It was a long weekend on the homefront. My Friday started off strong, with a morning of house construction. I'm responsible for the all the inbound mail our department receives, particularly from the various marketing campaigns we mail out. The morning drop-off was the junk mail, specifically ten return envelopes, each stuffed with a piece of plywood!
People love to use the Business Reply Mail envelopes to send back their unwanted stuff. We normally get the envelopes filled with junk mail, religious tracts, and even random family pictures. This is the third or fourth time we've gotten wood in the mail, but never ten pieces of it!
I built a handy dandy little house with the pieces, and someone added a special note after I left for the day.
At lunch, the eldest was sent home from daycare with a possible case of lice. After leaving work early to pick her up, it was a fun afternoon of hair scrubbing and combing, and either scalding all the bedclothes or spraying down anything she may have been in contact with... for one lone little bug and zero eggs. Thank goodness, daycare must have caught it the instant it landed on her. She passed inspection Monday morning, so all of that was worth it.
Historicon was this past weekend, and I'm very happy I didn't go. My wife had an eleven hour day on Friday, so her picking up my daughter would have been disastrous, professionally and financially. Initial non-gnome reports have come back as a solid con with the same old people complaining about the same old stuff. Our very own Mike Lung should be sending me pics from the con sometimes this week and I'll post them up as soon as possible. I'm also in the midst of compiling a post of the "best of" Historicon pics from other blogs.
One thing I don't comprehend is the number of people complimenting the game set-ups specifically certain ones I couldn't differentiate from the others. Having dealt with a number of "mundanes" with no concept of history, the only difference to them between a Ancients game and a Medieval game is the color of the game mat, and the only way to different many games from 7YW through WW2 is to look for the tri-corner hats, Confederate battle flags, or an armor column tearing down the road. From a strolling distance, they all largely look the same, hence the attraction of the untrained eye to the MBA tables, the German runway game, Victorina Sci-Fi, or gnomes.
Saturday was another trip to Knoebels for another birthday party. Once we got past the "Lost Tribes of Israel" phase of the party, where the group crawls around the park, trying to find a ride "everyone" needs to go on, it was an enjoyable, if hot, day.
I also got back down the Kriget Rum and struggled through the painting queue. Most of the work focused on the next Swiss Unit, the 3rd Engineers. Although I did finish two or three of these guys previously, the whole unit of twenty is getting redone with a different uniform scheme (the hats were painted a variety of ways and we're shifting from Citron Green to a Pineapple color for the shirts).
Sunday was a slow day, as the sun beat down on the house. I finally got the air conditioner installed in the family room, and we hunkered down in there until the sun started to fall and we scoured the downstairs, matched a million pairs of women's shoes, and desperately looked for Historicon pics on my phone.
The long weekend for the girls of amusement parks, heat, and bugs made the Sunday night bedtime a chore, and I decided to turn in once the children's thrashing stopped. No more painting, but I did uncover my copy of Zombies!!! out of the garage! The main boxed set was full of zombies and one of the expansions housed the tiles, dice, and chits. Over the last few years, I could always find one box, but never the other, but luck was good to me Sunday. Perhaps we can play it this weekend.
Speaking of playing, my wife works the next two weekends, so it's time to try and organize something, which I'm calling Histor-can't and Homestoricon for the three or four people invited. The second weekend might be better, as we finally say adios to the puppies at the end of July! Part of me will miss them: the part that enjoyed cleaning up their messes and keeping me from my family. That part of me is mentally deranged. Even my wife, dog rescuer #1, is done with fostering animals for the rest of the year.
People love to use the Business Reply Mail envelopes to send back their unwanted stuff. We normally get the envelopes filled with junk mail, religious tracts, and even random family pictures. This is the third or fourth time we've gotten wood in the mail, but never ten pieces of it!
I built a handy dandy little house with the pieces, and someone added a special note after I left for the day.
At lunch, the eldest was sent home from daycare with a possible case of lice. After leaving work early to pick her up, it was a fun afternoon of hair scrubbing and combing, and either scalding all the bedclothes or spraying down anything she may have been in contact with... for one lone little bug and zero eggs. Thank goodness, daycare must have caught it the instant it landed on her. She passed inspection Monday morning, so all of that was worth it.
Historicon was this past weekend, and I'm very happy I didn't go. My wife had an eleven hour day on Friday, so her picking up my daughter would have been disastrous, professionally and financially. Initial non-gnome reports have come back as a solid con with the same old people complaining about the same old stuff. Our very own Mike Lung should be sending me pics from the con sometimes this week and I'll post them up as soon as possible. I'm also in the midst of compiling a post of the "best of" Historicon pics from other blogs.
One thing I don't comprehend is the number of people complimenting the game set-ups specifically certain ones I couldn't differentiate from the others. Having dealt with a number of "mundanes" with no concept of history, the only difference to them between a Ancients game and a Medieval game is the color of the game mat, and the only way to different many games from 7YW through WW2 is to look for the tri-corner hats, Confederate battle flags, or an armor column tearing down the road. From a strolling distance, they all largely look the same, hence the attraction of the untrained eye to the MBA tables, the German runway game, Victorina Sci-Fi, or gnomes.
Saturday was another trip to Knoebels for another birthday party. Once we got past the "Lost Tribes of Israel" phase of the party, where the group crawls around the park, trying to find a ride "everyone" needs to go on, it was an enjoyable, if hot, day.
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| The girls with Dexter the Raccon, not the serial killer. |
Sunday was a slow day, as the sun beat down on the house. I finally got the air conditioner installed in the family room, and we hunkered down in there until the sun started to fall and we scoured the downstairs, matched a million pairs of women's shoes, and desperately looked for Historicon pics on my phone.
The long weekend for the girls of amusement parks, heat, and bugs made the Sunday night bedtime a chore, and I decided to turn in once the children's thrashing stopped. No more painting, but I did uncover my copy of Zombies!!! out of the garage! The main boxed set was full of zombies and one of the expansions housed the tiles, dice, and chits. Over the last few years, I could always find one box, but never the other, but luck was good to me Sunday. Perhaps we can play it this weekend.
Speaking of playing, my wife works the next two weekends, so it's time to try and organize something, which I'm calling Histor-can't and Homestoricon for the three or four people invited. The second weekend might be better, as we finally say adios to the puppies at the end of July! Part of me will miss them: the part that enjoyed cleaning up their messes and keeping me from my family. That part of me is mentally deranged. Even my wife, dog rescuer #1, is done with fostering animals for the rest of the year.
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