October Hobby Update

I have been delinquent in posting recently, but I have been diligently putting some time in on finishing projects that had been started but then languished, taking up space in limbo without being able to be checked off and filed away.

Bocage

Bocage - I had made some hedge/bocage terrain for 15mm WW2 use, and it worked well in the Fireball Forward! games that Leo and I played back in August 2013. I made around 15 linear feet or so of the stuff the first time around, but what became very quickly apparent is that even a modest sized table can eat up lots and lots of these. My write up on how I made the "hedge" pieces is back in March 2013, here. This time around, I made another batch of 22-23 feet, almost all pieces having a small tree or two embedded in them. I also made a variety of lengths, ranging from 12 or 15 inches down to little pieces that are only 3 inches long. This will give me more flexibility for terrain layouts, as well as for creating "breaches" in the bocage as needed during games (pull one long piece off and replace with two smaller pieces separated by a gap).

Roads - brown and gray

Roads - Making roads out of a non-flexible material is not the most preferable thing in the world, as it makes them, well, less flexible. But I have been in need of more roads, and as I was making hedges the first time around, it occurred to me that the same general process (carved balsa strip, glue, sand, spray paint, dry brush) could be used to make roads. I saw a game of Fireball Forward! at a convention last year that used a combination of roads like shown below to have both "urban" roads (improved roads in built up areas) and "rural" roads. It was very easy, with Grace's help, to make about 20 feet each of brown and gray road, a sampling of which is shown. I am pleased by the result. They are 1.5 inches wide, and look good for both 25mm figures of all periods as well as my 15mm WW2.

Saxons and Vikings

Dark Ages skirmish - I have modest sized armies of both Saxons and Vikings in 25mm that I never use. In preparing for the Fall In convention in November, I have signed up for a Saturday morning flea market table. I have too much stuff that I don't use often (or in some cases at all), and I would rather focus my energies on the things that I do play. My original intent was to sell all of both of these armies, but I decided to pull out 40-50 figures of each and make armies for Saga skirmish rules. While rebasing, I also took some time to touch up the painting on a few of the figures, as some of these are among the oldest figures I own. Whether or not these get played with or not remains to be seen, but I definitely stand a better shot of getting around to it than I did with conventional dark age armies. The remainder will be sold...and maybe these too someday.

Ottomans - I have also made some painting and basing progress on my Ottomans (although as usual the bases have not been scenicked yet. Over the course of the past few weeks I painted one little unit of 4 akinji light cavalry figures, completed a unit of Janissary archers in a green scheme, and painted three units of Ottoman armored infantry. All are Old Glory 25mm.

Ottoman akinji

Ottoman Janissaries (front and side)

Ottoman armored infantry

The Ottomans are going to be based on Impetus style bases rather than conventional basing as per the rest of my medieval armies. I am a little hesitant to do this, as this will be my only army based this way, but I do like the more random "diorama" look you can get doing it this way (as well as needing fewer figures because they don't need to be crammed in as tightly in such a rigidly structured way).

The Lion King on Broadway

or... Julia's Big Day

Julia is a huge fan of musicals, and following her Christmas present of tickets to see Les Miserables on stage earlier this year, she has been plotting and planning and watching lots of YouTube video clips of other things she would like to see. Julia doesn't have a ton of different interests, but when she gets into something, she really gets into it (and therefore it makes it impossible for us not to support it)... One of her recent obsessions has been The Lion King. Unlike Les Miz, The Lion King isn't touring, so if we saw it, it would have to be on Broadway. For Julia's recent birthday, we decided to splurge, and we got her 4 tickets (to make it a full family event) to see her new favorite show. Her birthday was a month ago, but the Saturday matinee date that made sense was this weekend, so she has been anxiously awaiting the day for weeks.

We left home at around 9am and were in the city by a little after 11am, having made great time. We knew the general location of the Minskoff Theater on Times Square, and parked nearby. As it turns out, when we walked up out of the underground garage, the first thing we saw was the Minskoff marquee, with Lion King in big bright lights. Julia was thrilled.

Big smiles

Grace and the Diners, Drive ins and Dives car

Everyone was hungry, we had time to kill and needed lunch, so we were looking for a place to eat when Grace spotted Guy Fieri's American Kitchen and Bar. Grace and I love Food Network, and she knows Guy Fieri well from all the various things we have watched, so she insisted on eating there. Which was fine with us. It was just opening at 11:30 and we were among the first in the door. Grace ooh'ed and aah'ed enough that the manager who seated us gave her a pair of Guy Fieri wristbands and a free dessert for being a big fan of Guy's. It's always nice to feel pampered, even in a small way, but if you can make my kids happy then you have made Amp and I happy. Apparently this restaurant had only been open for about a month, and we liked it a lot. The food was delicious (I had a huge roast beef sandwich with very good dippy juice). Prices were New York City appalling, but that's to be expected in a name location right off Times Square. It only hurts if you think about it, and once more when you sign the check...

Happy girls

After a nice long relaxing lunch out of the chill, we made our way to the theater and waited in line for a short while before they let us in. We had seats in the balcony, 4 or 5 rows back, right in the middle. They were good seats, with a nice view of the stage.

The show started at around 2:10pm to a packed house with lots of kids. The opening scene, "Circle of Life", is terrific, with all sorts of life sized animal "puppets" making their way to the stage from all different parts of the theater. For this part, it would have been great to be down low near the stage as the animals all came up the aisles, but our seats still had a great view, and there were performers along the sides of the balcony as well. The first act lasted about 65 minutes, followed by a 15 minute intermission that was closer to 25 minutes, and a 55 minute second act. So it was not a long show, but very impressive nonetheless.

View from our balcony seats (pre-show)

Overall the show was terrific, very faithful to the movie and therefore very familiar, and with great music, dancing and visual effects. Julia was enthralled the whole way through, and it made me very happy to look over at her at various points throughout the show and see the huge smile on her face. Today was really one of those days where I felt like a good Daddy.

If I were to have any complaint at all, and it is a minor one, it would be that the singing was hard to hear at certain points. I am not sure if this is because of how the performers were miked, or the volume of the orchestra and percussion, or the sound mixing (or our balcony seats). Independently, Amparo had the same observation, so it wasn't just my imagination. Vocal quality was fine, volume was not so much so sometimes.

Julia had a wonderful day and was very appreciative of us doing this for her. She has said over and over "I never expected anything like this for my birthday." Which makes it even more special.

By shortly after 5:30pm, we were back in the car and heading toward Amp's sister's house in north Jersey to hang out with them overnight, returning home Sunday. An A+ weekend for sure...

Rosewood Trio at St Peters Inn

Our intrepid Explorer

Today was a gorgeous Fall day, and the Rosewood Trio, including brother Dave on bass, were playing on the patio of the St Peters Inn in St Peters Village, near French Creek State Park. They have played a couple times at the bakery there, but we had not been able to make either of those events. With no major kids' events scheduled, we put this on the calendar as a nice way to spend the afternoon and see someplace new, as I had heard from a number of people that this was a nice place to take the family for a few hours. Now if we could just get the forecasted chance of showers to hold off...

As it turned out, Amp was very sick to her stomach over the weekend, so it ended up being me and the girls making the pilgrimage to see Uncle Dave. My first inclination was to skip it and stay home since we couldn't all go, but Amp wasn't dangerously ill (easy for me to say), and the kids needed to get out of the house on what turned out to be a beautiful day, so off we went.

A River Runs Through It...sort of

I'm very glad we did. There isn't a whole lot to St Peters Village, but it is a nice scenic spot, with a number of old buildings overlooking a boulder-strewn stream valley (which Grace loved playing around on). The weather was perfect, the music was great, and it was nice to hang out on the patio with brother Dave's Darling wife and a few other friends enjoying the day and having a few good snacks and beverages. I'm very sorry that Amp couldn't make it, which did put a bit of a damper on the day, but the girls and I had a good time and would have no hesitation going back if they play there again. Which I hope they do...

Chip, Sandy, Dave and that pesky porta-potty

"Here Comes the Sun"

A smile caught on camera

Backing vocalists (pass the wine...)

The St Peters Inn patio

Fair to say, a good time was had by all.

Ottoman Project - Ready to Paint

I have prepped and primed almost everything I have in the way of Ottomans (minus a couple bags of foot), as well as some additional 14th/15th century odds and ends for Ottoman opponents. The foot I haven't primed yet are not absolutely necessary for a small game, so I can deal with those later. Now that everything is laid out in one place, I am able to assess what I need more of, and can put an order together for Old Glory that can be picked up at Fall In in mid-November. I'm not completely sure what this order will be yet, but I could use some additional eastern looking command types, as well as a bag of janissary archers. Other purchases will probably be some not-really-necessary but fun to have things from OG's Vlad the Impaler range. Things like Dellis cavalry and some of the more exotic looking eastern types.

Ottomans at right, opponents to the left

Now all that remains for the moment is painting. Lots and lots of painting...

Grandmom's Desk

My grandmother on my mom's side was a wonderful lady; the quintessential Grandmom. We spent countless summer weekends at my grandparents' place on the Sassafras River while growing up, and I have many wonderful childhood memories there. She passed away in October of 1999, just five months short of her 100th birthday. When my aunt moved into a nursing home several years ago and Grandmom's house was sold, one piece of furniture that I wanted to keep was a secretary desk that had been in her front hallway.

When we got it, it was badly scratched up, with some water damage to the finish in several places. A couple of the drawer pulls were completely missing, and others were broken or damaged. We could also tell that the pulls had been replaced at some point in the past with cheap ones that didn't match the style of the piece. From faint outlines on the drawer fronts and some internet searching, it was obvious that the drawer pulls had originally been "swan pulls" mounted on a pair of small rosettes.

Having assessed everything, the project entailed the following:

• Dismantle the entire piece.
• Remove the complicated letter slot/ drawer insert inside the fold down part of the desk. We saved this, but it was pretty beat up and would have been impossible for us to sand and refinish (well, without making the project take forever...). The piece, while losing some of its authenticity, will be much more practical now, as the interior space is much larger than before.
• Sand the entire piece down to bare mahogany.
• Do some basic repair work on the ball and claw feet.
• Replace the plywood backer with a new piece.
• Do a little repair work on the drawers so they move easier.
• Stain the entire piece (two coats).
• Two coats of polyurethane.
• Replace the drawer pulls with new genuine ones ordered online.
• Reassemble and admire.

We began in late July, dismantling and sanding, and worked on it periodically over the next month or so. Amparo gets most of the credit for doing the tedious work, which involved hours of careful sanding. At that point it was hard to imagine the end result, or ever being done for that matter.

The staining and poly coats were not difficult, it was just a question of putting aside time to make some progress. We stained in batches during September and did most of the first poly coat. The drive to the finish line began last week in the evenings, and completed over the weekend.

I wish I had taken a good "before" picture, but I don't seem to have done so. The picture below is the earliest I can find. We have dismantled the piece and sanding is just beginning.

Sanding down to bare mahogany

The bare mahogany was lighter than I would have expected, but would get dark again the moment we began to stain.

Almost ready for staining

I am amazed at the end result. We did a good job (especially considering that this is really our first effort at this sort of thing).

The Finished Product

In addition to having a nice piece of furniture, it makes me smile to have a tangible memory of my grandparents' house sitting here in mine...

Ottoman Progress

We've had a low key weekend with the Wife trying to shake off a cold and some serious congestion, so we didn't stray too far from home (other than Thing 2's first sleep over last night, which went well, at least by the criteria of not receiving the 2am "Daddy I wanna come home" phone call).

Since we did stay close to home, the two main projects were to get the desk refinishing project near completion, and to spend a few hours here and there prepping more figures for the Ottoman Project. I'll spare the pictures until there is something more glamorous to show for my efforts, but the tedious hours spent this weekend were well worth it. Prepping and priming figures isn't a whole lot of fun, but is obviously a necessary part of the process.

This weekend I accomplished the following (all are Old Glory 25mm figs):

• Finished prepping 10 armored sipahi cavalry (1 bag)
• Prepped 20 unarmored sipahis (2 bags)
• Prepped 10 akinji light cavalry (1 bag)
• Finished prepping 10 Wallachian cavalry (1 bag)
• Prepped 30 French crossbows (1 bag)
• Prepped 30 French heavy infantry spearmen (1 bag)
• Prepped the remnants of an Ottoman high command bag
• Prepped about 15 voynuk heavy infantry (about half a bag)
• Prepped the last half bag (12 figs) of armored Ottoman infantry
• Touched up the black priming on 10 German caparisoned knights and 10 Hungarian knights

After all these figures were assembled, I have begun to prime them. Unarmored figures (sipahis and akinji) will get a brown prime (which is a head start on painting the horses). Everyone else gets a black prime. Metallic armor looks better over a black prime, but for unarmored figures I have started to use a brown prime. I find that the brown gives similar shadowing in the recesses like black does, but is less harsh to paint for my tired old eyes...

I'll post a picture soon, either after I have made some painting progress or at least primed all the figures.

Ottoman Project in 25mm

Several years ago I made some initial progress on an Ottoman medieval army in 25mm, circa the era of Nicopolis 1396. I painted a few units myself and had some painted in Sri Lanka for me. Then nothing much happened for quite some time. I need a painting project to focus on, and I am planning to get back to this.

The pictures below show where the project stands at this moment. I have completed 5 stands of Hungarian skirmish cavalry and 5 stands of akinji skirmish cavalry, along with 2 mounted leaders and a banner bearer. There is also one unit of armored infantry, one unit of janissary archers and two units of regular archers. In the partially painted category are another unit of janissary archers and another unit of armored infantry, along with one more mounted leader. Primed are 9 armored sipahi cavalry figures, with 9 more figures partially assembled. The three bags in front contain 10 more akinjis and 20 unarmored sipahi cavalry.

Step 1, I guess, will be to complete the two partially painted foot units. Step 2 will be to finish assembling and priming lots of cavalry. That way I can assembly line a good number of cavalry in hopefully a fairly manageable amount of time. A bunch of foot may get sent to Sri Lanka. One can dream...

In addition to what is pictured here there are more armored infantry, voynuk heavy infantry, archers and spearmen. There are also some Wallachian cavalry assembled and ready to paint as Allies and/or opponents. Plus Hungarian knights primed and ready. Now all I need to do is actually paint.

An Anniversary Weekend

I've been fairly quiet recently, which is more an indication of things having been busy than anything else. I have some blogging to catch up on regarding the ill-fated Maine 2013 "guys trip", but that will be a catch-up story for another day. Brother Dave's blog is hitting the highlights (low lights?) of the trip, at least from my perspective, and that will have to suffice on that subject for the moment.

In the aftermath of the Maine trip, Amparo suggested that we try to get away for our 23rd anniversary this weekend, just the two of us. This would be a rare and wonderful thing, and after getting confirmation from brother Dave that he and his Darling Wife could watch our kids while we were gone, it was up to me to plan an overnight away. The basic goal was a nice dinner, some sort of evening entertainment and then a really good hotel. After spending some time figuring out what kind of entertainment was available nearby on the evening of the 28th, we ended up with the following: dinner at Deep Blue in downtown Wilmington, excellent seats to see Graham Nash (of Crosby Stills and Nash, as well as the Hollies) at the Grand Opera House, capped off with an overnight at the Hotel DuPont. Dave and his Darling Wife would be at our house by around 2pm Saturday, and we would be on our own until noon Sunday.

Shopping sans Children
Without the kids in tow, we decided to start our 22 hours of freedom with some unencumbered shopping at the Christiana Mall. This may not sound all that exciting, but those parents out there will likely appreciate the idea of going to the stores you want to go to and browsing things you want to see without the continual backdrop of "I'm bored...are we going home yet?". We did some shopping for ourselves as well as some shopping for Julia's upcoming birthday before heading back to Wilmington at around 4:45.

Deep Blue
Getting back to Wilmington was a breeze, and we were checking into our room at the Hotel DuPont by about 5:10. After a quick freshen up (in our very luxurious deluxe single room), we walked the short block and a half to Deep Blue, and were seated at our table by 6. We had been to this restaurant once before, a few years ago, and had been very impressed. Amp started with a Caesar salad and had the crab cakes with bacon horseradish mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. For starters I had an arugula salad with bacon, heirloom tomatoes, candied walnuts, blue cheese crumbles and a blue cheese vinaigrette. My entree was sauteed scallops with spinach spaetzle and a lobster cream sauce. We split a ginger creme brulee for dessert. Everything was wonderful.

Our view of the stage at the Grand Opera

Graham Nash at the Grand Opera
The choice of seeing Graham Nash was something of a shot in the dark, insofar as I don't know much about him other than the Hollies and CSN hit songs from many years ago. Given what was available to see on the evening of the 28th, this seemed like a good bet, and in retrospect, I couldn't have made a much better choice. I will write a separate post about this concert soon, but suffice it to say that this was a fabulous event. Nash is 71 and a half years old, but his voice was still terrific, and to hear some of these songs by a musical icon in a small venue is what live music is all about. Highlights were Bus Stop from the Hollies, Our House, Marrakesh Express and Just a Song Before I Go from CSN, Blackbird by the Beatles, and the final song of Teach Your Children by CSN. The Grand Opera is another one of those smaller venues that makes every event special. I will be keeping an eye on the event calendar for this place.

The Hotel DuPont
After the 8pm concert wrapped up at 10:40pm, we made the two block walk back to the hotel and spent the rest of our evening enjoying some quiet and relaxing time...without kids. Our room was very nice, with a living room, a large bathroom with shower and big soaking tub, and an adjoining bedroom.  Everything was clean and nice, and I would heartily recommend the Hotel DuPont to anyone looking for a really nice place to stay in downtown Wilmington.

Our living room at the hotel...

We slept in a bit on Sunday morning, getting up in time for the 9:30am room service breakfast we had scheduled the night before. It was a luxury to spend a quiet morning in the room, lounging around the breakfast table in the nice cotton robes provided by the Hotel. I could get used to that... Eventually, we showered and left in time to get home by noon, as we had promised.

An Appreciation...
We had an amazing time, and none of it would have been possible without brother Dave and his Darling Wife watching our kids while we were gone. Words cannot express how appreciative we are for having been given the gift of an overnight away. Thank you so much...

Far and Away

In a blog post yesterday, brother Dave wrote about our upcoming trip to Maine, and his brief research into whether this would be the northernmost point he had been to. It turns out it will not be for him, but having already looked into this myself (map geek that I am), it got me to thinking about the rest of my "furthests." So without further ado...

Within the United States:

• North - Watford City ND in 2011 when we left the Theodore Roosevelt National Park north unit and drove into town for supplies. 47.8025N. Getting further north in the US would only be possible very very close to the Canadian border out west or in the vicinity of Seattle. Or Alaska of course.
• South - Miami FL for a few different sales meetings over the years. 25.7877N. The Florida Keys would be about the only more southerly option. Leaving the continental US, Maui Hawaii is further south at 20.8000N, which was our honeymoon in 1990.
• West - In the continental US, this would be San Francisco, at 122.4167W, when Amp and I went to SF and Napa on vacation in the early 1990's. Maui at 156.3333W is obviously further west. There is very little continental US west of San Fran; just some strips along the coast in northern California, Oregon and Washington. Some Hawaiian islands are further west than Maui.
• East - As of right now, Hyannis MA on Cape Cod would be my furthest east point, but circumstances willing I will top that next week when we land in Maine. Woo Hoo!

Worldwide:

• North - Berlin, Germany (then West Berlin) at 52.5167N in the summer of 1985 as part of a 4-week Eurrail pass trip with a couple of friends. There are many cities in Europe that I have been to that are further north than Watford City, ND (including London, Brussels and Amsterdam).
• East - Athens, Greece at 23.7167E. This was in the summer of 1986, following my sophomore year in college, when I spent much of the summer working on an archaeological survey based in Heraklion (Archaia Nemea) in the Peloponnese. Athens is 5,027 miles east of home.
• South and West - I have been to the Philippines to visit Amp's family in Manila twice in my life. Once when Julia was 3 months old in 1998 and once when she was 3 years old in 2001. On the earlier trip, we took a day trip by boat to see the historic island of Corregidor, guarding the western entrance to Manila Bay. This was an incredibly cool experience (and should be a future "memory lane" post). This island is my furthest west at 120.5731E and furthest south at 14.3856N. Corregidor is 8,554 miles west of home (and an eternity by plane via the west coast and Japan, especially with a baby that can cry the length of the Pacific...).

This probably isn't of interest to anybody but me and perhaps Dave, but what the heck...

Maine 2013 Trip Update - 2 Weeks Out

It hardly seems possible, but this year's trip is now less than two weeks away. With that in mind, Dave, Leo and I got together last night to go over final planning considerations, and as an excuse to get together.

Remembrance of things past - Little Devils Tower 2011

Earlier in the week, we had a very unfortunate development; Ted, the fourth member of our crew this year informed us that some pressing work concerns had arisen and he won't be able to make it. This is really bad news, not in that it changes anything we would be doing, but one of the main things about a trip like this is the camaraderie, and the more the merrier. Four in the Dakotas was great. Five in the Adirondacks last year was even better. This time we will only be three. The only planning change this necessitated was that we could downgrade the vehicle rental from an SUV to a car and save money that way. After making sure that we had all the logistics taken care of, we spent some time going over gear lists in terms of who would be bringing what, and discussed some of the possible hikes we will do. We even batted around a few ideas for a 2014 trip, but that is a whole different story.

Other than some additional hike research for background, there isn't much of anything left to do except start setting aside what I will be packing to take, and making sure that I have everything I need. I want to do this sooner rather than later, since I may need some clothing. The prior two trips have both been warm weather locations (and seasons). Maine in mid September will be different, and could be very different. The average daily highs are around 72, and the average nightly lows are around 52. Record highs are only in the low 80's, and record lows are down in the 30's. So to be on the safe side, I may well need to have more cool weather options than I own. Probably not, but maybe, and one way or another I need to figure that out now.

So that's the plan for this weekend; closet review, and then start making the gear pile in the basement. Almost none of this stuff gets daily-life use, so I might as well start gathering it together now.

Rosewood Trio Charity Event

The family went to see a charity polo match yesterday to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society at the Brandywine Polo Club in Toughkenamon PA. It's always nice to support a good cause, but the main reason to go was to see brother Dave play bass in the Rosewood Trio. They have played some coffee house events but I had not managed to get to one and have been very anxious to see them.

Post-match crowd greeting

The website said "first match at 3pm" and the music to start at 6:30, so we weren't in a big hurry to get there. Perhaps we should have been. When we rolled in a little before 5:00, we managed to catch the last few minutes of polo. That was a bit disappointing. We were there primarily for the music, but my kids would have liked to see the horses more than they did.

The Rosewood Trio (plus drummer)

We had a chance to get a drink and a little bit of food and meet some of Dave's friends, and then the Trio went on just before 6:00.

Dave has raved about his band mates, and I had complete faith in his judgement. He was right. They were really good. Chip plays guitar, Sandy plays guitar and sings, and Dave plays bass. For this show, they had Joe, a drummer friend, sitting in with them.

Brother Dave in his happy place (no, really)

They were tight, they picked good songs (most of which are escaping me at the moment), and for a temporary outdoor setup on the lawn of a polo club, the sound mix was terrific. They sounded great.

Chip and Sandy

As for the songs, Dave can probably remind me so I can edit this later, but I know they did Wide Open Spaces from the Dixie Chicks (a favorite of my family's) and Van Morisson's Brown Eyed Girl, another classic (but no no no you can't sing "Brown Eyed Guy"!!).

Rosewood hokey pokey (put your right foot in...)

In addition to loving music of just about any kind, I enjoy looking at all the instruments and paraphernalia. So it was fun checking out the guitars, the foot pedals, setups and electronics. I know this from a few other musician friends as well, but it seems everything can be run from an iPad these days.

Artsy side shot (and nice guitars)

The whole set was impressive and I loved every minute of it. A good blue grass band with some people Dave knew played next, and we listened to a couple songs before the kids got antsy and hungry. Apparently there was a combined encore at the end that would have been nice to see, but c'est la vie. As I told Dave after the show, my jealousy really knows no bounds as to the thought of playing something well enough to actually play with good musicians and make real music. I have a hard time imagining something more fun than that must be. And I know that Dave feels the same way (despite the fact that he never smiles...).

I even won a nice original watercolor painting in the silent auction.

Memory Lane - US Open, Merion Golf Club, 1981

As Dave and I have bemoaned many times over the last few months, it doesn't seem like Mom and Dad ever threw anything away. This makes for a mountain of stuff to go through at the old homestead, but you do want to take the time to go through things carefully because of the nuggets of good stuff that are worth saving. Mom had manila envelopes with mementos of various things from throughout our childhoods. While many of these are head scratchers as to why they were deemed important enough to save, every now and then there is a little treasure of a memory. This is one of those: my ticket to the 81st US Open Championship at Merion Golf Club, June 21 1981. The ticket is for Day 4, the final round on Sunday.

This was the first and only golf tournament I have ever been to. I would have just finished my freshman year of high school. Dad had gotten two tickets from somewhere, and I got to go. Even though the $18 ticket included parking privileges, we got there by taking the Media trolley from the Scenic Hills stop into the city and then the train out to Ardmore/Haverford where we caught a shuttle to the course. I have certain images in my head clearly, and remember being awed by the names of the players as they walked by fairly close to where we stood along the fairway of one of the holes (Jack Nicklaus, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, J C Snead...). We stayed in a few places for a while and watched rather than moving around a lot. A quick search reveals that David Graham won with a score of 273, and pocketed $55,000 for his effort. Nicklaus tied for 6th and took home $9,920. Times have changed.

Avalon NJ Vacation, Day 3

Thursday August 15, Day 3

Kids and fountains... Cape May

After another late night and busy day, it was hard getting the kids up and moving. Once we did, we debated whether or not to hit the beach one last time but opted not to. Everyone had gotten a lot of sun and liked the idea of doing something else. On a longer beach vacation, it would make sense to break up beach time with other things to do, but on a short trip like this, our rest from the beach day would be our last. Oh well. We decided to pack up, check out, and drive down the coast to do some quick sightseeing through Cape May.

We parked in the center of town, which was absolutely mobbed, and grabbed a not-so-quick bite to eat at a not-so-great place on Washington Mall. We then spent a couple of hours strolling the outdoor mall, getting ice cream, looking at the cool old buildings and doing some shopping. I even managed to grab a geocache right near where we parked.

Strolling Washington Mall

We were on the road by 3:00pm, and after a stop at a craft store for Amp on the way home, we were back home by around 5:30. The kids had great fun (as did all of us) and are already asking if we can go back for longer next year. I think that's a great idea.

Avalon NJ Vacation, Day 2

Wednesday August 14, Day 2

Day 2 of our little vacation was a day full of sun and sand. And despite lots of good sunscreen, some mild sunburn for a few of us...

Geocaching in the dunes

Because of last night's late trip to the Wildwood boardwalk, we didn't get an early start, but were down at the pool by midmorning. We spent a couple hours lounging by the pool while the kids swam before everybody started to get hungry and the kids got anxious to get to the beach. We ate a quick lunch back in our room and then gathered our gear for the beach. It was a lot more crowded than the day before, and was a beautiful sunny day, with a nice ocean breeze and temperature around 75. Just about perfect in other words.

After getting everyone settled at the beach and doing some wave jumping with Julia, I went to do some geocaching. On the Avalon/Stone Harbor island, there were around 20 or so easy caches that had been found recently. I knew I only had time to find a few of them, but it was nice to get out at least a little, and I ended up finding 6 (including a virtual cache) and searching for and being unable to find 1 other. This took a leisurely two hours, and I was back on the beach by 3:30.

Mini golf

By this time the kids were full of sand and asking to go back to the pool, so we spent another two hours there, lounging swimming and snacking. Over-snacking really, since we had planned for a 7pm dinner at a place on the other end of the island. After we had showered, gotten changed and driven to the restaurant, nobody was hungry yet. We ended up wandering along Dune Avenue in the 20's and stopping to play miniature golf, which was pretty comical. I think it is fair to say that we don't have any golf prodigies in the family. When we were done golfing, we couldn't get into the restaurant (which doesn't take reservations), so we headed back to the hotel and ate another very good meal there. The kids wanted to go to the boardwalk again, but it was already after 10, so we ended up going back to our rooms for the night.

Tomorrow's general plan was for some swimming and perhaps a side trip to drive through Cape May on the way home, but we'll have to see how everyone feels in the morning.

Avalon NJ Vacation, Day 1

Tuesday August 13, Day 1

The family was overdue for a getaway vacation, no matter how brief, so we booked a three day two night stay at the Windrift hotel on the beach in Avalon NJ. Despite living within a 2 hour drive of the ocean, my kids have spent very little time at the beach. Even though I am not a huge fan of the beach, I know that this is something the kids would love, and so off we went to spend a few midweek days at the shore. Our in laws from north Jersey were also coming for the three days, so we would all be together.

The Windrift, 80th street on the ocean, Avalon NJ

We left home midmorning, and drove down on back roads to avoid the Atlantic City expressway, which also allowed me to plot a route that would allow me to get geocaches in a couple of new NJ counties; Cumberland and Atlantic. We found the caches easily, made great time, and were checked into the hotel and wandering down to the beach by 1pm. It had rained in the morning but was just overcast by this time, and the overcast gave way to scattered sun as the afternoon wore on, so we ended up with a nicer day than forecast.

Mom and ducklings on the beach

We had heard good things about the Windrift, which had been renovated within the last year or so. We had one room reserved, as did my sister in law and her family, who would be spending the three days with us. Overall, we were please with the hotel. It was straightforward but clean, and had a decent pool and really good restaurant, which we ate at Tuesday night. There were a lot of good seafood dishes ordered, and everyone was very satisfied.

Morey's Pier, Wildwood boardwalk

After checking in, we changed and headed down to the beach. It was only a cool mid 70's in temperature and overcast at times, but the kids were thrilled to be at the ocean, and wasted no time in getting in to the water. Our in laws showed up soon after us and joined us for a couple hours on the beach before our nice dinner.

Grace getting a "hair wrap"

After dinner we got on the Garden State Parkway south and drove down to Wildwood to spend some time walking the boardwalk (since there wasn't one in Avalon where we were). I'm not sure exactly how I would describe the boardwalk (cheesey money pit?), but the kids did like it very much. They did some rides, won cheap little stuffed animal prizes (which they will likely throw away within a week or two), bought fudge and salt water taffy, and just generally had a great time staying up way past their bedtimes. The highlight of Grace's evening was getting a hair wrap; a series of colored strings braided into a chunk of her hair.  It was around midnight by the time we got back to the hotel and got the girls into bed.

The plan for tomorrow is some pool time in the morning before heading to the beach in the afternoon.

Plastic Fantastic

Today Dave and I put in one last morning of cleaning out the house I grew up in prior to getting it ready to sell. Mom moved into a retirement community back around New Year's, and we have been slowly working on the old house; going through 46 years of accumulated...stuff. I don't think Mom ever threw anything away, which is both a curse (generally) and a blessing (in some cases).

Layla..., Yesterdays, and Days of Future Passed

One last salvage from the family homestead for me today was my teenage collection of a hundred and fifty or so vinyl LPs. Twelve and a half inch 33 1/3 RPM plastic/vinyl discs that my children have no idea what they are looking at. Music. Like CDs, only bigger. Not like iPod music at all. Nor 8-tracks or cassette tapes. Also none of which my kids would have any idea about. I don't have anything to play these albums on (yet), but it sure was fun to look through them. Memories came flooding back as I sorted through them and cleaned them up tonight. Some conjured up specific people, some places, some events. Bittersweet in some cases, but all good.

Keeping in mind that I would have begun buying albums in about 1980 (when I actually would have begun having a little money from cutting lawns etc) and would have stopped around 1986/87 upon the 1986 Christmas gift receipt of my very first CD player and very first CD. [As an aside this was a Sony player and the first disc was a Steve Winwood solo one (the one with Higher Love)...from my then girlfriend and future wife]. So this is an interesting time capsule of what I liked in a fairly brief window in time, both in terms of buying new and tracking down used at such places as the presumably long-defunct Plastic Fantastic store in Ardmore. Remember this was long before eBay and the like....

One thing this served to confirm was that my musical tastes in terms of what I liked back then hasn't changed dramatically. My favorites then are largely still favorites now. The things I knew I would find included:

• The definitive Moody Blues collection including pretty much all the solo albums that the various band members ever put out. If there were different covers for some albums, I have them all. I distinctly remember hunting down the older original versions of the album jackets that were the fold-open ones with additional artwork and lyrics.
• Lots of Yes, again including solo albums from Howe, Anderson and Squire.
• Complete Dire Straits, including some Knopfler movie soundtrack albums and some EP and large format (album sized) singles.
• Lots of Eric Clapton, in all incarnations, again including a few soundtrack things such as Edge of Darkness, a BBC miniseries if I remember correctly.
• About a dozen John Denver albums. Liking John Denver wasn't at all cool back in the day, but I always did (even if not bragging about it). He was a tremendous singer, songwriter, and acoustic guitarist, and I remember being upset the day I heard he died in a "build it yourself" microlite plane crash over the Pacific Ocean near Catalina. As I think I have written before, a John Denver concert at the old Spectrum was the first concert I ever saw; Dad took me sometime around 1980 because he knew that I liked him.
• A scattering of albums by Springsteen, the Beatles, Van Halen, and the Eagles. 
• I knew I owned some Emerson Lake and Palmer, REO Speedwagon, Blue Oyster Cult and Supertramp. But I had more of each of these than I thought. Likewise the Alan Parsons Project.
• I probably have more Chris DeBurgh albums than anybody outside of his own family. And perhaps even more than them. I know I tracked down everything he had done to that point. He is a wonderful Irish songwriter and storyteller, an old time balladeer. This compulsion came after seeing him as the opening act for an Asia show in 1983, never having heard of him before but having loved his performance. There are also all 3 Asia albums (to that point).
• Several Simon and Garfunkel.
• Some Steve Winwood, including a Traffic album.
• Several Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty albums.

Hollies, Byrds, Four Tops and Billy Squier

There were some things I wouldn't necessarily have been able to list ahead of time, but felt like old friends on seeing them again. Stuff by the Hollies, the Byrds, the Guess Who, and Crosby Stills and Nash. A couple of Billy Squier albums, including a wonderful album Don't Say No, which includes one of my favorite angst songs, "Nobody Knows".

There were some cool things that I had forgotten about. Greatest hits albums from some Motown groups like the Drifters and the Four Tops. Greatest Hits of Diana Ross. Several Doobie Brothers. The J Geils Band ("Centerfold"), the Police, a few ZZ Top. A couple Robert Plant solo albums. Jimmy Page with the Firm.

There were 25 or so classical albums, mainly recordings by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by either  Eugene Ormandy or Ricardo Muti. These are mainly Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Dvorak.

A few things made me smile when I saw them as being...shall we say...out of character for me. Duran Duran's Rio. An Ozzy Osbourne solo album. A Mister Mister Euro-trash album. Yikes. A Foreigner. A Kinks. The Doors Greatest Hits.

And there were a few things that made me laugh out loud (or groan and blame on the wife). One album each by Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Madonna (her very first), and Bananarama. OK, I'll fess up to the first two, vehemently deny the Madonna, and am unsure about the last one although, yeah, it was probably me... I may have had a Bangles album at one point too.

There are some notable bands that I liked but did not own at all, primarily because Dave owned them all, therefore they were available to be listened to without me buying something that was already in the house. The two primary bands would be Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin. Dave also had some Queen and the Who, not favorites of mine. There was some Styx around the house that I think was his. And I know I had a couple of Kansas albums but they are not in this bunch. Oh well.

So while Dave and I have had more than our share of moments recently cursing the fact that Mom and Dad never threw anything away, I can be thankful that my childhood record collection survived almost 30 years in their house after I moved out.

Now I just need to buy something I can play all this great music on...

Fireball Forward! - Pouppeville

Having had so much fun with Fireball Forward! last weekend, Leo and I wanted to get together again as soon as we could to have another go at it. We were able to find a couple hours last night to play the second scenario in the programmed instruction sequence, Pouppeville.

The scenario has two full sized but poor quality German platoons along with a company leader and a sniper defending a bunch of buildings (10 total elements/stands). US paratroops consisting of two heavy platoons and some battalion HQ assets are the attackers (9 total elements), and need to accumulate victory points for buildings captured. Most buildings are worth 1 VP at game end, but two buildings centered near the northern edge of the board are worth 5 and 2, and are thus very important. The game is four turns long, but the American random force addition die roll gave them an extra turn, thus a five turn game in this playing. My random roll got me a company leader morale improvement (which would matter later).

We flipped a coin for sides, and I got the Germans. I set up scattered in the buildings primarily in the center and east of the board, with only a sniper on the western side. I hoped that a central setup would allow me to respond to attacks from whatever direction Leo chose, or to fall back on the big VP buildings as needed. In the interests of trying to capture some fog of war without having a referee, we did use hidden unit markers including a number of dummies on each side. In a friendly game, this worked fine.

As it turned out, Leo advanced entirely up the eastern side of the road, both toward the first building along the road and then far to the east up and into the orchard. Not having placed any squads far to the west worked out well for me, but my sniper was badly out of position to do anything useful.

US early advance and hidden Germans - looking E/SE

Fire on both sides in the first turn was desultory, slowing his advance in a few places but not doing much in the way of casualties.

US advance on the east - looking South

In the middle few turns, German fire improved, killing an American squad in the orchard and another in the open. My sniper was killed trying to move to his other prepared position in the center of the board. A successful American assault on the first building along the east side of the road cost me a squad.

Fighting for the buildings - looking Northeast

As losses mounted for the Americans, it became obvious that the only way the Americans were going to win would be a successful assault on the high VP buildings in the last two turns. As it worked out, the paratroops were not able to take the next building up the road, which would have put them diagonally across the street from the 5 VP building. Further east, after killing a German squad in the building protecting the hedgerow enclosure in the northeast corner of the board, a final American squad and its platoon leader made an end run for the north edge of the board in hopes of taking the 2 VP building.

Final US push - looking Southeast

The American squad was gunned down crossing the open ground to assault the building, leaving the leader alone behind the hedgerow. The buildings were safe and Germans won the game. Final American losses were 3 out of their 4 heavy squads. Germans losses were two squads and the sniper.

All told, things went well for me. My fire early on wasn't great, but my morale rolls were better than Leo's in general, causing him to lose some of his good squads while my bad ones hung around bravely. In one case, the only reason I passed an important morale check in the mid-game, saving an important building and delaying Leo's advance, was that the company commander had rolled that improved morale random option. Another fun game of Fireball Forward!, and I already have the next two scenarios set up on the table: Tank Attack at La Fiere and Choctaw Warrior. Now I just need to learn the vehicle rules.

Justin Hayward Solo Tour, 2013

Justin Hayward in Concert at the World Cafe Live at the Queen, Monday 8/5/2013

Justin Hayward from my seat... not zoomed 

I have had a good run of live music over the past couple of years, but I can honestly say that I have never in my life looked forward to a concert as much as the one I saw last night - Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues touring solo and acoustic in support of his new solo album Spirits of the Western Sky. Justin is my favorite musician of all time, and the opportunity to see him in a place as intimate as we did was something that I never thought I would get to experience. The World Cafe Live at the Queen in Wilmington Delaware is a tiny place that seats maybe 300-400 people on a ground level and a small balcony. When buying the tickets a few months ago, I logged onto the ticket website as they were going on sale and got two seats in the center of the first balcony row. We were literally on top of the stage. It turns out brother Dave and his Darling Wife also had tickets, and sat a one row back and to our left. She is almost as big a Justin Hayward fan as me. Almost.

The band was Alan Hewitt on keyboards, Julie Ragins on keyboards and backing vocals, and Mike Dawes on guitars. Hewitt and Ragins have been part of the Moodies backing band the last few tours. Dawes was a new one for me, and a spectacular guitarist in his own right. He opened the show on his own and played four songs, similar in style to Andy McKee who Dave and I saw open for Eric Johnson a couple years ago. Amazing.

I have to admit that after a not-so-satisfying Moodies show last fall in Atlantic City, I had doubts as to whether Justin could perform well live anymore (he is 66 years old after all). In that show, they skipped songs on the set list and Justin seemed to struggle throughout the show. After seeing this, I am willing to chalk that up to an off night or an illness. In this set of 5 songs from the new solo album and 11 Moodies songs, Justin was simply terrific. It was wonderful to see some of these classic old songs in acoustic arrangements in such a small venue. Of the songs they did, despite having attended over a dozen Moodies shows, I am pretty sure I have never seen It's Up to You, The Land of Make-Believe, or It's Cold Outside of Your Heart. After that many shows, seeing an old chestnut that I have not seen live before is a special treat.

The exact set list is below, and courtesy of the omni-present iPhones, links to either the exact performances we saw in Wilmington or other shows on the same tour are given. Solo songs from the new album are noted "SotWS", and Moodies songs are noted with the album and year.

Set List:

• Tuesday Afternoon, or, to be precise... Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?) (MB, Days of Future Passed, 1967)
• It's Up to You (MB, A Question of Balance, 1970)
• Lovely to See You (MB, On the Threshold of a Dream, 1969)
• In Your Blue Eyes (SotWS, 2013) [Taylor 12 string]
• The Western Sky (SotWS, 2013)
• The Land of Make-Believe (MB, Seventh Sojourn, 1972)
• New Horizons (MB, Seventh Sojourn, 1972)
• In the Beginning (SotWS, 2013)
• One Day, Someday (SotWS, 2013)
• The Eastern Sun (SotWS, 2013)
• It's Cold Outside of Your Heart (MB, The Present, 1983)
• Your Wildest Dreams (MB, The Other Side of Life, 1986)
• Forever Autumn (Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds project)
• Question (MB, A Question of Balance, 1970)
• Nights in White Satin (MB, Days of Future Passed, 1967)
• (Encore) I Know You're Out There Somewhere (MB, Sur la Mer, 1988)

There is a backstage clip of an Interview here, where Justin talks about future tour possibilities as well as some of the guitars used in the show.

We did have one funny experience as we were leaving the balcony area after the show. We walked out into the hallway to catch the elevator to the ground level, and ran into Mike Dawes and Julie Ragins in the hallway. They looked confused as to where they were going, turning this way and that. Mike said "I think it's over here...". As they came around the corner to the elevator, the doors closed in their faces. Julie Ragins muttered "Aww f&*$ing Hell". I said "Welcome to Wilmington". She turned and smiled, and they walked off down the hallway...

There isn't much more that I can say about the show, other than that as I write this a week or so after the fact, I am still basking in the afterglow of a fantastic concert by my favorite artist.

Fireball Forward! - Brecourt Manor

After a long period of inactivity, and to christen the newly revamped gaming area with an actual game, Leo came over last night to push some figs around and teach me Fireball Forward!. It was just the two of us, but having seen some games of FbF at conventions recently and liking the look of it, I was anxious to try it out. Leo has played it a number of times and has recommended it highly. So the purpose of the evening was to just work through the rules for my benefit.

"Day of Days" - Brecourt Manor

FbF has its roots in the old Avalon Hill Squad Leader board game from days of yore. Being one of the earliest games I remember playing (and loving), this gave points for sentimentality going in. The rules are written in the same "programmed instruction" manner as SL. Read the basic rules and play scenario #1 (Brecourt Manor). Add a few more pages of rules on terrain and snipers and play scenario #2 (Pouppeville). Add rules on tanks and play scenario #3 (Tank Attack at La Fiere). And so on...

Last night's exercise was to play Brecourt Manor so that I could get the basics down. The scenario (for which I had built a custom terrain board of trenches and gun emplacements...just because...) is the historical event that was the main battle scene in episode 2 of Band of Brothers ("Day of Days"). Elements of Easy company paratroopers attack a fortified German artillery battery that was shelling the American troops on Utah Beach on D-Day. The picture shows the German set up with the guns in their emplacements, firing on the beaches to the north (right of photo). The paratroops enter from the west (top of photo) and need to silence the guns as quickly as possible.

I won't go into detail on the two games of this we played, but as the Americans I failed both times to capture the guns quickly enough to prevent the Germans from accumulating enough victory points to claim a win. But the important thing is that I feel like I have a decent grasp of the basic rules and have begun to see some of the nuances of this particular rules system.

In general, I have a very favorable impression of the rules and am anxious to play again, getting further into the rules as we go (at the top of the photo you can see the edge of the scenario 2 battlefield which is set up and waiting). The basic game mechanics are similar to Squad Leader in the sense that a unit which fails one morale check breaks. A broken unit that fails a morale check dies. Events can cause multiple morale checks, therefore killing a unit if more than one morale failure is rolled. The card driven random activation keeps things interesting from a sequencing perspective, and will make the scenarios play differently based on the luck of the draw. The basic mechanics are simple enough, but there are plenty of decisions to be made as units and individual elements activate, keeping the suspense level high. The one aspect of the game that we were not able to take advantage of is that the game is ideally suited to having a referee. There are spotting and hidden unit considerations that are impossible to do optimally with two players and no ref. That being said, some basic common sense and good sportsmanship get around those limitations fairly easily. For our next game, we will be using hidden unit markers and dummies to attempt to add some of the fog of war back into the game in the absence of a referee. I'm sure it will work fine.

It's nice to be playing WW2 again...

Gaming Area Re-org

One of the things that has gotten a lot of my attention over the past couple of months is a complete reorganization of my gaming area in the basement. I have the luxury of plenty of space down there, but it had gotten to be such a disorganized and cluttered mess that it was almost paralyzing in the sense of being able to get any miniatures projects done. There was inefficiently used storage space, unnecessary things lying around taking up space, and just a general mess. Any time I went down there, I would shuffle some things around, become overwhelmed by the clutter and leave.

Amp wisely pointed out that the only way to really tackle the problem was to do what I had been avoiding; dismantle the entire area and start from scratch. So that is what we have done.

Step one was a revamping of the unfinished part of the basement which has shelves and cabinets for storage. An old desk that I never really used other than to stack stuff on was removed, as was a 72 bottle wine rack that only had about a dozen bottles in it. I'll find someplace (other than lying on the floor under the gaming table...) to store those bottles soon. Shelving units were rearranged to make better use of wall space, and a new one was added. Next was a reorganization of my figure storage itself. I made new boxes, re-did others and just generally made things more efficient. A multitude of work-in-progress projects were put in temporary boxes and labeled. This allowed all the clutter that had been stacked all over the finished area of the basement to go into the storage area where it belonged.

With that out of the way, the finished area could be tackled. About a hundred or so fiction hardbacks were culled from the shelves on one side of the room (leaving about 600), along with some boxed wargames to be sold off. Bookcases were rearranged, and a pair of new half-height ones were added along the back wall next to one we already had. This additional shelf space permitted some history books that had been sitting on the floor in boxes to be unpacked and put on shelves, as well as all sorts of other odds and ends (tape measures etc) that could be stored in some attractive storage bins we picked up a Target. The table itself was pulled away from the wall and spun 90 degrees. There isn't a lot of clearance along the left side, but it is adequate, and being able to walk completely around the table is a great improvement. Large storage bins for terrain pieces, buildings and other miniatures paraphernalia are either under the table or neatly stacked in the alcove in the back. Some of this will be sold off, and I still need to figure out something better for that space long term, but at least it is neat in the meantime. With all this new and orderly storage, an old table that had sat next to the main table has been dismantled and thrown away. All the clutter removal now allows for easy access to my guitars as well. The whole area is nice, bright and open (and functional!) now.

The picture shows the end result, complete with a grand opening sign by my daughter Grace. Leo and I christened the new space with a WW2 game of Fireball Forward tonight, and had a terrific time, but that is a story for the next post...

There is still some work to be done with getting things exactly how I want them, but I would say it is 95% done, and has re-energized me. I no longer come down here, look at the mess and shudder. In the few weeks since this has been fundamentally completed, I have made a lot of progress on various projects, some of which I will be detailing here soon. I am thrilled with how this turned out and was well worth all the effort.