WHOOT!

As in my last post, we got the house and we actually moved in over the Christmas school break (I took two weeks of holiday from work).

Moving over a holiday type week is not the brightest move I've made in my life. It was raining, it was cold and it took 7 truck loads (17ft) to get our stuff from out of the valley.

And it has taken me this long to post.... trying to get the townhouse ready for renting, trying to unpack... having to own a car now to get to where we need to go.

I never realized how much time was being wasted when we used to own a car. Having not owned one for 7 years, you get used to taking your time, but it's constructive time. You can read, talk on the phone... can't do that when your driving.

Lots has changed with this move. Biggest is my commute has shortened. I am now using a vanpool and I leave 1/2 hour later and get home at the same time, but I don't have to shuffle out 1/2 hour early and only take a 1/2 hour lunch. So that's nice. My coworkers appreciate my not running out to catch the bus. The vanpool is much more predictable and there are no smelly bums on it, or people who vomit in the middle of the isle.

I mentioned the bonus room, which is slowly coming together. I am going to be putting in a "workbench". It will be a kitchen counter top put in on one corner and run almost the length of one wall. That should give me plenty of room for a desk for my computer and when I'm on call with work, as well as painting/building station for mini's and terrain.

In the garage is a workshop and I finally got my drill press up and running. I had purchased it about 8 months ago and due to a water leak in the garage at the townhouse I was unable to set it up. So it sat in the box. Well I got it out of the box put it together and now I'm drilling like a MOFO! In what would take me 30 minutes with a hand drill, I was able to complete in about 15 minutes. That's HALF THE TIME! WHOOT!

So I'm hoping now that once the Townhouse is rented (we have someone lined up and they should be moving in the first of March) that will be off my plate and hopefully I can make a video of how to make the display boards I've been working on for all the Mini's I own. From concept to finished product.

And hopefully I won't ignore this blog too much. Yea I know wishful thinking ;).

TTFN

Finally....

Well we finally got the house stuff all worked out.

Man am I glad. What a pain in the butt.

Here's a pic of the house.....



I had totally forgotten what a pain it is to buy a house. Shopping for the house... FUN! Deciding which house after you have seen a few... FUN! Paperwork to purchase the house.... NOT FUN! :D

And going with a VA backed loan drags the process out at least another two weeks.

But I am SO JAZZED that the process is over. Now we are doing some light cleaning (like carpets, walls, dusting) and a few repair items, we'll be moving in very soon.

The Bonus Room (where I'll be doing my actual gaming) is 12'x15'.... or 3.657 Meter's by 4.572 Meter's (for the European Community). Depending on how much the Diplay cases take up (as well as my Workstation), I'm thinking at least 2 4'x4' tables which can be combined into a 4'x8' table. If it's possible, I'll be putting in three or four 4'x4' tables. If that's not possible, I'll see about 4'x3' tables. Combining those would make two 4'x6' tables.

Here's some pics of the bonus room...






I'll be removing the shelves on the wall since I have my own bookcase and two display cases.

The Garage has a workshop. Although I'm going to have an electrician come out and check the Power Panel vs how many power tools I'll have running.

There is room for my drill press, but not for the table saw. That will have to go out in the garage.

I'll post more of course now that the "danger" has been averted. The valley could still flood, but I won't be in it.

Saga So Far

To continue on the "Flood" saga.....

We found a house on the East Hill that we liked and put in an offer. It was accepted. Before the economic downturn, I would not have been able to afford this house. But the house is really cool. Not only do I get a gaming room (aka the "Bonus Room"), I also get a workshop along with part of the 3 car garage to put my Radial Arm saw, routing table and other large power tools that will create a lot of wood dust and make it easy to clean up.

The workshop is really nice with a bench with power and shelving already in place. There is a place for my Drill press and other smaller power tools. Once I have everything in place I'll post pictures.

I'm jazzed because I can now, supposedly, have the room and ability to create all the terrain I want and actually have a place to paint mini's etc. This will allow me to finish the mini trays that I had been posting pictures of and I am hoping to actually make a tutorial that I can post on YouTube.

So stay tuned to this space for further updates. (Just an FYI we should be moving over the US Thanksgiving Day Holiday.) I should be posting more frequently (but then don't I always promise that? :D ).

Life

As usual it's been a while. Life always seems to happen just when you start enjoying yourself.

At the moment, there are two things going on in my life. The first is I now live in a flood plain.... WTF?!? how could I go from not living in a flood plain to living in one? It's called the Howard-Hansen Dam. Seems this Dam was built in the 1950's to keep the area where I live from flooding..... which caused it to no longer be classified as a flood zone. Now fast forward 50 years later and with climate change hitting the Pacific Northwest pretty hard (we now get rain like the East Coast gets, large, hard and lots of it, were before we got drizzle), instead of 90 days of drizzle, we get 90 days of OMG CATS and DOGS flowing from the sky.

So last year (2008) was a record year for the Dam. The Dam normally fills to 75% capacity. Last year it was 90%.... then the operators/care takers noticed "depressions" in the Dam... not a good thing. They drained it and discovered that it is no longer viable to hold massive amounts of water and it will take 8-10 years to fix..... whoops... so all of my inquiries into "Do I live in a flood plain" and being told "No" was a bunch of crap. There is a single point of failure in the logic that a flood plain is no longer a flood plain just because some Humans built a Dam and said so.

This brings me to point number two. In our strive to not have everything we own ruined by said coming flood... we have started to raise items in the Townhouse. So all the books/video's that are normally downstairs, are now upstairs... all the fun stuff in the Garage / Workshop is being moved to shelving I have put into the ceiling. This creates a much more open workspace. And that is awesome because I've been wanting more workspace. Of course that euphoria won't last long as all that extra space will be in 6-10' of water when the rains come.

With all the new workspace and hoping that the rains do not come or are not as bad as trending has shown it should be, I'll be working on a massive amount of stuff. The display boards I have not finished will finally get finished and photo's taken and posted.

Too bad that the "right now" is taken up by flood prep. But hopefully it will all work out in the end and I will have a cool workspace that won't flood.

The DC Chronicles.

Discovered this series of short movies while checking out Fallout 3 Vids on Youtube.

The DC Chronicles.

The Fallout 3 engine allows for scripted sequences and I found a series of video's on Youtube by member Drakortha and OMG! this guy is good.

Not only is the scripting very well done, but the writing and how it is presented is incredible.

There are 3 episodes up at the time of this post. It is highly recommended that you watch them, even if you are not a fan of the game.


My hats off to you Drakortha. Damn good job.

Blame Fallout 3

It has been quite a while since I posted last.

I blame Fallout 3 for my absence. I have been sucked in, hook, line, sinker and life time subscription to Anglers Monthly.

I am still plugging away at the ORK-43 rules as well. Just not as quickly thanks to Fallout 3. (By the way I DO RECOMMEND that you get this game and play it).

I wish it had a co-op mode, but it does not and that is very sad. Having a few "buds" with you as you explore the Capital Wasteland would have been awesome.

Oh well. I have have land to explore and Karma to gain or lose!

Computers Suck

We had a power outage a week or so ago and my PC started acting up. So it became so bad that I really, really needed to get a new box.

So I got an iMac. I've been a PC "dude" since 1982 when the original IBM PC came out. Now I'm a UNIX Guru, having Linux or FreeBSD boxes in and out around the house, but supporting and having to constantly rebuild or compile my own drivers, etc... sucks. So I wanted a Unix variant that was supported by manufacturers and a company that would actually fix bugs that are reported and I don't have to compile anything.... unless I write it myself.

So now things are being ported over and hopefully I will be done soon.

Oh, why an iMac and not a MacBook Pro? Twenty Four Inches of Real Estate... now I have 48" of screen.... OMG!!! So the iMac has a 24" built in monitor and I have a 24" Dell monitor from my Windows Box. WHOOOT!!!!

Once I get stuff converted over and transferred, etc, etc. I'll be posting more!

TTFN!