Another quick explanation

Well, since I haven't made a post in August, I thought I would take just a moment and reassure people that I have not abandoned this blog.

Many of the usual summertime explanations/excuses apply to this month as well. Vacations, travel, and all those sorts of things.  Not all of them are non-gaming related, though.  I've been working on a project that is somewhat related to the blog and has taken up a good bit of time over the last month or so.  When that is finished, I'll talk more about it on here.  There will still be a review of the Gomi Designs PBR, but that sort of got pushed to the back of the line by some of the projects below. 

I've moved back to building my sailing ships, as the photo below shows:

From left to right in the photo are HMS Caesar (80), a British Common class 74, a Russian 46 gun frigate and a Russian 50 gun frigate.  Yes, progress is being made on the Russian unicorns!  Even though the Russian 50 has (most) of her masts in, she still won't be finished first.  That honor will go to Caesar.  I bought her for a specific scenario I'm running at a convention in October, so naturally she goes to the front of the line.  She's also what got the 1/1200 scale shipbuilding started up again.

So, there we have it.  I'm not dead, and neither is the blog.  Expect to see more in the upcoming months.

A Quick Explanation

There were not a lot of posts in May, and I want to take a moment and explain to my visitors here why that is so.

May is traditionally the month when my wife and I go and do volunteer work out of state.  Generally, when the work is done we take a little vacation as well.  On top of that, I've been trying to get more exercise like my doctor requested (well, ordered actually).  So, this May we've been busier than normal.

There are a lot of pictures to be taken over the next month.  I've just put up a new page on another area of gaming interests, and I still haven't shown you my unrated sailing ships (brigs, sloops, schooners and etc.) yet.  Hopefully, we should be back on a regular schedule soon.

As an aside, one of the things that normally happens on our vacation is that my long-suffering spouse gets dragged to a museum that I want to visit.  They're not always serious; for example, this year I wanted to go to the SPAM Museum.  We didn't have time to do that, but it turned out that we got to do something just as much fun:

We're gonna make it after all....

Yes, it's the Mary Tyler Moore statue in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  If you're too young to know who she is, then you will just have to Google it

Welcome Aboard!

Welcome to my blog, which will deal with my hobby of 1/1200 scale sailing ships.  We're still fitting out right now, so there's not much here.  Eventually, there will be pictures of my fleets, suggestions for game rules and campaigns, and maybe some of the other eras that I game in.

So, what's interesting about sailing ships, you might ask?  While there are all the usual answers (romance, history, love of the sea, adventure, etc.) the only answer I can give is that I've always been interested in them.  Some of the first books I can remember my father reading were the Horatio Hornblower novels, so naturally I went on to do the same.  Apparently it is a fever that, like malaria, never goes away once it's in your blood.

From a gaming standpoint, a bunch of fully-rigged 1/1200 scale models maneuvering on a table is one of the most beautiful sights available in our hobby.  An added advantage is that, since engagement ranges are so short, the ground scale for the rules can match the size of the ships.  It's like watching a moving version of an historical painting from the period.