The Inner Geek state of the Union Address

First update of the new year, and only in May! Sad.

So what have I been up to? I've been going to school, working, and enjoying the family life with my wife and kids. Hasn't left a lot of free time to be honest. My school schedule is picking up signficantly till this coming December (CCNA here I come), so I'll probably have even less time till then. Damn education. But, it's what's best for my family and myself and I'm happy.

So now you know what I've been up to, but why am I writing a post now? Well, what time I have had has been spent introspectively (don't get to use that word often). I've decided that I'm really just about finished with Games Workshop. It's been a great ride the last (shudder) 24 years or so, but I'm not getting out of the hobby what I used to. Maybe the mood will hit me again in the future, but for now it's not there.

I think part of my problem is the fact that I try to build and paint as though I'm going to play the game... and lets face it, I'm not. So, I speed through stuff in a hurry to finish so that I can be ready for a game I'm not really that interested in playing. I think I'd be just as happy to drink a beer and watch someone else play... though that may just be because of the beer?

So will I dissappear in a poof of ninja smoke? I rather thought I already had? No, I'll always hobby in some way. When I have time again I imagine I'll work on one off type models. I have some lovely resin monstrocities I'd like to build around here... and a couple I'd like to see gone (more on that in a bit). I've recently been enamoured with my first (hobby) love, giant robots. As a kid I probably built about a million robot model kits. Now that I'm a big kid, I think it would be nice to do some and finish them nicely with paint and all that fancy stuff I neglected as a child.

What will happen to my blog? I'm not sure? Maybe it will be overhauled into a different themed blog? Maybe I'll move to a new blog? I haven't really thought that far ahead. It will definitely stay up in some form because I need the blog roll to check on all my friends... though I guess RSS feeds would accomplish the same thing.

In the meantime, I'll be letting some stuff go. Not all my GW stuff, but some of it. I've already put the WarHound1 and Warhound2 on ebay, as well the Macharius Vulcan. More will go up soon(ish), maybe even the Reaver Titan. And yes, this paragraph is a shameless plug for my ebay auctions. Spread the word!

So, I'll be around. I'm always available by email if anyone needs me. I encourage all my fellow bloggers to keep posting good blogs, I'll be lurking... *POOF! ninja smoke*

Off Topic, News, and Distractions

I've pretty much decided in the last week or so that I have adult ADD. The first clue came while listening to the audio book of Prospero Burns in the car on the commute to work and back. It's good and I should do a review in the coming days... should do. Anyway, while listening the narrator might mention a mountain (complete with descriptives) 20 seconds or so later I realize I haven't really heard anything since then because my mind has wandered to thinking about some mountain I saw once... or would like to see... or might want to almost get to see. So, rewind and continue. Maybe I'm just distracted and having trouble concentrating?

So I've spoken to the lovely Mrs. Inner Geek and secured a weekend break. Now I have to decide how to spend it and exactly when. Two things are on the forefront of possibilities. I live in North Texas and several years ago while staying a while just outside Austin, Texas I got to go float a section of the Guadalupe River in an inner tube and drink beer. Water, beer, floating... what else could you ask for? Austin also has a hopping night life, so a nice dinner and refreshing adult beverages wouldn't be out of the question. Another bonus, it's three hours drive by car. The problem I'm running into is finding a friend who can go and wants to. I don't mind going to a movie, bar, or dinner by myself, but I'm not sure I care to do a whole weekend adventure alone. Sad, eh? My second option I've considered is flying up to Chicago for Games Day. More of a money sink, but it might be fun? I've never been to Chicago or a Games Day. For some reason going alone doesn't bother me so much on this one, I'm just not sure what I'd do at a Games Day? Thoughts and suggestions welcome in the comments section.

On to distractions...

Have you ever heard of MineCraft? Well, if you haven't, run for the hills... the awesome, blocky, 8 bit graphic hills. I can't stop. It's the most addictive game I've played in recent memory. Seriously people, I'm losing sleep. And when I do lay down to sleep, all I can think about is the next mine I'm going to dig and what I'm going to build with the rocks I excavate. House, castle, palace? I really can't do it justice with a description, so check out some youtube videos when you have minute or twelve. I'll link you to one to get you started...



So I apologize for not posting a Warhound update, but I really needed to get some of this out there. I appreciate it if you've made it this far. If you are playing MineCraft or want to go on Vacation with The Inner Geek, be sure to let me know. I welcome all comments... well... pretty much all.

Off Topic (it's broke) And Happy Thanksgiving

What is it that's broke? My bank account? My ability to finish projects? My will to continue blogging? No, none of these... well, the bank accounts getting there.

But no, what's actually broken is my toe.



So, this Thanksgiving I'm thankful that falling down the stairs in my home only resulted in a broken toe. Actually, strangely, not even a bump or bruise anywhere else. My toe seems to have taken the full brunt of the fall. My wife and others have asked how it happened and I'm embarrassed to say, I don't know. It happened so fast I was coming downstairs one second and laying at the bottom of them the next. I do vaguely remember hitting the baby gate we have at the bottom of the stairs which keeps the toddler from trying to climb the stairs. That thing was totally unprepared for my assault.

So, I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. If you live in a part of the world where they don't do Thanksgiving, have a turkey sandwich and be thankful for something anyway. It can't hurt... unless you're allergic to turkey. Then substitute chicken or ham... or tuna.

I really haven't had a ton of time for hobby stuff lately, but I do have an awesome project coming up. It's going to be a bit of a collaboration with one of my favorite bloggers, Admiral Drax!

Awesome, Cool, and WTF (Off Topic)

There are a few off topic things I wanted to share, so I thought I'd bunch them all up into one post.

First off, the awesome. My lovely wife gave birth to our daughter on 08/17/2010 (or 17/08/2010 depending on where in the world you are) at 4:23pm. Her name is Mackenzie Jane and she was born 8lbs 2.5oz and twenty inches long. She and her mother are both doing well and healthy, though me and her fourteen month old brother are both a bit frazzled. Here's a pic!



Next up is a trailer for a movie coming out next spring I stumbled upon. The movie is Sucker Punch and it looks terribly interesting. Anytime you have samurai, dragons, mobsters, nazis, and well... just take a look...



Then we come to the WTF. I don't know what else to say...



Oh, one more thing you can try, just for fun. Go to google and type in "French Military Victories" and then press the "I'm feeling lucky" button. It's good for a laugh... unless you're French.

Hope you've enjoyed my completely 40k-free post. On topic posting will resume in a few days.

I've Moved!

Online that is. A new domain to spiffy the place up a bit.

Ok folks, the last few months have been beyond busy for me. Not too much sign of letting up either. However, I do plan to try and get some work done. Maybe a Marauder Destroyer painted... maybe some other resin products built and/or painted. My plan is to sleep less, I think. Let's face it, the beauty sleep isn't living up to it's name in my old age.

I want to apologize for falling off the radar. I have lurked many of your blogs over the last few months. Speaking of you guys blogs, when I moved my blog to it's new address, I mysteriously lost all my blog roll entries. I'll be building that back up over the coming week. That's how I keep up with you guys, after all!

Google has assured me that all old links to my blog should still work... of course, I thought my blog roll would be coming with me too! So, while you shouldn't have to, any links to this site can be replaced by http://www.theinnergeek.net.

I hope to have some sort of progress to show on the Marauder Destroyer to show in the next few days. Till then, thanks for stopping by!

I'm still here... lurking...

So as some may have noticed, I've not blogged in a fair bit. What? You didn't notice? Um... well... it's a fact, I haven't. I'd like to blame a plethora of things for my not doing much hobby stuff, and therefore having nothing to blog about. Alas, it all comes down to me not doing anything when I do have time. It seems the longer you go without doing anything, the easier it is to put it off one more day. Even things you enjoy, sad as that my be!

I'm really hoping to get some inspiration and get some work done. Lord knows I have plenty to work on! I have a couple Space Marine Dreadnaughts to work on, the minis from my Space Hulk, a Tyranid army still in boxes, an Ork army still (mostly) in boxes, Marauder Destroyer, Macharius Vulcan, Land Raider Prometheus, tons of IG, fantasy Undead army still in boxes, fantasy Empire still in boxes, some Eldar Storm Guardians for my Altansar force, many boxes of Imperial terrain that are to be a large fortification one day, an AGX-04A1 Gerbera Tetra Custom to be assembled, and a fantastic BRIEGEL resin kit by Luca over at Kallamity.

This brings me to another problem I have. I created this blog as a 40k hobby blog. But, as can be seen by the last two projects listed above, I have a very diverse Inner Geek. And working on non 40k projects does help me avoid total burn out. So, here's the deal. I would like feedback from the community as to whether I should create a separate blog for non 40k material, or just lump all my geeky-ness into a pile here? I'm not big on polls, but I'm going to post one for a few days. Look left. Any advice on blogging, time management, baby burping, or general commentary are welcome!

Off Topic News and Updates

It's been a while since I've posted and I do apologize to my friends out there in the blogger world. I've been pretty busy and distracted the last month or so, but I have been lurking your blogs as I've had time.

So, what's been keeping me so busy? A several things really. I'll share the largest distractions with you here in this blog.

First off, two weeks ago my wife gave birth to our son! Thomas Elliot was born June 23^rd, 2009. He was 8lb 5oz and 21" long at birth (ten fingers, ten toes and all that good stuff). He and his mother are doing fine and everyone seems to be healthy. Here are a couple pictures of him taken today.




It turns out that nobody makes a 40k "one-sie". And his mother tells me he's too small to assemble or paint anything yet too. I guess I'll just have to give him a few months and let him roll dice for me... come to think of it... those are probably too small for him to play with, double damn. Ok, so he probably won't be old enough for the 40k hobby anytime soon. Maybe by the time he is I'll have an army painted for him to play with!


My second distraction came just a short time before Thomas arrived. While it doesn't compare in ability to be cute, fill a diaper or keep me up all night, distraction two is a lot of fun in its own right!



I've always wanted a bike and recently had a chance to take the rider safety course and get my motorcycle license. By the way, I recommend that class for anyone who rides or wants to ride a motorcycle. The bike is a Ducati Monster 1100S, and it's a blast! I've always wanted a Monster, so choice of bike was pretty easy. Also, a couple guys at my local GW store and I are thinking of starting a 40k biker gang... well, not really, but we may be terrorizing the streets together all the same. It would be a bit of an eclectic group, one Ducati, one Aprilia, and a Buell.

I appreciate folks stopping by. I do plan to get back on the blogging and I think this little ice-breaker might be just what I needed to get back to blogging after too long away. I still owe you guys a finished Reaver blog and blog on Reaver building 'what to watch for'. Later guys!

My Latest Project ( completely off topic!)

I've been absent from the blog scene for almost a month now. I'd like to say that I've been off busy feeding the hungry or curing cancer in that time, but my time was spent much more selfishly. I was working on passing a huge kidney stone and recovering. What follows is a tale of my trip through hell.

A little history... I had my first kidney stone about ten years ago. Withing 8 hours of the excruciating pains beginning, I had passed a small stone that looked like something off a sticker bush. My next stone was about two years later. Another small stone, but while it was thankfully smooth, it hurt just as bad and took about forty-eight hours to pass.

A couple years after that, I'm in the emergency room again with another kidney stone. This one hurt for about five days and it never did seem to come out. Every year or two since then I would have to go the the emergency room in extreme pain, but nothing ever came out. I was told about five years ago that I had a decent size stone just about to drop into my bladder. This sounded great because once they get to your bladder, they don't hurt anymore. The problem, by the way, with kidney stones is pretty much all in the getting from your kidney to your bladder. A year later I was told that this was probably a different stone, but what do you know, it was still "just almost into your bladder".

A year ago I went into the emergency room and they did an MRI and said (you guessed it) I had a pretty big stone, but it was almost into my bladder, "it should pass fine". Now we come to this year. I went to the same ER as last year. The Dr. compared this years MRI to last years and said basically, "WTF"? It was the exact same stone... I told him of course it was, I haven't actually passed a stone since 2001. He had no idea why the Dr. last year didn't send me straight to a urologist? The stone, according to the MRI from this year and last, was over 6mm in size. Generally anything under 4mm is expected to pass. Anything over six millimeters is pretty much impossible he told me. So, since I didn't have a blocked kidney (so no emergency procedure) I had to live out the next couple days on pain pills that didn't really work until I could see a urologist. I convinced him that I could not live in that kind of pain for a week until he could do something, so he managed to bump me up in line for a Lithotripsy procedure. So a couple days later I go to the hospital and they put under and shoot sonic waves through me and try to bust up the stone into smaller passable pieces. This was more important than ever because the flat x-rays had shown the stone to be closer to 10mm! I go home to recover and have less extreme pain, though still a bit of discomfort from the procedure (though not invasive, it's quite jarring to your innards). A week later I go to follow up with my Dr and he has me x-rayed again... great news... the stone didn't break up after all, the Lithotripsy just sonically knocked it down into my bladder. My Dr had a look on his face that you never want to see you Dr have and said, "I don't know if you can pass that... I don't know how it ever got into your bladder". But, he said I should give it a shot and if nothing came out he'd go in after in a month or two... ew. Well, almost a week later and started having pain when going to the restroom. I'll tell you that the last few inches a kidney stone travels is usually painless, a short break in the stream when you are peeing and there it is. This took all day to come out and hurt like hell.

After trying to come out for years, I present to you, the stone.



Yea, close to 13mm! And they said anything over 6mm wouldn't pass, ha! I win! Inner Geek 1, Stone 0! In your face tiny hell-stone!


On another off topic front, my darling Inner Geek Lover has been to the Dr and it appears she is with child! I'm not sure how this happened, but I'm it's all quite medical. We are very excited as she was told previously by her physician that she could not have any more children. Look for another off topic blog on or about the 27th of June next year!

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate all the folks who read my blog and I promise you, work will be starting up again on the Reaver. Between recovery and trying to make up for lost time where I work, I've had no time for the beast. I've little chance of ever catching up completely on all my friends blogs, but I'm going to give it my best. I'll talk to you all later!

Off Topic (Fighting the disqus beast)

Sorry to clutter the blogosphere, I'm just jumping on the new DISQUS comment bandwagon and need to test it out. I had several errors trying to get it set up. Finally deleting my cookies and restarting the pc, along with saving the template as an xml sheet on my desktop then uploading instead of editing it within blogger seemed to do the trick. What a run-on sentence that was! Anyway, we'll see if I got it or not...

UPDATE: This procedure seems to have worked! I believe the trick is in the uploading of the template that disqus makes you instead of just pasting it in.

Time Escapes Me (off topic)

I'll not be keeping up with the blogger the next few days. Sunday my grandmother passed away, and today was the funeral. Tomorrow I leave for a short vacation out of state. I'll be back on Sunday night and look forward to catching up then. I might be able to sneak onto the laptop while I'm on vacation, but I can't be sure. Anyway, it's been a busy few days and I'm glad for the break. I hope you all have a great few days and post lots of great blogs for me to catch up on when I get back!

Posting Links in comments, a Quickie...

I'm putting together a quickie. I've noticed that a lot of folks would like to include a link in their comments as I cruise the blogosphere. I'm posting a bit of code that works in blogger comments and probably wordpress as well. You are welcome to copy and paste this somewhere that you can remember it.

<a href="LINK GOES HERE">WORDS or pic TO SHOW GO HERE</a>

I think it's pretty self explanatory, but you place your link in place of the words, "link goes here", and the text that you want to be the actual link in the "words or pic to show go here" part. I don't imagine that you can include a pic as a link, but I made this to place in my Handy Code notepad document I keep on my desktop. It holds all the stuff I know I'll never remember about simple code.

So feel free to drop a comment and practice. You can leave me a link to your blog or some other entertaining page. Here's one to get you started!

Super Glue and Random Thoughts

Let me just say one thing about super glue, I hate it. Yea, that's right. I hate super glue.

When gluing plastic to plastic, I always choose plastic cement. When gluing metal to metal I (almost) always use two part epoxy. But with plastic to metal I use the despised super glue. I think it may be that I feel mislead by super glue. There used to be television commercials in which a man was suspended in the air clutching his hard hat that had been super glued to an iron beam. I think it's much more likely, in hindsight, that he could be held aloft by a ferocious jet of flatulence that would make Grandfather Nurgle say, "wow..." than any amount of super glue. My experience with super glue is as follows; I glue two pieces and hold them together for about 30 seconds, I let go and the free piece falls and is permanently attached to the first thing it touches. Whether that thing be my finger, a bit of paper towel, the table, or a piece of nonstick teflon, it is stuck. Luckily, even the best bit of super glue can be undone with same amount of pressure it takes to fold a piece of toilet tissue... one ply toilet tissue. I hate super glue.

If anyone has any tips, suggestions, or would just like to poke the poor freak who can't use super glue with a stick, please feel free to leave a comment.

In other completely unrelated news... My local GW store called me today to confirm that there was to be a midnight release with events and fun stuff Friday night the 11^th of July. "That's great" I said, "but I have to go now to get my teeth drilled as I'm at the dentist." And so I did. Big fun. Then a few hours later whilst recovering from the Dental Adventure they called again. This time to inform me that there would be no midnight release and as it turns out I'm welcome to swing by Saturday the 12^th to pick up my Gamers Edition 40K rules. Life seems so unfair at times... I know there are children in Africa starving, but this is about me damn it!

Oh well, Hellboy II comes out tomorrow. They can't take that from me... or can they?

News, Updates, and Off Topic too...

News:
Reinforcements have arrived! 40 Storm Guardians have arrived! I'm not just tickled pink that the way they are packaged you HAVE to give two out of every 8 a special weapon, but I'll see what I can't come up with to get something assaulty into the hands of those who need it.

The side affect of this is that the order size qualified me for a free Space Marine Sergeant mini from direct order. He looks really kewl. In fact, there maybe a timeout called from Eldar long enough to paint him... no.. no... MUST stay on track...

Updates:
The Wraithlord is coming along pretty good. The heavy weapons platforms and crew are almost done too. I have the prototype Dire Avenger almost ready to snap a pic and put up. Work has been slow this week for reasons in the off topic section...

Off Topic:
My progress has been impeded quite a bit this week (and will continue to be) because of family needs. My grandmother, who is 93 this year, recently had a double stroke. She was in the hospital for several days and has now been shipped to a "nursing and rehabilitation" facility. I have been taking turns with my father going to visit her. It's really awful to see her in the condition she is in, but I know it lifts her spirits when we visit. She had lost her vision and her speech after the strokes. She has regained her sight and, thankfully, still mentally very sharp. But, she still can't speak and writing is difficult for her so she gets frustrated trying to communicate. I'm sorry to be such a downer on my 40k blog, but I needed to get it out there I guess. If you have older relatives, enjoy them. You never know how long you'll have them for.

Now go paint something! That's what I'm gonna do!

Off Topic...

A little off topic here. If you have any interest in video games (or would like to be discouraged to) you should check out the reviews over at The Escapist, particularly Zero Punctuation. The guy is pretty funny and can find a reason to complain about pretty much any video game known to man.

The reason this came up today is that in the midst of his review of the recently released game 'Haze' there is a split second appearance of a Space Marine. See if you can spot it here!