More ACW Naval Gaming

My ships came in.

Wait, that doesn't sound quite right.

My little 1/2400 American Civil War ironclads arrived and I've done some work prepping them for gaming.

Here are a handful of pictures. Sorry they're not great images, the only camera I have is my phone.

First we have the ships I've mounted so far. The bases are mostly 1.5mm thick, 15mm x 30mm wood from Litko Aerosystems, painted a muddy brown, with a hint of dark blue in the middle and cream color astern to simulate the action of screw, stern and sidewheels. I then cover the base with clear tape which gives a bit of that water shine, and finally glue the ship into place. The name is pasted on the bottom of the base.



Next here are most of the unmounted ironclads awaiting their turn. I do have a handful of ships that don't fit the small bases and am using larger (20mm x 50mm) for them. Unfortunately those bases are much thicker but what can you do?



You don't look like you're bored enough yet, so here are some ironclads pretending to fight it out on part of a map from 3W's "Shot and Shell" (the Yaquinto "Ironclads" maps were in the other room but pretty much look the same as this). You have the USS Cairo and USS Carondelet in the foreground preparing to blow the bejeepers out of the Arkansas (I think), the General Bragg and the Queen of the West (captured from the Union in 1862, IIRC).



And finally my current workspace, which is a TV table in my living room. Yes that is a fireplace in the background but it doesn't work. The fan was necessary, not due to fumes, but because IT'S FLIPPING HOT AROUND HERE THESE DAYS!!!



For those who care about such things, I have decided to use David Manley's "Iron & Fire" rules. I like the balanced level of complexity/realism/fun. They'll also be cool for use with (someday, when I can afford them) Thoroughbred 1/600 ironclad minis--remember, 1/1200 is twice as large as what I have, and 1/600 is twice as large as the 1/1200s. My eyes aren't young anymore...

Now get your boat out of my waters before I get my crew to pumpin' 9" Dahlgren smoothbore shells at ya! (Look it up, seriously :)

Three roles I would like to play...

..before I die.

1. Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof (I was born to play this part!)
2. Cervantes/Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha (probably will always be "too large" for this one.)
3. Ben Franklin in 1776 (used to want to be John Adams but again, too big a fellow, plus my gout experience makes me a natural for Ben :)

Note those down, Dominic. :)

It's too darned hot!

And in honor of the high temperatures and high humidity, I offer for your enjoyment (just a couple of weeks late), the opening from the musical 1776, which includes such wonderful lines as:

"Someone oughta open up a window! No no no too many flies!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HD1x_kZRQQ

'Nuff said. (Great show, BTW, especially the restored film with "Cool Conservative Men" and other bits disliked by R. Nixon when the movie came out in the early '70s.)

12 Things to know before visiting an Orthodox Church

Okay, so this is a little bit of a cheat since I neglected to post yesterday. Consider this my Thursday post.

Anyway, this is a great article about things you can expect when visiting an Orthodox Church, by the inestimable Frederica Matthewes-Green.

Enjoy!

http://www.frederica.com/12-things/

Running behind already

Yikes, I missed posting on Thursday. I guess I'll have to post twice today.

I had a nice dinner time chat Monday evening with a local well-known attorney. Actually I had finished my lasagna just before he came into the eating establishment, and then sat with him while he finished off a plate of delicious-looking spaghetti.

The convo began with a query about my thoughts on healthcare, since I have just completed about $250,000 worth of stents and chemotherapy.

My reply was that I was certainly grateful to have insurance which is covering the vast majority of the cost, but I was still iffy on the whole "government mandates you must, and you can be fined if you don't" bit.

I drew the comparison to car insurance, remarking that there is really no comparison because you can choose not to have a car and therefor not to have car insurance. But you cannot choose not to live (well you can, but that's a different discussion), and thus I find the mandatory nature of healthcare reform to be troubling.

To my surprise, my friend (and I hope I may be privilieged to call him that now) agreed with me to some extent.

From there the conversation turned to a remarkably rapid series of observations and anecdotes, ending (of all places) discussing faith, religion, and committment to discipline (aka the Methodist Book of Discipline, or Orthodox teaching on sacraments such as confession, or communion, and whether or not you could "pick and choose" what you chose to believe and still be a member-in-good-standing of the church or confession of which you purported to be part.

My position was "if you want to be a Rotarian, you have to abide by the rules of Rotary". So if you can't accept the clear teaching of your faith confession, then perhaps you'd better look elsewhere.

At that point we both had places to go, things to do, and in my case a city council meeting to attend. But it was a very pleasant way to pass time, conversing with my friend. I hope we can do it again sometime soon.

Thanks TC!

Ugh

Is there anything worse than a summer cold? Especially when it's so hot outside?

Two days now, hacking and coughing and feeling like a bus hit me. Back to work Thursday, though.

Made Day Three of Post-a-Day-30, though it's just a complaint about summer colds. :) Nothing deep, and nothing hobby-related.

Now to take a long, warm, soaking bath.

Naval gaming the ACW

That's "American Civil War".

I've just invested in some ironclads to play games based primarily on the Mississippi River and tributaries during the 1861-1865 time period. I was fortunate during the 25th annual QuinCon convention in Quincy last month to play in two games of a ruleset titled "Raiders & Blockaders" and had such a great time I decided to do some ironclad games of my own.

So, I hear you ask, what do you mean ironclads?

These:


(That one's from David Manley, a UK wargamer and naval aficionado.)


(And that's from Scott Mingus, newly into the era, like myself.)

The Manley ship is 1/1200 scale. The Mingus ships are twice as big, at 1/600.

I'm going with 1/2400, which is half the size of the Manley ship. Yes, it's pretty small, but they are also inexpensive ($1.50 each), whereas the 1/1200's run from $4 to $10 apiece, and the 1/600's run from $18 to $26 apiece. They're more detailed, but I can't justify the expense.

Plus I can use the 1/2400 ships with a board wargame I already own titled "Ironclads" and thus don't have to buy a new set of rules.

OTOH Mr. Manley has a superb set of rules titled "Iron & Fire", and I did enjoy "Raiders & Blockaders" at QuinCon.

When I get my own painted and some riverbank terrain modeled, I'll play a game and take some pictures for the blog.

So many minis, so little time. :)

Quincy drivers

When I moved to Quincy in 1996, I was amazed at how courteous 95% of the drivers were.

If you were trying to get into traffic, you didn't have to wait long before someone would let you merge; if you were trying to cross the street there would always be someone that let you slip across without getting run over.

People also seemed to be more careful drivers too.

Unfortunately in the last couple of years I have been seeing less and less of that courtesy, and more and more of people not paying attention to their driving.

Case: I was pulling out from in front of a local business, had checked the mirrors, the blind spot, etc., signaled and began pulling out when a driver squeals around the corner and comes very close to plowing into my rear end. Of course he honks, and flies the bird. News flash--it woulda been your fault, hitting me from behind.

Case: Trying like the dickens to get over to turn right on Broadway before 24th, and no one in the right lane would let me in. I finally had to come to a dead stop in the left lane and wait for everyone in the right lane to pass.

Those are not isolated instances either, more's the pity.

So come on Quincy drivers, you were doing so well for so long. Don't mess it up now.

PS. Yes, I was in an ax in Feb, 2009 and it was my fault for not paying attention as I should have. So it goes for me, too.

Let's try a new project

We'll call it "Post-a-Day 30".

I'll try to post SOMETHING each day for 30 days.

It may be light, it may be serious, it may be funny, it may be sacred, it may be most anything--just I have to write something and post every day between July 12th and August 12th.

And this one doesn't count. :)

A Visit from St. Nicholas

No, not Clement Moore's poem.

This is the real St. Nick, the Bishop of Myra in Lycia in Asia Minor, the one who tossed bags of gold through the window of a poor man so his daughters could get married.

Today, my priest visited me to tell me an anonymous person gave to the St Raphael Church Charity Fund for the purpose of assisting me in my financial bind while being treated for cancer and unable to work.

The amount is immaterial though not insubstantial, and will help with the cost of living until I get back to work in June after my final chemo treatment.

Glory to God, thanks to St. Nicholas and his servant, who have blessed me immensely with their support and love!

As an update for those wondering about my health: a PET Scan two months ago showed the cancer much reduced and inactive, so there is one more scheduled treatment on June 9th. In fact the cancer (non-Hodgkins lymphoma) hasn't really caused me much trouble--it's been the ancillary issues such as severe gout, a massive kidney stone, and the reaction to the chemo that's kept me from working.

Hopefully after the chemo is done I will bounce back quickly. My hope is to be back full time by the beginning of July and county fair season (so our Jim Dewey can focus on Farm Director duties and I can handle news once more).

On the positive side, I'm down almost 100 pounds since December, and feeling good about that. A 56 inch waist is so much nicer than a 66 inch waist, though all my pants are too baggy now. I hope to get a real exercise program set up as well as seriously watching what I eat. The goal over the next year will be to get down to about 240 pounds. 50 and fit, that's where I'm headed! :)

Anyway, once again thanks be to God and to my saviour Jesus Christ, to St. Nicholas and my anonymous benefactor, as well as to the doctors and nurses and staff and family and friends who have helped me through this.

God bless you all!

An update on the Pilgrim

Hello all.

Many of you know what's been going on with me, and many do not.

I thought it might be helpful to let you know where I've been and where I'm going--especially for those who hear me regularly on WTAD and wonder why I have been on so infrequently of late.

Don't worry, I'm still a WTAD news reporter, just kind of on the sidelines for a bit.

In December, after a delightful run of Miracle on 34th Street, it was discovered I had four blockages around my heart and stents had to be placed. That slowed me down a bit.

Then in January after fighting an infection, it was discovered that there were growths on or around my kidneys. Looking back at CT scan from December, there was a small growth on or near the left kidney, so it grew very fast.

Diagnosis was aggressive large cell lymphoma and we moved pretty fast to get me into chemo, though we had a few speed bumps along the way (reaction to the initial treatment, an episode of blah blal with blood, sunken and exploding blood pressure) but finally got through the first chemo without further incident.

I'm home now, more or less, and resting. My treatment cycle is every 21 days and it doesn't appear so far that the side effects will be too debilitating. Yes, I'll lose my hair, I've had a few aches and pains, I've had to have a shot to improve white blood cell count which makes me feel a little flu-y, but hopefully future treatments will have less effect.

The plan is to go back to work (at least part time and with the approval of the good folks at WTAD) at the beginning of April.

The chemo will be for six to eight treatments every 21 days.

And that's where I am.

By God's grace and the love of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, I am uplifted each and every day, and you prayers will help speed my recovery and return to active service.