Figure Painting Total - April

I only picked up one more figure for the Batman Miniature Game when I picked up the second edition rules and the Magic rules.

BM/DCU – Batman (Nightmare)– 1
Apr figures bought – 1, figures painted – 0

Running total 2019 – figures bought 117, figures painted 0

Books read January to April 2019

Jan
Haynes Star Wars Death Star Owner’s Technical Manual by Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff, and Chris Trevas
Haynes Star Wars Millenium Falcon Owner’s Workshop Manual by Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff, and Chris Trevas
Stuck in the Middle: Dissenting Views of Winnipeg by Bartley Kives and Bryan Scott
The little book of Inappropriate Morals: Stories that aren’t helpful at all by Holly Green
A Plethora of Poor Decisions: and other tales of Misadventure by Holly Green
Perfectly Yourself: Discovering God’s Dream for you by Matthew Kelly

Feb
Stuck in the Middle 2: Defining views of Manitoba by Bryan Scott and Bartley Kives
Trigger Mortis: A James Bond Novel by Anthony Horowitz
A Wanted Man by Lee Child

Mar
Cyndi Lauper – A Memoir by Cyndi Lauper with Jancee Dunn
Treasures by The Canadian Museum of Civilization
A Wish Your Heart Makes: From the Grimm Brothers’ Achenputtel to Disney’s Cinderella by Charles Solomon

Apr
A Company of Wolves by Peter Steinhart
The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawken
Firefly RPG by Monica Valentinelli, Mark Diaz Truman, Brendan Conway, Dean Gilbert, and Jack Norris
The Makeup Artist Handbook by Gretchin David + Mindy Hall
Invaders from the North by John Bell
Parenthood by Paul Reiser

Low High-Density Lipoproteins

Back in October, I had gone to the doctor for my annual tune-up. My blood pressure was fine, and my LDL cholesterol levels were fine, but my HDL cholesterol levels were low. As this seems to be a major precursor to heart issues, she was concerned.

So she scheduled me back for 6 months to check again. I've been a bit more active but haven't made drastic changes in my diet. My weight doesn't really seem to change. I still seem to be in the 170 to 175 range with occasional spikes up near 180 for holidays.

After 6 months of this, my HDLs haven't really increased. In fact, they have actually deceased slightly. This concerns my doctor even more. It seems that I will need to take this a lot more seriously. Now that the snow has melted, I'm going to need to get out there and move a lot more, and reach for apples instead of chips more often.

Wife, unretired

The wife has got another job at about the same as she was getting paid when she was ‘retired’. Since she is also getting a pension from her old job, we should be a bit better off than we were and able to do a bit more upkeep. This should take a bit of the pressure off the cost of maintaining a storage locker for the overflow items. I still need to go through it and streamline, but this should give me a bit more time.

While she was home she managed to go through the kitchen cupboards, her books and clothes, and the file cabinets in the office. I helped where I could and mostly stayed out of her way. The weather hasn’t been nice enough yet to start yardwork so she was running out of stuff to do inside before starting in on my stuff.

With her going back to work, I am less worried about coming home and finding out that everything I have has been moved while I was away. This should allow a bit more time to get things cleaned up. It should also allow some money for a new car. We may be able to rethink taking some trips although she will not have the free time that she used to have.

Figure Painting Total - March

Getting The Gangs set with the figures included meant that I didn't have to chase them down. It does mean that I have to assemble and paint them.

Gangs of Commorragh – 16

Mar figures bought – 16, figures painted – 0

Running total 2019 – figures bought 116, figures painted 0

Time for a new vehicle?

Last week Wednesday, the van stalled out while backing out from the library parking lot and it took three times to restart it. On the Thursday it stalled on the way to work but I was able to pop it into neutral and restart while it was still rolling. So I called the garage and booked it in to get checked and get the oil changed.

I dropped it off last Friday and they looked at it. It stalled a few times for them when they tried it. Which is always nice in that’s it’s not just me.

They worked on it on Saturday, and Monday, and were having trouble figuring out what was wrong since it wasn’t giving them an engine code. We had had trouble with the alternator back in December so they checked that and found that it was overcharging. It should be sending 140 magical units and it was producing 210 magical units instead. So they tried swapping that but then it wouldn’t work at all.

On Tuesday we got a call on the machine and when I called them back this morning then found that it might be the battery. I had asked them about the battery when I dropped it off but I’m not really a car guy, so I was only guessing as it was one of the few systems I am familiar with. They replaced that, and it seems to be working now.
Another $400 dollars later, for an oil change, and a new battery. We’ll still have to look for a newer vehicle but at least now we are not as rushed.

Gangs of Commorragh - acquired

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been watching ebay for a copy of Gangs of Commorragh. I figured that I could always buy a copy of the rules for about $30 and buy the figures later from Games Workshop for $120. Most of the non-figure sets were either too expensive (over $100), or did not include the box.

I was finally able to find a few complete sets that weren’t much more than the cost of the ones that were just rules plus the cost of the figures. I bid on a few but they exceeded my limit.

But persistence paid off and I finally won an opened but complete set for about $100 including shipping. That was totally in my price range. It came and seems more than complete. It looks like it has double sets of reference guides, Get Started booklets, assembly guides, and packs of dice.

I can cross another set off my list. Now I have to save up for Blackstone Fortress.