Jungle Ruins

I never got around to posting a finished look at the ruins terrain I wrote about making back in June. I also mentioned more recently working on some scatter terrain for jungle or other densely foliated areas. I have taken a picture of both laid out together.

Our Heroes Explore Long-Forgotten Ruins

I have a few more ruin pieces in process that I will finish at some point. I also have a lot more fake floral bits to increase the number of pieces of foliage scatter. The foliage scatter is a more pressing need...

SAS - Organizing and Cataloging

One of my stated short-attention-span goals before the end of the year was to review the cataloging and organization/storage of my now-pretty-big D&D miniatures collection. This turned out to be more work than I had thought it would be, but I finished this effort earlier tonight.

In short...wow, I've collected a lot of D&D miniatures over the last 4+ years. And it turns out that I hadn't been doing as good a job keeping track of them as I thought I had been doing. I keep a spreadsheet. Or it turns out I was keeping most of a spreadsheet.

D&D Miniatures Collection

Anyway, that's all fixed for now. Every miniature cataloged, accounted for, organized and filed away in storage boxes. Compartmented storage boxes are a wonderful thing, as is a good spreadsheet. If you're into that sort of thing. Which I most definitely am (as those who know me will attest!).

As of now, the collection totals 1,071 figures. Yikes. Not a typo... That is an average of roughly 22 figures a month for 4 years. My one main splurging vice really. Fortunately, a good number of these figures come from "bottom feeding" on eBay, buying stuff at its cheapest, and in batches. Not everything though, to be sure. In addition to a couple of eBay stores as my primary purchase avenue,  also do buy a few blind boxes at the Games Keep store in West Chester for ranges I know I like and have little of yet, but I don't do much of this. I like to buy what I want, not what chance provides me. That being said, I have gotten some treasures (relatively speaking) in the few blind boxes I have bought, and they are fun to open.

Perhaps sometime soon I will post some of the rarer or favorite figures I have collected.

PAX Unplugged 2018

PAX (Penny Arcade) runs a series of gaming conventions (East, West and South), and has for years. They are big shows. Last year (2017) was the first year for PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, a gaming convention geared exclusively to tabletop and roleplaying games, not computer games. I've had an interest in going, but hadn't followed through.

Fast forward to mid-week last week, when I texted Ryan and Josh and said "PAX Unplugged is this weekend...bummer we didn't plan something". Turns out Ryan was available (Josh was not), so I bought two tickets for Saturday.

I elected to drive down to give me flexibility for coming and going as I pleased. Ryan chose to take the train down and meet me. Which we did.

The show was at the Philadelphia Convention Center in Center City Philadelphia, and was pretty huge. Estimates from 2017 had attendance numbers at 45,000 turnstiles, or likely 15-20,000 distinct people (accounting for multi-day attendees). Tickets purchased days before the event would be waiting at the Will Call window. The show opened at 10:00am. So I got there around 9:15. Found the right place to go in this huge place, and had our two passes by about 9:45. Ryan met me soon after, and we waited in the huge lines to get in when the doors opened.

The Hordes assemble pre-opening

The place was even bigger than I had imagined, with an absolutely massive open gaming and dealer area on the second floor, and another huge tournament gaming space on the lower level. A variety of conference rooms and theater rooms for panel discussions were scattered in other places.

Philadelphia Convention Center

The dealer area was impressive. Every imaginable kind of board game and role playing game was represented. My purchases for the day were modest. A few oversized d20 dice on a whim (2 large and 1 huge)...you can never have too many dice, especially odd ones! Gale Force 9 monster card sets for challenge ratings 1-5 and 6-16 (these are new releases). A half dozen blister packs of unpainted D&D miniatures from WizKids (including 3 of the hard to find and expensive-on-eBay Beholders). And a second copy of Dungeon World from the Burning Wheel booth, but more on that later.

Ryan checks out a weird sic-fi Wild West thing

There were a few things that struck me about the dealer area, the main one being the number of dealers that were selling extremely high end stuff. There were several dealers selling dice made of fancy woods, metal and semi-precious gemstones. Now...I love dice...and own many more than any one person would ever need. But I draw the line, at this point anyway, at buying a set of 6 or 7 polyhedral dice for $25. Or $50. Or $100. Or more. Of which there were many options to do so. There was also a dealer (Wyrmwood?) selling all sorts of beautifully crafted wooden items such as dice trays, dice boxes, etc. Nice stuff for sure. And the people selling $5,000+ custom gaming tables. Beautiful stuff. All of which were getting a lot of traffic, and from what I could tell, a lot of sales.

I have become a fan of several people who are Twitch streamers, primarily via their posting VODs on YouTube, which I can watch/listen to in the background when doing other things around the house. These folks are mainly D&D streamers and/or game designers. My favorite among these is Adam Koebel, the co-author of Dungeon World, and the Dungeon/Game Master for a number of streaming game series on Twitch/YouTube. I find Adam to be an excellent Game Master and a very insightful voice on game design and game mastering via his series Office Hours. Anyway...Adam was one of three panelists doing an hour on Heavy Metal and Fantasy Role Playing games. Luke Crane, another well-known game designer (The Burning Wheel, Mouseguard, etc) was also one of the panelists. The panel was entertaining and funny. And seeing Adam in person was kinda cool.

Heavy Metal and RPGs panel (Adam Koebel)

Another set of Dungeons and Dragons celebrities that I got to see and say "hi" to were the player cast of Dice, Camera, Action, a streaming show on the official D&D channel.

The "Waffle Crew" from Dice Camera Action

Rounding out the day was a bit of fanboy fun. Adam Koebel was at the Burning Wheel company booth (distributors of his game) for a part of the afternoon, and I stopped by to get my copy of the book signed. I knew he was scheduled to be there and had brought the book from home. We chatted for a few minutes, and thankfully, he seemed to be a really nice guy. The risk of meeting a celebrity that you like (which he is within the RPG niche) is that they will turn out to be a jerk. Not that you can tell much within a minute or two or three, but a disappointing bad impression only takes a moment. As I said, thankfully that wasn't the case and he seemed really nice. I must admit that it felt a bit weird to have a fanboy moment with someone 20 years my junior, but whatever... I told him that my 14 year old daughter Grace recognizes him on the computer as "the cool pink-haired D&D guy". He laughed and signed another book for her. Nice.

Adam Koebel and my signed Dungeon World!!

Soon after, I headed home. It was a good show. Huge and crowded, but manageable because of the amount of space. As big as it was, I ran into two different people that I knew; something I would not have expected.

One last comment would be regarding the organization of the show. Professional and first class all the way. The volunteers helping to run the convention wore purple t-shirts labelled "Enforcer". They were everywhere, knowledgeable and polite. Very well done. Assuming it's back in Philly next year, I'll be back.

SAS - Tan Dungeon Tiles

Well, I've made a little progress on my "short attention span" project list, including completing what I would call a starter set of the tan dungeon tiles. These were made with a color scheme of brown/tan/cream to contrast to the much larger tile set I have already made in shades of gray.

The tiles are carved with a 1 inch grid and some minimal detailing. The picture below shows a few different pieces in various stages of color layering. The bottom couple of small 5 foot wide hall sections have been base coated in CraftSmart "dark taupe". The middle three pieces have a moderate sponging of Folk Art "camel". The top piece has had its final light sponging of Folk Art "vintage white". The edges have been painted black. Any similar colors would work for this three part process as long as you used a chocolate brown, a rich warm tan and a creamy white.

Stages and Colors

The setup below shows all the pieces I made in this first batch thrown together in a basic dungeon layout. There are ~12 chambers of various sizes, and a decent sized assortment of 5 foot (1 inch) and 10 foot (2 inch) passages.

Tan Dungeon Tiles Starter Set

With the aid of the Proxxon thermocut hot wire table, this went faster than similar projects done previously with nothing but a few knives. My best guess would be that this took about an hour to cut all the pieces. Then maybe another hour or hour and a half to scribe and distress the pieces. Then another hour or so (in 15 minute batches) to paint them. All told, this is probably 4 hours of work. When done a half hour here and a half hour there as time allows, and while a Flyers game is on in the background, this was an extremely easy, and quick, project.

Total materials cost is maybe $4-5 of XPS foam (less than half of a $12 4x8 foot sheet of 3/4 inch foam), and a couple of bucks worth of craft paint. If you bought one 4x8 sheet of XPS and three craft bottles of paint, this would cost less than $20, and you'd have a good bit of the paint and more than half of the foam left over.

I'm working on a few stair pieces, but that's all I have planned for this set at the moment. But you never know...

High School Musical

It's a bittersweet day for me. Garnet Valley's fall musical wrapped today after four shows, including a postponed Thursday night opening performance because of snow and ice that became a Sunday matinee. I watched 3 of the 4 shows, which is about the usual.

Julia did 9 shows, beginning with Les Miserables in the spring of 2014, but her run has ended. Amp has been heavily involved in costumes since the fall of 2014, but this was her first show as the official Head of Costumes, and everything on stage was designed/approved by her. I think it looks great.

This is also Grace's first musical, as she is now in 9th grade. Because of her gymnastics background, she has a role as a cheerleader and featured dancer, and is a featured tumbler.

Grace and gymnastics teammates

The number of hours that go into these shows is huge, but the end result reflects the effort. Before seeing this video, Grace told me that the feedback that they were consistently given was that they weren't doing well enough, and that they had a lot of work to do. This was a consistent theme right up until the end. As I tried to explain to her (after the fact), this was simply the director and all of the staff trying to push them to be the best they can be. Garnet Valley Performing Arts has a longstanding tradition of excellence, and this batch of kids was being pushed to hold up to that standard. Then Grace watched the following linked video with me. Her reaction was "wow, we were pretty good". Yes dear, you were pretty good. Pretty darn good. Because a dedicated group of people pushed you to be the best you could be...

Music for the show is provided by a live band of students and faculty, consisting of drums, guitar, bass and a pair of keyboards.

Lights and effects are provided by another group of dedicated students.

It takes a village, and many of the girls basketball team are...the Garnet Valley girls basketball team.

The Friday night show of the "Gold" cast has been posted on YouTube (linked here), and while the Gold cast is generally thought of as the underclassmen cast, I think the performance is pretty amazing. Go onto YouTube and search "high school musical high school" for comparison. Highlights of this show, with a bias toward scenes my Grace is in, are:

• 15:40 - the cut scene into Wildcat Cheer. At 15:50, the quadruple backflip cheerleader is Grace. This was supposed to be a double or triple, but Grace said "it was opening night and I was feeling it".
• 56:00 - The Audition scene.
• 59:00 - The lead-in to "Stick to the Status Quo", the first act finale (which starts at 1:00:20). Grace has a featured bit at 1:04:05 (the back walkover in the middle).
• 1:16:00 - Grace in Wildcat Cheer reprise.
• 1:39:30 - We're All in This Together.
• 1:42:45- Bop to the Top
• 1:46:00 - Final auditions lead-in.
• 1:49:40 - Breaking Free.
• 1:54:00 - The End.
• 1:56:00 - Finale. We're All In This Together. Grace has another short left-to-right tumbling run at ~1:56:55... After that, she is the third cheerleader from the right, just behind the Ryan Evans character (behind and to the right of him)...
• 1:59:30 - Curtain Call. Look at all the great costumes!
• 2:02:00 - The grand finale.

I can't wait to see the postings of the Garnet (upperclassmen) cast. [edit - GVHSPAA has posted all of the other shows...]

As a postscript, I would note that our production of HSM was highly regarded enough that another large local high school is taking our sets and borrowing a lot of our costumes for a production that they will be staging in the spring of 2019. So be on the lookout for Sharpay and Ryan Evans' costumes, all the girls and boys basketball teams, and the cheerleaders. I guess we will go watch that one. And I guess that means Amp did pretty good, since she is now apparently costuming other school districts as well as our own...

Great job everyone!

Short Attention Span (SAS) Plans

I am fabulous at imagining and starting new projects. If I have a super power, that's probably it: imagination. Unfortunately I do not have a limitless amount of time to sink into my various and sundry hobby pursuits. I also have the attention span of a flea.

This isn't the best combination.

What it typically results in is what I have going on in the basement at the moment. A 6 by 8 foot gaming table cluttered with odds and ends of projects in various stages of completion. A large painting desk with a similar pile of this and that. Most horizontal spaces in the unfinished part of the basement with something placed or piled on them. And for all the activity over the past few months, very little actually completed to show for all my scattered effort.

Since the spring, or say the last 6-8 months, it is probably fair to say that the projects I have actually started and completed would be:

• The "ruins" set described in a June 2018 post. I started and completed a decent sized set of this. Subsequently, I started some more pieces, and of course they aren't done. But the first batch is.
• 8 Tyranid genestealers for use in Kill Team games.
• Assembly and basic painting of all purchased Kill Team terrain pieces. Enough to have them looking nice and able to use in a game with no shame.
• The handful of D&D miniatures posted recently.
• And, well, that's probably it...

The list of started but not completed projects is just a tad longer. In no particular order of importance, and with notes on what my shorter term goal would be:

• Kill Team space marines. 10 tactical squad and 5 scouts assembled and partly/mostly painted.
• Kill Team Eldar. 10 guardians and a weapon platform assembled and partly painted.
• Kill Team Tyranids. 1 Warrior, 4 hormagaunts and 4 termagants assembled and primed.
• Kill Team terrain. All assembled and in some state of painting. Lots of detail work left to be done to call them finished.
• Jungle terrain. Shoeboxes of fake floral bits to be made into little stands of jungle terrain. I've made about 20 of these, but have the stuff to make maybe a hundred more. These are little cardboard oval bases generally around 2-3 inches in size with a variety of plant material hot-glued onto them. I would settle for ~30 more to make a total of 50. The rest of the raw materials can go into stock.
• Many units of various historical minis in various stages of completion, dating back years. This only includes the ones I've started. Not the untouched lead pile... I would like to complete a unit or two or three just to say that I painted some historicals.
• Games Workshop lizard men. I bought a bunch of Saurians to use as D&D lizard men because the figures are cool. They are still cool, but only half done. Finish 12-15 figures as a start.
• Inventory my homemade dungeon tiles, caverns, tunnels, etc. I have posted lots of pictures with these various bits over the past few years. I need to admit that I am happy with some, not so much so with others, and settle on what I want to keep and what needs to go live on a farm. Perhaps an eBay farm where someone throws money at me.
• Related to the above, I have started a better modular D&D tunnel set for which I would like to complete the first batch. The Proxxon hot wire table makes this sort of thing easier than I could have imagined when I was doing my first versions of these with an old knife. The flexibility the Proxxon gives in terms of possible shapes is wonderful.
• "Tan dungeon" tiles. To be made for a particular expected use in our campaign, which will hopefully be starting up again soon. I just want a small batch of passages and rooms in a lighter brown/tan/cream paint scheme in contrast to my usual dark gray/medium gray/light gray color scheme.
• As an administrative task...finish inventorying, organizing and filing away all of the various D&D and Pathfinder minis I have bought over the past 3 years. There are too many little shipping boxes and bags with odds and ends of figures that never made it beyond "well at least they made it to the basement".

So the plan for the last 6 or 7 weeks of the year, which will include a good bit of holiday time off, is to knock off some of the partly done projects listed above. I wouldn't say sticking to this list and not starting something new is an absolute must...but let's call it an aspirational goal.

Most likely to get done would probably be the dungeon tiles and modular tunnels, which I am most interested in at the moment. Completing a unit of historical minis (medieval Ottomans or eastern Europeans, or maybe 15mm WW2) is a good candidate. As are the Space Marines. Josh and Ryan have been traveling, but we should probably be looking to get an evening of Kill Team together again soon. So maybe some additional painting work on sci-fi terrain.

I'm cautiously hopeful. Wish me luck.

A Bit of Beauty

Sometimes it's worth taking a moment to stop and savor a bit of beauty when it presents itself.

Fall Sunset

The other night, Ryder needed to go out and do his business. When I let him out, this is the sight that greeted me on the western horizon. I sat on the front step for a few moments. Within 5 minutes the colors had faded substantially. Within 10 minutes they were gone. But for those brief few moments, there was fire in the sky...

A Clarinet, GV Jaguars Football, and a Musical

Sometimes I don't feel like I have a high school freshman daughter. I just have a Clarinet. Or a Drama Club ensemble cheerleader-tumbler.

Grace's first semester in high school has been a whirlwind. Not the least of which is the amount of time spent in the marching band. Band camp three weeks before school even started. After school band practices. Football games. Competitions. More practices. And all of this for a school that practices hard, travels to competitions, but cannot realistically be said to be a school marching band program that is heavily into the competition scene. Our kids and band directors take it seriously and work hard at it. But there are bands that take it SERIOUSLY and work HARD at it.

My Clarinet

The football season has been a smashing success. We were 10-0 in the regular season, winning the Central League (which I grew up in at Springfield...). We defeated all of the serious Central League contenders this year, and all on the road. We shut out Springfield at Springfield (that one sure felt weird, sitting in the visitors' bleachers and looking across at the home stands!). We beat Haverford at Haverford. We beat Marple Newtown at Marple Newtown. We beat Radnor at Radnor. We humiliated Ridley in a home game (boy did that feel good!!).

As an aside, at the Springfield away game, I met the current Springfield high school band director, who is the son-in-law of Mr Miller, the middle school band director that I had when I went through middle school in the late 70's [ugh] (and who is the director of a community band that brother Dave has been involved in). Small world.

Some, but not all, of the GVHS Marching Band

In the first round of the state division playoffs, where we are ranked #3 out of 16, we destroyed Pennsbury 49-14. By the 4th quarter, we had 2nd and 3rd string backups running for touchdowns.

Last night, in round two of the playoffs, we destroyed Quakertown 49-14. Yep, same score, not a typo.

Next Friday, we travel to Quakertown to play the #2 ranked team, but Grace won't be there.

Next week is the culmination of the other major time commitment that Grace has been a part of, and that is her involvement in the fall musical, a production adapted from the Disney movie High School Musical. Because of her gymnastics background, she is a cheerleader who does tumbling runs, and sings as part of the ensemble. First full dress rehearsal is tomorrow (Sunday), which I will ask her about when she gets home from today's band competition in Hershey PA.

Then there are dress rehearsals Monday and Tuesday after school, "blackout" (rest) day on Wednesday, and then performances on Thursday, Friday and two on Saturday. Busy times.

She's having fun, and it's fun for us as parents to be along for the ride.

Miniatures Painting Again

This weekend is the HMGS Fall In! convention in Lancaster (PA), and I probably won't make it out there this year, even for a brief fly-by. Even if I no longer feel the need to block out the 2-3 days to attend the whole convention, play in a few games, and perhaps even run a game or two, I still always enjoy stopping in to these conventions for part of a day to wander the event rooms and get energized to go home and do some painting of my own.

That won't happen this time around but I am happy to say that the painting bug has already bitten recently, and I have been properly re-energized as far as painting goes. I have noted in recent posts that I have been painting some sci-fi stuff along with Ryan and Josh (for Kill Team), but the painting binge has extended beyond that.

There is a very nice ongoing line of releases for WizKids unpainted D&D miniatures (and Pathfinder minis). The figures are very nice for the most part, and pre-primed, so all you need to do is break something out of the package and dive in. Below are a few of the things I have been working on over the past few months. I won't discuss backlog of unpainted purchases...

Recent batch of painting - high view

The newly painted lot includes (in rough order of completion) a griffon, 4 gargoyles, 2 rust monsters, a pair of umber hulks (there are 2 more finished in addition to these 2), an earth elemental and a troll.

Recent batch of painting - lower view

These minis are the made from the same softer plastic that the pre-painted WizKids stuff is. I have purchased loads of those over the past 3-4 years. The paint jobs range from pretty good to pretty "meh", but they are ready to go on the table the moment that the magical eBay fairy delivers them to my house from my main supplier in New Mexico (kingsoflight eBay store - great folks...).

I paint better than the mass produced stuff coming over from China, but I also don't have to crank out "x" number of figures per hour. The main difference in my painted stuff versus the pre-painted is that I tend to go for brighter cleaner colors (or maybe I should say lighter cleaner colors). Some of the pre-painted stuff is pretty dark, and can blend into a table pretty well in a not-perfectly lit basement gaming area.

Next up on the painting table is up in the air at the moment. I have sci-fi stuff to finish for whenever we get together for another round of Kill Team. I have a bunch of WizKids character figures to paint that will be a fun challenge, but which I don't really need for anything as far as actual gaming goes. There are a bunch of elementals, mimics and other D&D monsters to get to at some point. And I can always dive back into my prepped-and-primed backlog of historical minis, especially Ottomans and later medieval Hungarians and other eastern Europeans.

Time will tell....

Into an Old Mine

Somehow I stumbled on this video on YouTube. A guy with a flashlight wandering through an old mine.

Creepy but cool. I couldn't help but to watch this and think "hey, nice warren of underground D&D tunnels." This would be even creepier with orcs or goblins or trolls or...

Yep. I'm a geek.

The Curmudgeon in the Cellar

No. I don't mean me. Although the description is becoming more true as time goes by I suppose.

I mean the title of a series of YouTube videos by Tim Kask, one of the fathers of Dungeons & Dragons. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson are credited with creating the game, but Tim Kask was an early playtester, proofreader, confidant and editor for Gary Gygax. He was the first editor of Dragon magazine, helped launch the careers of many of the pantheon of 70's and 80's fantasy artists, and helped Gygax split the game into Basic and Advanced D&D in the late 70's. His contribution was substantial, and his stories and memories of the behind-the-scenes goings-on are priceless.

The YouTube video series is now up to 50+ entries and counting (he is still posting new ones as of now), and is a rambling (and sometimes repetitive) series of stories told in the form of answering viewer/reader questions.

For those such as me with an interest in the history of D&D and the behind the scenes stories, these videos are a treasure trove of interesting bits. Gygax and Arneson are both gone, having passed before the proliferation of this sort of thing, and so their memories are largely lost, at least in the format of stories being told directly to you as the audience. Tim Kask is one of the ones remaining who is able to fill this role, at least from the earliest days.

He seems like a nice guy. Curmudgeonly for sure. A bit disdainful, if respectfully, of many of the more modern iterations of the game and the various developments thereof. A true proponent of "original D&D is the game we made, the game we loved, and it's all I need". Which is fine, as those are the stories and viewpoint I am working my way through this series for.

These ramblings and recollections aren't for everybody, but if you have an interest in the history of the game, and RPGs in general, this is worth an occasional listen in on.

Dungeons and Dragons Relics

These recent D&D remembrances have led me back. Back to the basement. Where the relics of the past, in the form of old D&D and fantasy RPG materials live, safe in their bookcase. So here are a few of the prized possessions, in this regard, which I am happy to still own. Sadly, there are some things that I sold off years ago that I wish I still had, but thankfully none of the truly good stuff. I couldn't bring myself to sell them off then, despite their value, for which I am thankful...

The "white box" books; the first three books. Original D&D in its first format. Not the truly first editions, but close followers thereon in the form of 3rd/4th/5th printings of those first three books in a white box instead of the original wood grain box. Also the First and Third supplements (missing supplement #2, Dave Arneson's Blackmoor, which I never owned).

Original D&D

Other TSR stuff.

Rogues Gallery - Pre-generated NPCs

The first set of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons hardcover books. Somewhat the worse for wear after very hard use in the teenaged years, but as with all of my collection, in very good shape all things considered...

AD&D First Printings

A few of the old original adventure modules in the original monochrome printings.

Old TSR Adventure Modules

The City-State of the Invincible Overlord by Judges Guild. Amazing early maps in these, and a tremendous amount of detail. Overkill, we would say these days.

Invincible Overlord

And Dark Tower.

More Judges Guild

Carse, Jonril, Tulan of the Isles, the Black Tower, etc, by Midkemia Press. Authored at least in part by Raymond Feist who would go on to become a famous fantasy author.

Midkemia Press

A bunch of Second Edition era Forgotten Realms materials, some of which are now quite valuable. This is the era of stuff where I owned other things and sold a few of them (Maztica and Kara Tur boxed sets, etc...)

The Shelf of Old Stuff

Included on the treasured Shelf of Old Stuff are such things are the two Ruins of Undermountain boxed sets, the Ruins of Myth Drannor boxed set, a couple old versions of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, the old Waterdeep city boxed set, and some Middle Earth role playing stuff, including the magnificent if unwieldy Moria folio. On the lower pictured shelf are many/most of the first and second edition D&D/AD&D modules. There are also a few editions of basic D&D (Holmes and Moldvay).

Lots of good memories here. (And kids, when I'm gone, don't throw these in the recycle bin please...)

[A quick clarification: Virtually everything above, and everything I own that is old stuff, I own because I bought it when it came out. Despite my recent (2014+) dive back into D&D, one thing I have been able to successfully resist the urge to do, to this point, is to go back and troll eBay for all the things from way back in the day that I didn't ever own, and to buy them now. I'm not sure exactly why this is, as knowing myself and being honest with myself, this is the sort of thing I would typically do... Perhaps it is because much of these old things aren't that good (sacrilege for a different blog post), and without some personal connection to them or memories that they would conjure, I am aware that they wouldn't have much meaning to me. Going back and re-purchasing bulk lots of earlier Dragon magazines that I used to own, sold off at some point, and enjoy owning again is a different matter, and I do some of that...]

Twenty One Pilots - Bandito Tour

Grace and I went to the Wells Fargo Center last night to see Twenty One Pilots (TOP to save me typing), her favorite band, and her first concert. We went with our good friend neighbors from across the street, their daughter, and another neighborhood girl. They are in college now, but share the love of TOP with Grace. We drove down together, did the apparently mandatory yellow duct tape thing, and got there plenty early. We had the ritual pre-concert slice of pizza, and were impatient for things to start.

Grace (middle) and older neighborhood friends

The show started at 7. Or more accurately, the first of two opening acts started at 7. Opening acts were Max Frost (meh) and Awolnation (which started meh and grew on me). Each played 25-30 minutes, with a half hour-ish in between, and then another half hour to ready the stage for TOP.

Awolnation

The crowd was very young, being mostly high school, college aged and young adults, with a healthy scattering of parents such as yours truly escorting the younger ones. When the band (of two people) took the stage there was Beatle-esque squealing and screaming and some crying. Not at all like the subdued old-guy classic rock geezer band shows I usually attend these days. Very different. And refreshing. Grace did her share of squealing, and screaming, and a bit of crying. Fun. Lots of energy. Opening song was Jumpsuit.

Opening number with burning car

The show was a lot different than what I am used to, much of which is a reflection of the nature of the band. Twenty One Pilots these days is a drummer (Josh Dunn) and a guy who writes the songs and does everything else (Tyler Joseph). Obviously, a live show with two people requires lots of recorded tracks, which my generation would have largely regarded as cheating/sacrilege, but... it was done very well.

I wasn't really sure what to expect, but the show was amazing. Great music, fantastic lights, props and stage show. Good banter between songs. A tremendously fanatic and dedicated fan base. And a lot of very creative things. At one point, a figure on stage believed to be Tyler Joseph (but who hadn't sung or played anything in a little while) did a back-flop into a hole in the stage. Seconds later he appeared on a small platform in our section, about 6 rows and 20 feet behind us. So the figure on stage was obviously a faked stand in. People went nuts (Grace included). He was so close... :-)

Tyler Joseph appears 6 rows behind us

Without going into any great detail, I liked the music more than I expected to. Grace's favorite song is The Judge (our show's version here).

Lights and Screens

Clever staging also made for a great viewing experience. At one point, a big long rack of lights lowered from the ceiling, and proved to be a bridge from the main stage to the "B" stage on its upper surface.

Lights lowered to make a bridge to the "B" stage

Tyler used the bridge to get to the "B" stage right in front of us, and Josh worked his way through the crowd to join him. They did a nice quiet set from the "B" stage.

"B" stage right in front of section 102

Tyler was very good at the in between song banter with the audience, and there were a number of cute running themes throughout the concert. One of them was the challenge to be the best audience on the tour, and to remember that it was't simply being the loudest single crowd moment, but that "it's an average". The teasing about "remember, it's an average" ran through the show and was amusing (you can hear him say it during "Trees" below at about the 1:24 mark...).

They played a solid two hours, and really were terrific. A highlight was their final number "Trees".

More lights and screens

It was a great night for Grace, and would have been worth it to me even if I hadn't liked the show at all. The fact that I liked it as much as I did was a nice bonus. The joy on her face was priceless.

I think she will remember this for a long time.

Art and Arcana - A Visual History of D&D

Perhaps in an effort to recapture lost youth, but perhaps simply because I have always loved it, Dungeons & Dragons has been a part of my life again over the past 5 years or so. Part of that has been to read some books on the history of the role playing game hobby (specifically D&D), watch some YouTube videos by Tim Kask, Frank Mentzer and others who were involved in the formative days of D&D, etc...

So it was with a good deal of interest that I saw that someone was going to be publishing a book on the visual (art) history of D&D. Co-authors included Michael Witwer (author of Empire of Imagination, a biography of sorts on Gary Gygax) and Jon Peterson (author of Playing at the World, the definitive history of D&D). I have, and have read, both of those books, and loved both of them.

Buying Art & Arcana was a no-brainer. And not to be regretted.

An Amazing Book...

This is a big thick coffee table sized book of terrific production values. It covers the development of D&D from a visual and artistic point of view. It has early art, later updates, and a study of the development of the art and iconography of D&D through the various editions, dating from c.1975 through the current day.

It's an informative and instructive work of obvious love by the authors, and has triggered many a "memory lane" moment for me. My history with D&D is the very first "white box" edition of ~1976 (?) (which I thankfully still own) through AD&D (1st edition) with a little Second Edition, but then with a 25 year hiatus between ~1990 and 2014 (5th edition). I recognize the "earliest days" art, and the modern stuff, but not the 2+ decades of intermediate development. Fascinating stuff.

Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in D&D and/or fantasy art in general, especially at the Amazon discounted price...

Kill Team - Space Marines

We've had enough fun with our first couple of Kill Team games that painting some other forces seems to be in order (as well as expanding the Tyranid force, but that's a different story...).

I have bought a box of Space Marines, and have worked through what I want the paint scheme to look like.

Space Marine Sample

The rest of the box is assembled and primed, with some more painting to follow soon. I hope.

It's fun to be painting again. (Bifocals rule!). Next on the paining table for Kill Team will be to expand the Tyranid force with a few small bugs (termagants and hormagaunts), as well as a larger bug or two (tyranid warriors).

A box of Eldar Guardians has also been assembled and primed.... (yes, I know, they don't call them Eldar anymore...).

Kill Team - First Playings

Ryan has finished painting a nice big batch of ~20 Imperial Guard (which are called something else now by GW and the rest of the world but not me) and I have finished my 8 Genestealers, so it was time to push some figures around, shoot some ray guns, and kill humans with weird alien bugs.

Over the past few weeks, Ryan and Josh and I have gotten together two or three times to work our way through these rules. We've started with the basic rules, did OK the first time out, and gotten more fluent with the rules the next couple of sessions. The rules are very typical GW: roll to hit, roll to wound, roll a saving throw. Every army has their own chrome galore.

Genestealers stalking Imperial Guard

We admittedly aren't great at using our forces yet, but the bugs have beaten the humans every time out so far, no matter who is playing what. Once the bugs get into contact with the puny humans, they don't stand a chance. Ryan's dice rolling doesn't help.

Tyranids and Imperial Guard

As much as I bash GW (maybe not here but certainly in real life), their figures are very nice. Vastly overpriced, but nice. And the terrain is very nice as well (and equally overpriced). That said, I've bought a bunch of different pieces as can be seen in these photos in various stages of painting, and have created a couple of foam boards to put the terrain on.

It's been fun. I'm working on some space marines and Eldar now, or whatever they call them these days...

Kill Team - Genestealers

Ryan, Josh and I have gotten together a number of times over the summer and into the Fall to do something gaming related while our D&D campaign is on a fairly lengthy hiatus.

One of the things we have talked about doing is to paint up some science fiction miniatures and have a go at Games Workshop's Kill Team, a game of skirmish combat in their Warhammer 40K universe. With some limited prior exposure to WH40K, I have no interest whatsoever in diving into that army-level game, but I will admit to liking the quality of the miniatures and having an interest in painting a few of them. Tyranids, or Starship Trooper style "space bugs" struck a chord with me.

So Ryan has been filling out an Imperial Guard force, and I have been painting up Genestealers for a Tyranid force.

Tyranid Genestealers

We have played a few games. The painting has been fun. The games have been fun. Additional troops have been purchased and are in various stages of completion. Terrain pieces have been bought and are in various stages of progress as well (as can be seen in the picture above).

My only regret... Grace took one look at my finished genestealers and said: "cool. cotton candy explosion."

Sigh.

Julia Turns 20

Somewhere in here recently, Julia turned 20, which boggles the mind.

The mandatory "presents at the kitchen island" photo

She is in a "super senior" year of high school, meaning that she is still under the age of 21 and part of the school district, but is beyond her normal senior "graduating" year. She marched with her class at graduation, but will spend the three subsequent years in job training and other life skills work before transitioning out of the school district and into the Delaware County program.

Rather than going to the high school building, she is picked up by a bus and taken to an apartment rented by the district. Job coaches are based in this apartment, and work with a dozen or so kids to develop life skills such as cooking and cleaning, laundry, and shopping. Several days a week, each of the kids is transported to a job site where they work on job skills. Julia has worked at at least 7 or 8 different places, trying a number of different types of work, and is building toward the day when she will have some sort of job placement, with assistance, to continue on in life.

It's a great program, and a good step forward into an uncertain future.

Thanks Dad

I'm not sure what it is that makes me think of Dad tonight (which I often do, but tonight I happen to be sitting at the computer...).

On June 22, 1980 Dad took me to my first concert - John Denver at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Dad has passed. The Spectrum is now a parking lot. I'm not a 14 year old kid any more (at least not outwardly). My youngest is as old now as I was then. All of which is hard to believe.

Thoughts of Dad remain a comfort to me now, as does the music of John Denver. The first thought that comes to mind when I remember Dad is that he did everything he could to make sure that Dave and Chris and I had a good life. Which we did. And still do.

John Denver and Cass Elliott singing Leaving on a Jet Plane in 1972. And again in the classic Wildlife Concert (with Goodbye Again).

Rocky Mountain High from the Wildlife Concert. Maybe someday Dave will show me how to play this on guitar... And Sunshine on My Shoulders.

And lastly, a favorite... Calypso.

I remember playing all of these songs on Dad's stereo in the living room at Ridge Lane. Vinyl LPs I still treasure to this day, even if I no longer have anything to play them on.

John's last public performance before his untimely death. Boy From the Country, 10/5/97, one week before his ultralight plane crashed off Catalina Island (when he was barely older than I am now)...

Things change, and yet the echoes of the past reverberate down into the present. I was 14 years and 4 months old when Dad took me to see John Denver at the Spectrum. The Wells Fargo Center has long-since replaced the Spectrum as the primary south Philly concert venue. Grace will be 14 years and 4 months old when I take her to see Twenty One Pilots at the Wells Fargo Center for her first concert this October.

Someday, perhaps, if I am lucky, she will think back.........

A New Chapter

I ended the last school year with a post on Turning Pages, primarily about Grace's end of middle school, end of competitive gymnastics, and looking forward to high school.

Well, high school is upon us soon and things are already ramping up. We had to make sure to end our week in Avalon on the Friday of the week, because freshman orientation day for pre-band camp was on Saturday August 11. Grace had been warned by neighborhood friends that she would hate the first few days of band camp but after that she would start to like it. So she went for freshman day. She came home. We asked "how was it?' Shockingly enough, the answer was "It was great!!" Go figure.

Freshman clarinet at band camp

The rest of band camp week went fine. We went to see the parents' view of the show on Friday at the end of the week. It was...rough around the edges...but had promise. Most importantly, Grace was having fun.

Section day, orange clarinets (at least some of them)

There would be two football games with performances before the school year even starts (8/24 and 8/31 - of which we won both). The performances would start with the first parts, and would add on more and more as the season went on.

Happy clarinet

Grace was apprehensive about high school, but had a bunch of advantages going in. She had new friends from band camp, and some 10th and 11th graders that knew her from middle school. Gina and Savannah from the neighborhood (class of 2017 with Julia) had also been clarinets, so Grace had an indirect connection to some of the juniors and seniors in the clarinet section who were still around, and who knew Grace's older friends. She also knew a lot of upper classmen that were involved in the drama club and the musicals (because of Julia's and Mom's involvement over the years, and herself having spent a lot of hours at the high school after her middle school day while Julia and Mom did their thing). Having a lot of friendly faces in the school, even if only casual acquaintances, would prove to be very helpful.

She would also sign up for the drama club and participate in the fall musical, which was High School Musical. She would be an ensemble member (a cheerleader), and because of her gymnastics background, would be the one to do some tumbling routines on stage. Hopefully she will like it. If she does she does. If she doesn't, well, so be it. If nothing else, she would get to spend some after school time with Mom, who has accepted the responsibility of a 2-year (minimum) stint as a sub-contracted school district employee in charge of costumes for the plays.

So that's where we will end August. On the threshold of lots of new things. Exciting. A little scary. New. Fun.

Avalon 2018

We got back yesterday from our now-annual tradition of a Monday-Friday week at the Windrift in Avalon (on the Jersey shore). This was year 5, and it is a comfortable and easy little vacation trip to do.

I never really went to the Jersey shore as a kid (we went to Ocean City, Maryland), so it tool a few years to get more used to where things were, what there was to do, things we should be aware of, etc... We are past that learning curve now (mostly), and we have settled into a routine.

The pool at the Windrift (3 girls under the umbrella)

Usually we go with Amp's sister and her family, but a medical thing prevented them from going this year. So that was different. We all missed them, and it seemed odd to be there without them, but it was relaxing in the sense that we only had to worry about our own schedule. Planning for 4 is easier than planning for 8.

Monday involved dropping Ryder at the dog sitter and then driving down. We couldn't get into the hotel early, so we drove the 20 minutes or so to Cape May to meet up with a friend of Grace's (another Grace) and spend a few hours shopping and wandering Cape May's quaint (if touristy) downtown. We then headed to the Windrift, checked in, and spent some time at the beach. We had dinner at the bar/restaurant in the hotel, and then finished out the day with a brief trip to the boardwalk in Wildwood. Grace is getting bolder with the rides she wants to do.

Tuesday was a lot of alternating pool and beach time, with the mandatory brunch at Uncle Bill's Pancake House in Stone Harbor (overpriced and overrated), but still worth doing. I guess. We had dinner at Water Lily, a Japanese place in Stone Harbor that was pretty good. We then went to the upper end of Avalon and played the traditional round of pirate mini golf, followed by ridiculously large single scoops of ice cream at the Buccaneer.

Wednesday was more pool and beach, and a dinner return to Water Lily, at the request of the kids. Which was fine with us. We then drove up to the boardwalk in Ocean City to meet another school friend of Grace's and spend some time in an amusement park there (Castaway Cove). This was my first time to that boardwalk, and while they all seem pretty much the same, Ocean City seemed a little nicer than Wildwood. Not that it matters. Rides. Ice cream. Whatever.

Thursday was more beach and pool, with breakfast at the hotel, lunch/snacks by the pool and dinner at Tortilla Flats in Avalon. Then we headed back to Wildwood for one last night on the boardwalk, killing time, eating polish water ice and riding some rides.

Rip Tide - Morey's Piers - Wildwood

Friday was little more than sleeping in a bit, getting packed and ready to leave, and heading home. We had lunch at Stone Harbor Pizza and briefly strolled the shops on the main drag one last time, then got on the road. We made good time, with a brief stop at the Hobby Lobby in Vineland off route 55, and were at the dog sitter's to pick up Ryder by 3. We were all happy to see the dog. I think he enjoys being part of a pack at the dog sitter's, and gets some refresher training while there, but he also seems very happy to come home again.

Fetching Ryder from the Sitter

We had good weather, with mid-80s temperatures and fairly high humidity. Lower humidity would have been nice, but we only had a quick passing shower or two, mostly overnight. With as much rain as we have had this summer, we could have had a total washout. So we got lucky in that regard.

I think the kids are already looking forward to next year.

August Random Tidbits

Our lot was one of the ones on the outer edge of the development, facing the woods and stream valley, which didn't have a lot premium. This was because we have a drainage basin behind us. Which is just a depression with a bunch of grass that deer and groundhogs and rabbits and foxes play in. I don't think I would trade our lot for any other in the development...

Summer blues and whites and greens

I've been lucky enough to be able to work out of my home office a decent bit this summer. Not having nearly two hours of commute in a day is nice. Cutting down on the dry cleaning bills is nice. And last but certainly not least, it's nice to have Ryder come into my office, plunk down on the wing chair across from my desk, and keep me company off and on throughout the day.

Ryder keeping me company while I work

The new house at the River is done, which is a whole other post, but we went down for part of a Saturday to see it, and Grace was anxious to get some fishing in. She caught a good sized catfish and a handful of small white perch. I caught a pretty good catfish, a sunfish and a perch. Julia fished with us for maybe ten minutes and caught a perch and a large sunfish. Not bad for an hour or so.

My fisher girl

It makes me happy that the girls like to fish with me.

Office Renovation

We painted our home office in a dark hunter green almost twenty years ago (could it really have been that long?!?). I loved the color then, and still do (mostly) now, but things could definitely use some touching up at a minimum after all these years.

Old Hunter Green wall color

When we had all the new windows installed back around Christmas 2016, the old dark wood blinds in the office didn't fit the new window openings, so they went. We didn't have anything to replace them with, so Amp decided that she would make roman shades. Which is still the plan. In the meantime, we have hung old sheets over the windows for privacy. Ugh. I've also been planning to paint the woodwork. Most of the other new windows have been done as we have repainted other rooms, but not in the office. Ugh again.

Old paint, new windows, bare wood, classy sheet curtains

The first step to a new paint job is picking a wall color. I originally thought to do a very similar dark green color, but then after a bunch of back-and-forth decided on a medium beige (Sherwin Williams "Shiitake").

As long as we were repainting, I wanted to put crown molding up. The office is one of the few rooms left in the house where we could realistically do crown molding where we haven't already done so.

So with a number of days off around the 4th of July holiday, I got started on the project. I hung new crown molding. To my surprise, this was probably the most level ceiling and square-cornered room in the house, which made the crown molding easy to do.

Lots and lots of prep and priming

Then came a whole lot of filling, sanding, gouge fixing, other minor repairs and prep work. This is often the longest and most tedious part of the job (especially in a room with bare woodwork that needs to be addressed), and it certainly was here.

Next came two coats of white on the ceiling, a primer coat and two coats of bright white semi-gloss on the crown molding. Then a primer coat over the very dark walls. Then two coats on the walls. Then two coats on all the trim and baseboards. After a primer coat on the bare window woodwork.

New crown molding and wall color

All told, I spent decent parts of 4 days doing all the various steps and waiting for the different coats to dry.

Beautiful new office

I'm thrilled with the results. I did love the dark green, but the lighter/brighter colors make the room seem more warm and inviting, especially at night when it is dark outside.

We've also purchased the material and other components for the new roman shades, and will be getting to that as time permits.

Next - Finding a way to deal with the two-story family room (and the last of the unpainted new window trim). Looks like scaffolding or ladder sets are in my future. That room needs a refresh desperately, and will be like this project only about 5 times bigger...