Mid-Winter Break and Moving Forward

I just wrapped up a four day weekend. It used to be that our mid-winter break was a week long affair, but it pissed of the parents, so it got reduced to the President's Day Monday plus the previous Friday off. I'm not complaining. It was a restful weekend with lots of painting and movie watching.

What movies did I watch? I have Netflix streaming through my blu-ray player, and I was able to watch a lot of stuff. Some was awesome, some was pretty awful and a sort of good way. Let me clarify the last comment. I love movies. Good movies, bad movies-they're all fine with me. In the good department, I was able to watch a "All the King's Men" about the Sandringham company that was a PALS unit raised from the Queen Mother's estate, sent off to serve in Gallipoli and annihilated. Interesting but sad. I also caught a British documentary on Gallipoli that was very informative. Narrated by Jeremy Irons, again I learned a lot I didn't know. Yesterday I watched Omagh on the IRA bombing in that small town in 1996. Great performances. Also caught a great PBS documentary on Herbert Hoover. In the not so great department-Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion.

I'm pretty good at following movies while I'm painting and that's a good thing because I saw so many. I also got a lot done. I wrapped up a total of 16 of the AWI Marylanders. I'm taking extra time with them. They are Perry figures, so I want them to be purty. The detail is very fine, and that takes extra time to work with. I also finished 12 Welsh spearmen. They went pretty fast. Even so I practiced shading an highlighting, so they look pretty nice. Best of all I mounted all my Welsh, my unit of Spanish Civil War militia, and remounted the 71st Highlanders on 40mm square bases (for the fourth or fifth time-my most re-based unit.) I also primed some more 15mm SCW figures, Italians this time, and got three hydroplanes ready to paint.

I'm pretty thrilled to work on the hydros again. This time I have Tahoe Miss, Miss Smirnoff and Such Crust IV planned for painting. All raced in the '65 Gold Cup. Dean commented on my projects, and how I have so many of them. It's true. I'm a project-oriented person. However it's a huge help to me--keeps me focused and keeps me from buying figures I can't use to finish my tasks.