Sunday, February 28, 2010

Birthday Swag

Well, today is the start of my 39th annual orbit of the sun. For the record, that makes me 38 years old. Right about the time I am typing this, actually. So here I sit, early on Sunday, nobody else awake in the house (yet!), sipping coffee, and thinking about... all the goodies I got! To heck with the solemn remembering of past years, etc. Let's talk toys!

First up is the really awesome totally cool super neat minis storage/travel case I got form my wife and sons. It was purchased fro Dave's Baggage Train. It's aluminum, and has a whole lot of trays in it. The case itself is pretty sweet. I think I mostly prefer the plastic trays to the wood and vinyl ones, though, as the vinyl has peeled on a couple of htem. I will contact the Baggage Train to see if I can get more sent to me. Overall, very happy. This one is the 24" tall, and I am afraid I can't use it as carry-on! Yikes! May have to get a smaller case for air travel. But the trays will fit either, so that is good.


The next set of pictures is of some really beautiful terrain boards I received (gratis!) from a fellow TMPer, sculptor, Houston area gamer, and all around great fellow named Dan Martinez, aka Cacique Caribe on TMP. Dan recently surrendered his game room to his wife for her office, and no longer has room to use or even store these beautiful boards. Rather than toss them out, Dan offered them to me. As I was going to be in his neck of the woods to see my daddy for my birthday yesterday anyway, I gratefully accepted. And boy, am I glad that I did!
This last photo is a castle that Dan also gave over. It has currently been dubbed "Fortreth of the Thugar Plum Fairieth" thanks to its pink foam construction. But it shall soon receive a coating of black paint and then texturing, etc., to become a grim fortress for the Empire. Or whoever seems in need of a grim fortress at the time. Dan also gave me a hoard of littler bits, some cliffs, hills and other really cool stuff. If you want to see it all, go check out the photos on my Photobucket account (left margin somewhere).

In addition, I also received a box of the Marksmen of Miragliano from my sister, and a check from each of my parental units, plus a few other goodies. Even coconut cream pie! All that can make this birthday one of my best ever is if the US beats Canada in hockey. Guess what I am doing at 1400 local? You bet! Painting minis and watching hockey! GO USA!

Finally, I want to mention one thing. I am seriously considering changing this blog again. I'll post a short poll on the subject to see what my followers (makes me sound like a cult leader - cool!) think about it, but one friend has pointed out to me that it can be difficult to sort through all my projects and stuff when I have it spread across three blogs. So let me know what you think. A good chunk of the reason I blog is to entertain others as well as myself, and to bask in the glow of peer approval (ha!) or to shamelessly steal ideas from those foolish enough to share them with me (that's more like it). If I do it, expect to see the list of labels/tags seriously modified. Its too long as it is, and adding more would make it worse.

7 comments:

Ruarigh said...

Happy birthday. Looks like you got some cool toys.

Eli Arndt said...

Sounds like a nice haul. I am hoping to add to your pile soon. I just need to coordinate a trip to the post office with my other errands.

I am glad you could give those boards a good home. I am always amazed how much good gaming stuff gets tossed out. I recall when a member of our group passed away, his wife was kind enough to bring all of his terrain boards, minis, and supplies over to our group space so he could live on with us in his work.

Robert Hingley said...

A Happy Birthday to you. I too am planning to paint miniatures while watching the game, but alas, Canada shall win today's match.

Glad you're able to provide a good home to the orphan game boards.

Regards from the Great White North

J Womack, Esq. said...

The boards are beautiful. Pictures are not good enough. The two big ones are 40" square, plus four that are 20" x 40". So, what, 6400 sq. in., or a almost 44.5 sq ft of gaming surface? If I was buying them, I would bet the set would go for at least $200. Not including all the other stuff he threw in. Dan's loss was my big time gain, but I am gonna invite him over early and often to play with it some.

Tony said...

Happy Birthday -

I think the pink castle looks very fetching!

Tony

Tel said...

Hope you don't tweek the site too much, I enjoy the VSF feel which could get lost in a general gaming blog. Could probably do with a bit of a spring clean. Have you thought about using the new(ish) page functions to hold some of the more static stuff?

Also think they've adjusted the labels control so that you can customise which labels are shown. I actually did a custom job on my own blog to filter out the little used labels and put them at the bottom of the page.

Happy Birthday! (You just missed out being a leap year 'youngster'?)

J Womack, Esq. said...

Sadly, USA hockey let me down. I thought we had it when we scored with only 24 seconds left in the game. Total momentum shift! But alas, it was not to be.

At least Russia didn't win.