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I take 2 alieve a day and 3 gabapentins for the neuropathy, alieve is for the arthritis

Just checking in, I think this is the longest I've gone without posting in my own thread . No real update so feel free to exit now .

Kids are with grandma yesterday and today and tomorrow morning, will be home in time for fireworks though. Wife is now done with summer school, she was principal again this year, and has the next few days off till she runs all her cheer leading camps. I started my 11day vacation when I clocked out last night , regular days off, 4th of July holiday (take that you bloody brits ), and a few personal days all put together and its a good long stretch that my left foot is needing.

The wifelet and I are heading across the border today into Illinois to where my dad grew up in a little town called prairie du rocher. We're going to visit an old French fort called Fort du Charters. It dates back to before he Louisiana purchase and the seven years war for those of the British and French persuasion . Its an old stone fort and as close to seeing a castle in real life as many of us americans ever get to do in real life. We'll then hop on a ferry and cross back over the Mississippi and back into Missouri to some old cities over here. Might stop by a winery on the way home. Looking at beautiful weather for the trip.

Sounds good Theo have a good time out, its funny we have a castle just down the road from where we live.

We'll be expecting an inspired terrain project when you return!

Have a great trip, sounds great.

Castles! I am blooming surrounded.

Theo's wild american adventures!

I wish you two a good time theo!

it always surprises me how much non English heritage is to be seen in names and places...from so many movies you often only see the English side of America...(here at least...)

Well Vik, I grew up near Germantown. Real place name. And so named for, well, you already guessed it In the Mid-Atlantic region there is a huge amount of German heritage due to the Quakers and others inviting German religious sects (Dunkers, the Amish, for examples) to come and live in the new World. Plus another wave after Bismarck did his unification thing. Not all Germans wanted a Kaiser.

We took a lot of place names, a lot, from the American Indians too, and more than a few words too. Which is way cool, IMHO.

Have a great trip Theo, and hope the weather cooperates for you . We get a hurricane for the 4th this year. Yikes!

from an intellectual point of fiew I know that the melting pot theme is all around in the U.S....but you often see only a rather even image of America...well...of course you can´t trust TV but that goes without saying

I grew up in a area where it was mainly German/Italian/Jewish and a few other groups tossed in for seasoning

I want a vacation. Have a good time Theo.

thanks everyone for best wishes on the trip . Had a wonderful day yesterday. The drive to forte de Chartres took an hour or so, we stopped to take pics of the corn fields, soybeans and various other crops that all my relatives would know( some were probably their fields). I can see why farmers love gazing upon their land while things grow. The area we went to is "bottom lands" that are along the banks of the Mississippi River on the Illinois side of the river. My father grew up in this area with his three sisters, but their parents died within 24hours of each other when my dad was only 8years old, and the four of them were passed around the farms of all the cousins. My dad therefore has "brothers and sisters" and no cousins as they were all the same age.

The fort is actually a national park, and is a faithful reconstruction (only partially sadly) of the third forte de Chartres. The first was made of wood, a true frontier wood fort, the second was stone and the third also made from the native limestone. this is where I get a bad mix of three little piggies and monty python churned with history . The first fort rotted with the humidity and climate so a second fort was built using limestone, it was built closer to the Mississippi River because the river changed the route a bit. Unfortunately the river moved back later and swallowed the fort there's your great planning there (and here monty python comes in), the last fort was built between the two and has been swallowed by the river and spit back up more than (insert bad bulimia joke here) over the centuries. All that was left of the third fort are the foundations of the buildings and the powder keg. It has survived over 250 years and you can see the markings of where 2 Frenchmen retuckpointed the stones back in the early 1900's (1912 I think).

They have rebuilt two of the main buildings from what was still there, one was the governors building which is where they have a little museum, the other is a barracks. He also rebuilt the bakers house and a chicken coupe, but hose are small in comparison. The governors house is where Laclede stayed until crossing the river and establishing St. Louis the following summer. The fort was also the center of the French seat of power north of New Orleans, troops stayed here and were sent from here throughout the territory until the Louisiana purchase. It was also where legal disputes were handled as the judge lived on premises.

Here's a map of what it looked like.

And a view of what the approach looked like.

This is actually the rear view of the fort, and only rebuilt walls. The front and sides are gone, although the foundations are built back up to about a foot out of the ground and topped flat just to see the boundaries. I couldn't help think "man if the zombie apocalypse happens I'm headed here!", until I saw that the other walls are gone .

The weather was awesome yesterday. 63-76 degrees Fahrenheit here with a good breeze, felt like a nice spring day. After the tour of the fort we headed to the ferry that crosses the Mississippi River. It's old and a little intimidating, but was a first for my wife and I. I might take the kids on it next week as its an experience , and I can snap some photos of the boat and dock then. We then spent a couple hours in Ste. Genevive MO, which is another historical site just due to age over here, had lunch at a local tavern (nothing to write home/dakka about) and then went home after some shopping.

On the modeling side of things, not much occurred, I woke up early this morning.....then with no kids around I went back to sleep .
I did however toss some paint, pics later of some more strain and some barrels a la Grimdork.

Sounds like you had a great day, really happy for you.

And the general public survived without incident as well!!

You call that a castle?!!

 Camkierhi wrote:
Sounds like you had a great day, really happy for you.

And the general public survived without incident as well!!

You call that a castle?!!

its he closest thing we have to a castle, unless you look at some of the mansions in parts of St. Louis. We had a really great time, and arrived early, only the second car arriving that morning, and even beat the groundskeeper here . By the time we left there were maybe twenty people of all ages there, so not busy at all. It's a bit off the beaten path so no a highly visited area, and all the "highways" leading there are farm roads, just barely two lanes wide with no shoulder and no paint lines. Fresh road kill everywhere and vultures were a little perturbed that we interrupted their barn cat lunch .

My wife thought I was a dork when I climbed the tower and had her take a picture of me doing the French taunted scene from monty python holy grail. She posted it on her Facebook page, and by the time we got to lunch she had dozens o replies from friends and family with everyone quoting the scene verbatim even without a caption , she underestimates how cool I really am.

As to what I worked on this morning.

Did a little work on these strain guys. Assembled some grimdork style barrels with my water bottle caps and did some reading about deadzone. I wanted to try and do an African-American strain dude so I did the basic skin tone then tried a light delvan mud wash over the skin areas, leaving the boils the Baal red color. Still waiting for him to dry, but this is where he is at right now.

The kids should be hom shortly from their trip with grandma and we have fireworks tonight to go watch. "Daddy's birthday candles" as I had them brainwashed as babies . Tomorrow is the end of the world after all, my wife keeps reminding me that I will no longer be able to check the 30-39 year old box anymore and will officially be 40 . Of course I have to remind her that she's not too far behind and paybacks are a . (Plus I have no grey hairs, except a couple in my beard, which I can shave )

Born a day late huh!

Have great night, happy 4th dude.

Thanks Cam, I always tell everyone the fireworks scared me and I stayed in till things quieted down. I would have rather been called Sam though , but I know 8-9 people that were all born on the 5th of July, including John Byrne the comic book writer/artist, one of my all time favorites.

Also forgot to post the back of the African strain, this is after the second layer of delvan mud, which is still a little wet.

Strain is looking good there! My box arrives the 8th, hefty almost 7lbs!

Theo, you don't also play a browser game called Goodgame Empire do you???

I'm not one for video games. The exceptions being bloodbowl, might and magic, and Sid meiers alpha centauri. Don't underestimate the size of he box. It's roughly 14"x14"x 3" and the tiles and counters are thick card plus all the resin inside.

Also the kids are wiped out from their trip, so more free time for me as they nap . Got out some of the bits I brought home from work. I cut the connectors off of the IV connectors to make little canisters. Then halfway through I realized that the airsoft pellets I had barely fit inside of the canister, and if you stack two of them inside it looks like a neat little lid for the canister. WIP photo

happy fourth of July my American friends!...so... you´re turning to an old fart tomorrow then?... that means you´re three months ahead of me...... better you than me, eh?....

and you´ve been mightily productive... seeing you now try yourself with different skin tones...this shows how complicated detailed these models are...

the cap/barrels is always nice to see...so many variations to that idea!

I knew yours was coming up later in the year vik, just couldn't remember the day .

Lots of different things I can do with these bits , like not cutting the stem off and making a sci fi computer console.

I might even paint one up but leave he clear green globe sticking out like a holographic sphere .

Of course I can also make inspirational pieces out of these, like his little guy to cheer me on.

He just seems to be saying "oooooooooooo!" Like he just saw something I created and is giving me positive feedback

Well I think I might take a nap too since it will be a long night with lots o explosions which will continue for days as people just keep shooting them off for he next week or two . We Americans love our explosions

by the way... theo... you should write some fluff... or make a jump into stand up comedy... you really have some talent in that regard... don´t let it go to waste!...

we often say LOL here but your description of the castle and the hints on the monty python works was so hilarious!


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lol... that fella reminds me of the lil friend of that Disney tinkerer... dunno the English name of that character... but he has a lighting bulb for a head....

but to be honest... my first thought was... cool...bewbs...

So, huge box loaded with stuff! Got it!

You have to be a Yankee Doodle Dandy to be born on the 4th. Or so goes the song.

Airsoft pellets? Those are 6mm right? And translucent it looks like. Put an LED under one and see what sort of effect that produces. They might make glowglobes.

And for castles in America... yes, we have them. Hearst Castle is perhaps the most famous, although not so castle looking. My favorite is the Smithsonian Castle
Built from red sandstone, hence its color.

One cannot tame the Mississippi River. People never seem to learn that.

The strain guys are looking good. The orange pants are interesting...

Orange worker shift pants. "Uniforms will be worn at all times when employees are on duty."

Loving the multi coloured glory. Glad your break was decent

Happy Birthday Theo. Have a great day.

Nice paintwork, Theo.
Good to see the day out went well.
Nice use of the IV parts.
And Happy Birthday.

Oh, happy birthday also - all the best folk are cancarians

Happy B'day Theo!

Happy birthday Theo, hope your having a great day.