change my year end position by much if at all...

Always more medievals

In summary, 2014 may have been my most productive year of painting output in memory, or maybe ever. I paint on the slow side, and paint in spurts, with weeks or even months in some cases between bursts of activity. This year really wasn't any different, but a few of the bursts I had, notably in April/May and October/November were more sustained than usual.

In 25mm mounted, I painted 55 figures:

• 36 German knights, some totally repainted and some new.
• 6 Ottoman akinji light cavalry.
• 3 Ottoman sipahis.
• 10 mounted crossbows.

In 25mm foot I painted 84 figures:

• 56 Norman heavy infantry.
• 10 Hundred Years War crossbows.
• 12 voynuk heavy infantry.
• 6 medieval civilians.

In 15mm WW2, 87 pieces of various types:

• 10 US tanks.
• 8 US trucks.
• 6 US jeeps.
• 3 German tanks.
• 6 US antitank guns.
• 12 US gun crew.
• 42 US infantry.

And in terrain:

• 12 buildings in 15mm.
• Many bocage/hedge terrain pieces.
• Some modular road sections.
• Three 4' by 6' terrain boards of foam insulation board and green tie-dye fleece (more on these later). In addition to the three boards (two of which are perfectly flat), I made 10-12 hill pieces of various sizes and shapes that can be used with the boards (made of the same carved foam and glued-on fleece).

I'm pretty sure I painted a few more things, but I couldn't remember what...

To this total should be added the fact that I spent a lot of time in various increments throughout the year brightening up and partially repainting some of my older figures (German medievals, generic medievals and Normans especially). In all, this probably encompassed dozens of mounted figures and well over a hundred foot figures.

A village worth of buildings

Heading into 2015, there are a bunch of figures in various stages of painting that should be showing up in blog posts at some point, and a lot more figures after that which have been prepped and primed and are waiting in the wings. These include large batches of Ottoman armored and unarmored sipahis, Ottoman foot of several kinds, Hungarians to go against the Ottomans, lots of 15mm WW2 German infantry and US paratroops, German vehicles (8-10 halftracks and a dozen or so tanks), French Hundred Years War infantry of various kinds, and the list goes on. If I didn't prep and prime another figure, I doubt I could get through what I have ready to go in 2015. That's a good thing.

Tanks and Trucks and Jeeps

Lastly, as far as my figure collecting goes, I finally came to terms with reality and sold off some of my little children (actually, lots of them). Flea market tables at Cold Wars and Fall In were both good to me in terms of selling off distractions, diversions, and things I will never either paint, or use if already painted. At one end of the spectrum is what my figure collection would ideally look like with regards to periods and scales (given my primary interests), and at the other end of the spectrum is the unfocused "little bit of everything that ever caught my fancy gone haywire" approach. It's probably fair to say that I started the year much closer to the latter, and have ended the year well closer to the ideal than I began. I won't reach the ideal in my lifetime, but it's the journey that counts. More progress will be made this year.

Year in Review 2013

This won't be a terribly long winded review of the year, but I guess I'd better post something so I can move ahead into the new year with subsequent posts in proper chronological order. Random selection of pictures included...

Grace's 1st sleepover (the body-less head)

The main thing, and the only thing that matters really, is that everyone is healthy and doing well. My family is the joy of my life, and I continue to be amazed at how fast the girls are growing up. I have gone from years of "wow, they are growing fast" to "no no no way too fast, stop the bus!". They are turning into quite interesting little people, and I couldn't be more proud of them.

Something funny on Julia's 15th birthday

Julia continues to be involved in Special Olympics and the Spirit cheerleading squad, while Grace does gymnastics, piano and clarinet (both instruments new this year in terms of actual lessons). I can't believe Julia is in high school, but she must be because she has a minor role (bystander #2) in the high school's spring 2014 production of Les Miserables. She is on cloud 9, and I think that Bystander #2 is the most important small role ever in a musical production. Grace's piano teacher continues to gush over what a natural talent she has and how quickly she is picking things up. Which makes me wonder what she could accomplish if we could get her to practice...

Julia, my (big) little angel

Highlights of the year from a family event perspective would have had to be seeing Les Miserables in Philly early in the year with Julia, The Lion King on Broadway with all four of us, and the Avalon vacation in August.

Grace school picture day

Musically, it was a pretty good year. Amp and I saw three shows together: The Eagles in Philly, and Justin Hayward and Graham Nash (both in Wilmington). We also got to see Brother Dave play with the Rosewood Trio a couple of times which was a real treat as well. I am thrilled for him (and jealous of course). As for playing...short of finding some dedicated time and a commitment to practicing, I will continue to be relegated to owning several nice guitars that I can hack around on a little. For the time being I can live with that. I like having them in the house.

Brother Dave with the Rosewood Trio

Outdoor activities were unfortunately very few and far between. I did a couple of brief solo day hikes and I think that was it, outside of the guys trip to Maine in September. Someday maybe I'll go back and blog about that if for no other reason than to post a bunch of beautiful pictures from the couple of days that I was there.

Acadia NP, Maine

From a hobby perspective, I accomplished what I set out to; I followed whatever whim struck me at the moment. The end result of which is that I got a lot done and had fun in the process. I painted more buildings and made more terrain pieces than actual painting of figures, but I got a decent amount of that done as well, and without specific painting goals, everything I was able to get done was fine in and of itself. I made progress on re-basing my Crusades stuff for Impetus, I completed a good basic set of modular terrain tiles and some fleece covered multi-purpose boards. I completely reorganized and cleaned up the gaming area in the basement with Amparo's help. I did a lot of maintenance on older figures (re-basing where needed, touching up paint jobs and brightening colors). Some Ottomans got painted, and a lot more got prepped and primed for when the mood next strikes me. I learned how to play Impetus, and had some great starter games of Fireball Forward! with Leo. I also made the decision to purge myself of some unused figures/periods and actually did it. I do hope the actual playing of games picks up in 2014, but all things considered 2013 was a good hobby year.

I enjoyed taking pictures with my good camera, and slowly but surely I am learning about all those fancy things it can do beyond point and click.

Pretty dawn sky

I read a lot as usual, but not much fiction this year.

We also spent a lot of time cooking in the beautiful kitchen that Amp created for us back in 2011. It was a large and expensive project, but as much as we love to cook and hang out in the kitchen with friends and family, I think it was the best house investment we have ever made. Especially over the holidays, we tried a ton of new recipes, which I will be writing up as time allows.

Kitchen fun

Lastly, as we get ready to move into 2014, I am thinking about the Christmas tree stand project that Amp and I built together. It was a lot of fun, it looks good, and it has given us the confidence to start thinking about other things we can make. There are a million home Do It Yourself blogs out there with great plans and ideas, and I know that Amp already has her eye on a number of projects.

My sous chef

And so that, in a brief recap, was my/our year. Perhaps not as brief as I thought it would be.

My final thought relates to something that I think Brother Dave wrote about once. "Be Present". Which I interpret to mean being engaged and attentive to what you are involved in; living in the moment, I guess you could say. Time seems to be moving faster and faster every year. The kids are growing up at warp speed. Middle age is on the horizon, not over it (no! it's not here quite yet, thank you!). And so today...I shall make the most of the day.

Farewell 2013.

Geocaching - 2012 and 2013

This will of necessity be a very short post. Geocaching, while I claim to have not lost an interest in it, was not much of a factor in spending my free time last year. After 558 caches in 2010 and 327 more in 2011, I started the year at 885 and ended the year a paltry 40 caches later at 925.

Along the way, I did add some additional geography, notably the state of Texas in January, Washington DC on the family trip in the summer, and several upstate New York counties during the Adirondacks trip with the guys. It does seem that caching while traveling was about the only caching I did.

This year, I intend to get back out and do some more of this, hopefully with a daughter or two (or a brother) in tow. I know that Dave would be more than willing to take part in some hiking/caching trips, as this is the kind of caching he likes to do, and we can get outside, get some exercise, and kill two birds with one stone. The greatest enjoyment I get from gecaching continues to be the fact that it takes me to places, and allows me to see, more things than I would see otherwise. I love collecting new geography...

As for goals in 2013, I will be as vague with this as I was with my miniatures hobby goals posted earlier this month. This ties back into something that my wise older brother mentioned in a blog post of his at some point; I have chosen this year to have "intentions" and not "goals." Goals seem very specific and beg to be measured. Goals can almost become a burden. Intentions are more an expression of where your heart is at at a given point in time. So I have intentions.

• Simply put, I want to be more active than I was this year (which could be rephrased as being active at all).
• Going into 2012, based on prior history, it was inconceivable that I would not reach the major caching milestone of 1,000 finds. But to quote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride (with regards to "inconceivable")... "I don't think it means what you think it means." I managed to come up way short. I will not come up short again this year. I don't know how far beyond 1,000 I will get, but I will get this milestone. I promise myself that much. If I could get 250-ish finds and end near 1200, that would be a fine year. Anything beyond that would be a bonus.
• I have this "collecting" thing about getting new geographies. I would like to add a few states and some new counties in the local area. The guys trip for this year is leaning toward Maine, so that would seem to be a no-brainer. Perhaps business travel will add a state or two. Some road trips in the summer to Jersey, Maryland or Delaware beaches would add some counties.
• In relation to the silly statistics that cachers keep track of, I would like to fill in some of the empty dates on my calendar (the ultimate goal being a find on every calendar date in a 366 day year). 2012 was a leap year, and I did get a cache on February 29, so that is not something I will have to wait until 2016 to deal with. I begin the year with just short of 260 dates; I would like to get 20 or 30 more. This would require judicious planning of "on the way to work" and lunchtime cache finds. In this case, the fact that I have been only an occasional cacher in 2012 should help. New caches have been placed that I have not been paying attention to or have dealt with.

The most important thing by far will be to get back to making this a fun part of my limited spare time. I still have the interest...I just need to make the time.

Miniatures - Looking Back and Ahead

I guess it is time again for the obligatory "what I did in 2012 and what I plan to do in 2013" series of posts, so here goes (miniatures hobby stuff anyway...).

2012 in Review
2012 was a very different year for me with regards to my miniatures hobby. I probably painted more things this year, and in greater variety, than in any year in recent memory. And although "recent memory" these days often barely stretches back to breakfast, as far as painting goes this may have been one of my more productive years ever. While not always documented here on the blog, at various times I painted more medievals, some Seven Years War, some Napoleonics (in 2 scales), some fantasy, some science fiction, lots of buildings, and a whole variety of other odds and ends. I showed my typical lack of focus, with most of my painting moving from period to period and topic to topic, but in aggregate, I painted a lot. In terms of any individual period though, I didn't paint much (with the exception of medievals, where I always paint plenty).

On the actual gaming front it was a whole different story. Outside of some conventions games, there were very few games played this year. That is something that needs to change. I get great enjoyment and relaxation from painting in and of itself, but actually using the figures is something I shouldn't lose sight of. It's amazing how fast time passes...

I ended the year by making myself a new paint rack, so that I can better organize my painting area. It seems that if you leave paint jars unsupervised overnight they tend to multiply, or so it appears to me. So a larger paint rack built to fill the available space seemed reasonable, and was a quick holiday vacation project.

2013 in Intent
Other than the aforementioned need to play more games and use my figs, there isn't too much I would change about my painting from this year. I am content to move from project to project adding a unit or two here and there, and my vague goals below will bear that out. The periods that I am collecting are well enough along (for the most part) that painting the way I have been is adequate.

(All are 25mm unless noted otherwise)
Medieval periods

• 15mm Crusaders - Finish the long overdue re-basing project to get them all onto Impetus style bases. Add a few scenery pieces.
• Hundred Years War - Add a few units by finishing up painting existing fig stock. This is primarily more mounted knights and a scattering of foot.
• Generic Medievals - Again, use primarily existing fig stock to add a few units, especially more mounted knights. These will come from Old Glory's 3rd Crusades range and the Mongols/Liegnitz range.
• Ottomans - I don't have enough of these painted yet to game with, so I should probably spend more of my medieval time working on these. We shall see...

Napoleonics

• Maybe paint a unit or two in 25mm just for fun.
• 15mm - Decide on a basing scheme and stick to it. I have French, Peninsula opponents, and some Austrians, all in a variety of basing schemes. Perhaps add some bicorne Prussians or Austrians to go with my bicorne French (who need painting).

Horse and Musket periods (other)

• Seven Years War - Finish basing the Austrian order that is back from Sri Lanka. Assemble and paint Austrian and Prussian artillery to go with the crew that are done. Pack and ship an order of Prussians out to Sri Lanka for painting.
• English Civil War - Add a unit or two to this little side project which will never ever be completed.

Others

• Lord of the Rings - Make some progress on my Rohan and Isengard armies.
• Fantasy - Paint a few units of Warhammer Empire or Undead if the mood strikes.
• Sci Fi - Likewise for Imperial Guard and Tyranids. Or sell this stuff off (probably a better option).

And so that is the goal. Or intent, as I said above. I don't plan to hold myself to anything in particular, as I am very much in a phase of "do what I want when I want." As always, this could change tomorrow...

Concerts - 2012

One of the things I wanted to take advantage of in 2012 was the opportunity to see as much live music as reasonable. I did a pretty good job of that.

Eric Johnson and a Fender Stratocaster

The year started with an amazing Eric Johnson concert at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville in January. Then there was Willie Nelson at the Keswick in May. Both of these were firsts for me, and great shows.

There was a gap after Willie, but the Fall and Winter were good, with Rush at the Wells Fargo Center (3rd time) and Asia at the Keswick (2nd time, but 29 years after the first time) in October, and the Moody Blues in Atlantic City in November.

In December there is one more show ahead, with Little Feat coming to the Scottish Rite auditorium in South Jersey on Saturday evening. This is another band from long ago that I have always liked, but have never seen live. Dave saw them earlier this year at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and raved about them. He bought the tickets to this show and had extras, so I will be gladly tagging along. Feats don't fail me now!

From a concert-going perspective, if every year could be like this I would be very happy indeed. Going into 2013, I will renew my commitment to seeing as many bands as I can, especially as so many of the groups that I like are getting up there in years and there may not be that many chances left to see some of them.

In 2013 I plan to take advantage of any opportunities that come along, but high on my list would be seeing Yes again if the stars align... And Eric Clapton...

Fiction Reading Recap - 2011

This will be a necessarily brief post. Over the past few years, I have consistently read at least a couple dozen fiction books, and posted short reviews of most of them here. I had some goals for this year that were very reasonably in line with what I had managed recently. But pretty much none of that happened.

In prior years I had read 25-35 books. This year I think I read 4 (not counting a few fluff books, to be a snob about it...). I am not even going to bother to go back and look, the number is so paltry. There are some caveats around this precipitous drop in output. For one thing, I read quite a few short stories this year, both in magazines and in story collections, but since most of those were not part of finishing an entire book, I do not count them. And in general, I did read plenty, just not fiction. This year I got back to reading way more history than I had read in the prior few years. These I don't generally keep track of or write reviews of (though I am not sure why not...).

The one fiction reading goal that I definitely got an A+ in was the one about not buying ridiculously more books than I read. I read very few books. And I only bought a few more than that. So I got something right...

The Year in Review - 2010

Well, it's December 31st, and the obligatory look back at 2010 is now required or they'll take my blogging license away. Hmm. I don't think they actually do that, but just in case...

Outdoors
When looking ahead to this year, I mentioned some goals around hiking, canoeing, backpacking, fishing and other outdoor activities. Most of what I wanted to be able to do this year was accomplished easily. I was able to get out and do a number of very nice day hikes, including Ridley Creek SP, French Creek SP, Brandywine Creek SP and many other little state and local parks. Much of this time spent walking in the woods came about in a way I never would have imagined entering the year - geocaching. In addition to the dedicated hiking trips I have mentioned, dozens and dozens if not hundreds of mile were walked, a few miles at a time, in search of geocaches hidden here, there and everywhere. What a wonderful blend of two interests that turned out to be.

I also specifically mentioned wanting to do an overnight backpacking trip, and much to my delight this actually happened in June in the Lackawanna State Forest. It was hard work, painful at times, but I loved it. And I have a very nice set of equipment that will make the next trip require virtually no additional investment at all.

One outdoors item that did not get addressed is the longstanding desire to do some canoeing. Other than a brief token kayaking run with Dave (little more than a test drive), no time was spent on the water, and this is a disappointment. This will continue to be a goal every year until it happens.

Family
I had hoped that after our wonderful Disney World trip in December 2009 that we would take another big family trip this year, and that did not happen, which is disappointing. But I am pretty happy about the number of smaller things that we were able to do together. We fished, we went places for nice day trips, we spent some time at the River, we geocached, and the girls were involved in more activities than ever before, which Amparo and I tried hard to support and attend as best we could. Julia was involved in cheerleading and various Special Olympics sports, and Grace continues to grow and amaze me.

Reflecting on family is difficult for me at times, because I know that this is the area where I can always do better. Most parents would like to believe that they are doing the best they can, and that they try hard, and in that respect I guess I am no different. But if there was one aspect of life to always strive to be better at, this would be it. There is always more room to be involved. And I could use much more patience.

Wargaming
Bluntly put, 2010 was for the most part a lost year on the wargaming front. And you know what? That's perfectly fine. One of the comments I had made going into this year regarding my hobby was not to worry too much about planning, and just let my interests go where they wanted to. What I meant at the time was to let my interests drift between historical periods and such. What actually happened was that my time and attention drifted almost completely away from wargaming and settled on geocaching instead. Oops. Unexpected; but not a bad thing.

I had expressed the desire to set up a dedicated painting table in the basement. I did that in January and then proceeded to paint less than a hundred figures all year, which is a dreadfully low output. I attended Cold Wars, Historicon, and Fall In as usual, with varying degrees of satisfaction. Cold Wars was good, Historicon was very good, and Fall In was a huge disappointment. We did play a little LaSalle rules for Napoleonics, which I liked well enough to buy some 15mm Spanish and Portugese for the Peninsula, and to begin re-basing many of my existing 15mm Napoleonics. I had a decent sized batch of French and British painted in Sri Lanka. So that is a bright spot. And toward the end of the year Chris Parker began floating some ideas for a 4th edition of Day of Battle, so hopefully that will spark some creative juices in me.

Reading
My interest in modern literature is a big part of my spare time, or at least my nightly before-sleep time. A separate post details my year in books.

Geocaching
I have also written extensively on this elsewhere. Suffice it to say, I found a fun new hobby that I have every intention of continuing with in a semi-obsessed state. Or completely obsessed state depending on your point of view I guess...

Blogging
When reviewing where I spent my time and the things that were important to me this year, I should probably mention blogging itself. I began doing this in September of 2009, and so 201o is my first full year of blogging. By the time the year is done (pretty much now) I will have posted almost 180 entries, or one every other day on average, a level of output that is surprising to me. The great thing is that it has never felt like work. I have always enjoyed writing, and this is a different kind of creative outlet than I have undertaken before. I always wonder who if anybody reads the eclectic mix of stuff I write about here, but the stats don't lie and there are people finding random posts here every day and from all over the world, whether it be wargaming references, book reviews, concert reviews, or hiking trail references. I still insist that the audience I write this blog for is me and my immediate circle of family and friends, but it is kind of cool to think that total strangers show up here from time to time and read what I have written.

General
Going into this year, I talked about a few personal development items that I hoped to make some progress on this year, notably struggling against my introverted nature and living in the moment. On the one hand, I think I actually made some progress this year on focusing on what is going on today and being less distracted by worrying about what has happened in the past or what might happen in the future. On the other hand, I am an introvert. Always have been. Always will be. I could be perfectly content surrounded by my family and a small circle of good friends as well as all the things that are going on in my own head. Perhaps going forward the issue is not so much struggling against my introverted nature but accepting it for what it is. Hmm. I wonder.

Dad
Finally, 2010 will always be the year in which I lost my father. I understand how lucky I have been to have had a loving and involved father in my life for as long as I did. Many people are not so fortunate. But that doesn't make it any easier in the short term to deal with the pain and loss of him not being here. It is said that you don't appreciate what you have until it is gone, and while I think I did always appreciate my dad, in some ways this is still true. Perhaps it is more a question of having taken him for granted. Either way, I miss him. Thank you, Dad. I would not be the man I am without you, and I think I turned out OK.

Geocaching - End of Year 2010 Recap

I began geocaching on April 15, 2010, and when I look back on what I was able to accomplish this year, I am amazed. I am also somewhat stunned by the amount of time and energy that went into a hobby that I had never even heard of when the year began, although I certainly do not mean that in a bad way. It is just a reflection of the unexpected turns our lives can take in terms of how we choose to spend our free time.

One of the ways to keep track of milestones in geocaching is by using a freeware badge generation macro that takes your data as an input and awards you various levels of badges based on predetermined numerical achievements. In my first year I was able to find 558 geocaches, 15 benchmarks (US survey markers), and 45 waymarks (landmarks and places/things of interest). This earned me 11 badges of various degrees.


Due primarily to my most noteworthy achievement, a 100 consecutive day streak with at least one find, I was able to find at least 1 cache in 182 of the 261 days since I started (70%). My total cache-to-cache distance was almost 12,000 miles courtesy of some business travel, especially out to Utah/Wyoming and back, but also including Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and a bunch of trips to north Jersey.


Other things I like to keep track of are how many of the 81 different Difficulty/Terrain rating combinations I have made a find in, as well as how many days of the calendar. As of the end of the year, I have filled those 182 days on the bottom two-thirds of the calendar, and have made a find in 46 of the 81 D/T combinations. Both of these are like Bingo - you want to fill your card as much as possible. As an aside, February 29 next comes around in 2012, so no amount of effort would fill the calendar this year.


Perhaps one of the more fun things to work on from the perspective of using geocaching as an excuse to go new places is the focus on finding caches in new geographies. I have now found caches in 10 US states, as well as 17 of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania. I am also halfheartedly keeping track of counties in Maryland where I have found 9 of 24 counties, and New Jersey where I have found 12 of 21 (mainly in northern and central NJ which is actually further from my home).


Statistical bests at this point are:

• 31 in a day. 10/7/10 in NC.
• 24 in a weekend. 10/30-10/31/10 mainly in Lancaster county.
• 50 in a week. Includes my 2 big NC days.
• 120 in a month. Includes my 2 big NC days.
• 25 days for my fastest 100 finds.
• 4 cache types in a day.
• 2 states in a day. I guess I never tried to do better at this since I live within about 30 miles of 3 states not including my own and can practically hit a golf ball into Delaware from here...
• 7 counties in a day. 6/27/10 in NE PA on the way to our Pinchot Trail backpacking trip.

In the overall scheme of hard-core geocaching, these numbers are not all that impressive, but they are to me, knowing the time and effort that went into them.

But, now having rambled on for quite a while on all sorts of numbers, I will stress again that no matter how much I like looking at those sorts of things, it is not the numbers that have gotten me so addicted to this hobby. It is the things I have seen and the adventures I have had along the way. Some of my favorite memories of geocaching this year would be:

• Doing those 7 NE PA counties with Dave on the way to our backpacking trip in June.
• My 31 find day in NC on the American Tobacco Trail with Ellen in October.
• Finding 11 caches in Utah and Wyoming while out there on business for 4 days. Especially the rental car run to Wyoming one evening, just because I was within an hour and knew I might not get back that way any time soon.
• Road tripping 250 miles of the Eastern Shore of Maryland in July.
• Working really hard to get just a few caches on the Appalachian Trail above Port Clinton PA with Dave in the late fall.
• And last but certainly not least, all the little trips I made to some local park with one or both of my daughters. Precious time well spent.

Wow. It has taken me a long time to write this post because of all the time I have spent remembering all the fun I have had. Ultimately, that is the best testament to geocaching that I can give. And it makes me think forward to all the things I would still like to do...

Painting Totals - 2010

Tallying up my miniatures painting totals for 2010 was a brief and comical exercise. I post this for no other reason than to perhaps shame myself into doing a little bit better this year. Although it would be hard to do worse. To the best of my recollection, all I managed to get done was this:

• 12 medieval cavalry (25mm)
• 3 medieval mounted leader figures (25 mm)
• 1 French Napoleonic divisional general (25mm)
• 1 French 12 lb Napoleonic cannon and 3 line foot artillery crew (25mm)
• Mostly done 16 Ottoman heavy infantry (25mm)
• Mostly done 16 Ottoman janissary archers (25mm)
• Painted and flocked a bunch of bases
• Based and Re-based a host of 15mm Napoleonics

Yep. That's it. Ugh. Pretty dismal. But you know what? For some reason it doesn't bother me all that much...

Recap of Reading Goals - 2010

This will be an easy post to write, as I have gone back and looked at my reading goals for this year and they were short and sweet.

• Read 10 books by authors new to me. Passed this easily. My final new author count was 16. This goal was less about an actual number and much more about broadening my horizons.
• Read 10 books published (or in US editions) in 2010. Passed this easily too. Final count 17. This is probably the easiest goal to achieve, and was simply a way to make sure I was paying attention to what good new books were coming out.
• Read a few classics. Accomplished this with 2 Hemingways, a Fitzgerald, and a book by Hans Keilor published in Europe in 1947.
• Read 30 books. Just made this, with a final total of 31.

I will have to think about reading goals for 2011, or if even to have any. I have settled into a nice routine of reading regularly, and keeping up with my favorite authors and highly rated new stuff that is coming out. So goals around those items have lost meaning. What probably does make sense is to continue to try to make an effort to go back and read a few more classics, and continue to find authors new to me.

Perhaps classics should include authors such as Faulkner, Steinbeck, Twain and the like. We shall see...

The Reading Year in Review - 2010

2010 was another great year for reading, with a host of very good books having crossed my nightstand. This year probably had a broader selection of authors, types of books and publication dates than any other year, which is a good thing. So without further ado... [Dates of my blog capsule reviews are in square brackets - all dates 2010]

5 Stars - Excellent

• The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald (1925). I loved this book as a younger man and still do now. Some of Fitzgerald's prose is breathtaking. I took this out of the running for my favorite book of the year, mainly because I have read it a few times before. [Feb 10]
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonsen (2010). My favorite book of the year in many ways, although two story collections below gave it a serious run for the money, as did a couple of novels. [Sep 20]
• Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It (Stories), Maile Meloy (2009). Runner-up #1 for my book of the year. [Dec 27]
• If I Loved You I Would Tell You This (Stories), Robin Black (2010). Runner-up #2 for my book of the year. [Aug 27]

4.5 Stars - Almost Excellent

• What is Left the Daughter, Howard Norman (2010). A new author for me, and a book I really liked. [Aug 10]
• Safe From the Neighbors, Steve Yarbrough (2010). Yet another strong outing from one of my favorite authors. [Feb 25]
• Molly Fox's Birthday, Deirdre Madden (2008) [Aug 15]
• Memory Wall (Stories), Anthony Doerr (2010) [Aug 21]
• Summertime, JM Coetzee (2009). Another great Coetzee book. [Jan 17]
• The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (1952). A classic well worth the re-read. [Feb 12]

4 Stars - Very Good

• Emperor of the Air (Stories), Ethan Canin (1988) [Jan 21]
• A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan (2010) [Oct 18]
• Driving on the Rim, Thomas McGuane (2010) [Nov 11]
• Keep the Change, Thomas McGuane (1989) [Nov 17]
• Nothing But Blue Skies, Thomas McGuane (1992) [Nov 16]
• Chemistry and other Stories, Ron Rash (2007) [Oct 18]
• Alone with You (Stories), Marisa Silver (2010) [Nov 4]
• Love and Summer, William Trevor (2009) [Feb 26]
• Mississippi History (Stories), Steve Yarbrough (1994) [May 20]

3.5 Stars - Almost Very Good

• Weeping Underwater Looks a Lot Like Laughter, Michael J White (2010) [May 15]
• My Father's Tears and other Stories, John Updike (2009) [Jan 29]
• Fun with Problems (Stories), Robert Stone (2010) [Feb 17]
• Nemesis, Philip Roth (2010) [Oct 23]
• Burning Bright (Stories), Ron Rash (2010) [Oct 1]
• The Cadence of Grass, Thomas McGuane (2002) [Nov 13]
• Something to be Desired, Thomas McGuane (1984) [Nov 18]
• Broken Glass Park, Alina Bronsky (2008) [May 29]

3 stars - Good but nothing special

• The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (1926). I wanted to like this, but just couldn't. It just didn't strike a chord with me. And the prose was painful at times. A stark contrast to The Old Man and the Sea, which I really enjoyed. [Feb 4]
• Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Keilson (1947) [Nov 13]
• Tinkers, Paul Harding (2009). [Jan 20]
• Point Omega, Don Delillo (2010) [Aug 11]

There were a few books that I started and just couldn't keep moving on. The two that come to mind are Paul Auster's Invisible (2009), which I just bogged down in, and Emma Donoghue's Room (2010), which is one of the very rare books that I just actively disliked.

Factoids on the Year's Reading:

• I read 31 books, or exactly the same number as last year. For most of the year I was on a pace to read somewhere in the low 20's, but many hours at Dad's bedside added 8 or 9 books I probably wouldn't have read otherwise.
• I bought 64 books for a total of approximately $501.27, or $7.83 per book, or only $41.77 per month. This is about half of last year, which is good I suppose since I'm not sure where to put all these books.
• My deficit of books read to books purchased this year is only 33 (64-31), which has to be my lowest since I began reading again.
• My modern lit library is up to about 755 books, of which I have read all or part of around 200.
• The books from this year broke out as 10 story collections and 21 novels, which is many more story collections than last year when I read only 3. Maybe my attention span is going...
• 22 of the books were published in the 2000's, 2 in the 1990's, 3 in the 1980's, 1 in the 1950's, 1 in the 1940's, and 2 in the 1920's.
• 17 of the 31 books were by authors new to me (or new in the sense of having read them as an adult, which lends a different perspective, I think).

I did have some specific reading goals for 2010, and I will review them in a different post.

[12/29/10 - On further reflection of this list in its entirety, I shuffled a few ratings from what I originally gave them in their reviews. The three 5-star books other than Gatsby were elevated from 4.5 stars, as they really were the three best books I read this year. Tinkers and Point Omega were dropped from 3.5 to 3. This "unclumps" the middle of the bell curve a little...]

2009 - The Year in Review

Notes and observations from the year just ended. The small stuff. In no particular order.

• We had a few fishing trips to the River, which the girls enjoyed, and are anxious to continue to do. I am very glad they like to fish at this age, as it was one of my favorite things growing up.
• The family went on a real vacation trip this year, something we hadn't done for a while.
• Getting out into the outdoors to do some hiking with Dave and Leo was a great new thing for me, beginning in the fall. This has to be kept going.
• From a wargaming perspective, I painted about as many figures as I can reasonably expect to, had less figures painted in Sri Lanka than I normally have over the last few years (too many other things going on), and played less actual games than I would have liked. There were some stretches of routine game-playing, but too many long droughts.
• I read less modern literature than I did last year, but still managed to get about 30 books read, not counting history and some fluff stuff. The 30 or so only counts "serious" books. Boy, that sounds snobbish, huh?
• Golf suffered this year. After golfing 10-12 times in 2008, I believe I only got out 3 times this year, and my game showed the effects of that disuse.
• Last, and certainly not least, since beginning this blog in September, I managed 65+ posts and had a great time doing it. Even if few people are reading this, it serves a nice purpose for organizing my thoughts, and when printed out (as Dave got for Christmas in book form from family via blog2print), creates a wonderful journal of what was going on in my life. For posterity, Jeeves...

Anyway, these are just a few thoughts, but my mind is wandering more towards the year ahead.

Coming and Going - New Years 2010

As seems to be the case with just about every blog I follow with any regularity, it is an opportune time to reflect a little bit on 2009 and to ponder what I would like to see happen in 2010. So with a belly full of a very tasty Masaman curry from a local Thai place, and a glass of nicely oaked Chardonnay safely in hand...

I continue to have much to be thankful for, the most important of which is that the whole gang had a happy and healthy year. Ultimately, I couldn't ask for more than that. There are certainly more things crossing my mind now than I care to put in writing, but suffice it to say that watching the girls grow is a neverending source of wonder. And worry. And bewilderment. And frustration. And joy. Lots of joy.

I have a great family, wonderful friends, and a successful career with a good solid company. My day to day worries are few (in any significant way), and I have the freedom to indulge my hobbies and interests in pretty much whatever manner I choose. Having the time to do so remains the biggest challenge, but that is because my life is filled with many great things, each of which take some time. So there are worse situations to be in. Much to be thankful for indeed.
The simplest and most sincere wish I could have for the coming year is that the great good fortune that blessed my family this year continue.

When sitting down to write this, I had intended to catalog lists of specific things in 2009 worthy of noting, and listing some goals for 2010. Maybe I will do so in a future posting, but as I read through what I have already written, it seems that I have already said everything that truly needs saying.
So...good night.