Never Say Argh
[Here’s a kind note from a client that brightened my day]
Shawn,
Ok I’ll have them sent out asap.
Thank you very much for Hard work and trying to make these project run as smoothly as possible, I think you and your team a BTP are a really wonderful set of folks and you have an awesome product. It’s really a good feeling from a client point of view to know that even if there are problems with a project your willing to go the extra mile to make me feel satisfied.
Being a cable guy myself, and coming from an environment that is usually thankless no matter how much work I put in. Its extremely gratifying to see someone work as hard as you do. I just wanted to thank you in my own way. I hope the email helps for when your in those crappy spots and everything in you yells “ARGH”!
–Luke
That’s Pep
Hey, here’s my new favorite song for the week:
Here are the lyrics:
vigor vim vitality and punch
the ability to act on a sudden hunch
nerve to tackle the hardest thing
feet that climb and hands that cling
a heart that never forgets to sing
that’s pep (3 times)
sand and grit in a concrete base
a friendly smile on an honest face
a spirit that helps when another’s down
knows how to scatter the blackest frown
love’s it’s neighbor love’s it’s town
that’s pep (4 times)
say “i will” for you know you can
look for the best in every man
meet each thundering knockout blow
come back with a smile ’cause you know
you got the best of the whole damn show
that’s pep (6 times)
you know thats pep
I used to listen to Devo a lot as a young man of about thirteen. Good memories.
Fifth Amendment and Busted!
A friend of mine sent me this link. It was quite educational.
http://judicialmisconduct.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-plead-5th.html
And then I found this one:
Forge World Order
I’m making a Forge World Order sometime this week.
Forge World
If you would like to commission something, please contact me for a quote. Advantage to you: you get free Express shipping. FW is good about getting Express orders out right away.
I should note that this is ONLY for if you want to have us assemble and paint the model, too.
When giving a quote I will usually give two levels at least: Wargamer Standard or Extra Love (this latter is what Forge World models deserve).
If you want to get the price in USD, the exchange rate is $1.79 per British Lb. So, multiply by 1.79. Here’s a converter:
http://www.dollars2pounds.com/
Note: the pic above is from the Forge World site. We didn’t paint that.
Sunday September 14 2008 Restraining Bolt
No sermon, no politics today.
At this moment I am drinking Ovaltine and watching Return of the Jedi with my daughter. She should be in bed, but Mommie is asleep and I think Kenna’s “nerd education” is very important.
I am very sad because I had a few projects rejected and I will be sorting that out on Monday. I am constantly worried about customer satisfaction. It’s not as easy as it looks to run a company like this.
Anyway, I’ve started brewing up a crazy scheme to go live in a yurt. I would just love to own my own life instead of spending half my time paying interest to the bank. Like an indentured servant. So, I call the yurt idea “Plan Y”. This morning I was joking with my wife that she’d be in the yurt, no running water or electricity, baby in one arm, cooking a can of beans on a little camper stove (still actually in the can, with the lid peeled partway off), pregnant and muttering “I can’t believe he knocked me up again”, and at that moment a giant gust of wind tears the yurt off the foundation and it rolls away across the desert.
No, Tamie doesn’t like Play Y at all.
In yurt-related update, I met up with old pal Greg M. at church today and picked his brain a little bit about that. He works at an architect-type firm and he told me about all the insane zoning laws and permits that make it so the beauracrats can control every single aspect of your life and bleed you dry while doing it.
Yeah, but I won’t get started on that.
The yurt would be solar and eco-friendly. Pretty sweet. Something is clicking inside my head.
My lovely wife fried up some chicken tonight, along with some mashed potatoes and corn. That’s the good life.
Tamie and I took a walk around the neighborhood long about twilight tonight. Griffin came along, pedaling furiously on his little trike. He is ever so cute. He’s a delight to have around. I think it was like 71 degrees, with an ever so slight breeze, and the smell of flowers and fresh-cut grass in the air.
I am extremely optimistic about the future. Not just me and my family, but the country and the world. The light is growing stronger.
Friday September 12 2008 He Wore a Hat and He had a Job
Picture: a converted Daemon Prince. See vid and stills.
At this moment it is 10pm. I am listening to Devo and acting as guard for the nocturnal shenanigans of my beautiful children.
First off, I am booking projects for October currently. If you want something done, it’s best to get started now.
I still have that biker army and only a few bites so far.
My day began at 6:50am, typing away in the pre-dawn hours. After seeing the kids off to school I headed up to the MTC where I translate Spanish. I was actually on time for a change. My translation is slow, ponderous and with limited vocabulary. After chatting up the elderly Sisters in the international office I headed back to the studio where I changed into my casual duds.
I found Sarah diligently working away in the packing room. We cleared digital photography, unpacked the packages, got the work orders ready for painters and so forth. Really just another day of joking around and solving problems and working with great miniatures.
Anyone want to know what’s on my mind? Taxes, politics, faith, and miniatures battles. The usual. My wife is “nesting”. We had a long discussion tonight about how it is going to be in the next three months. We’re going to do Christmas about two weeks early so it has almost no chance of falling near the birth of the baby girl. She also wants me to pick up slack on this thing called housework. Whatever that is.
I am sick to death that I am a collaborator in the robbing of my workers on behalf of the government. It simply isn’t anything less than that. I plan on playing it by the book, though. Both parties have been complicit in the looting of the country. The blame and the solution lay with the common man– get off your duff and vote for a third party.
Once home, I picked up my daughter and we went out for ice cream. Then I took Jonah to the father-son campout up at the reservoir. We flew kites, fished, and ate dutch oven dinner. But we didn’t stay the night. Mankind didn’t build all these houses so we could sleep in a tent.
While up at the campground for Father-Son thing, Jonah informed me he needed to use the bathroom. Where’s the bathroom? It’s down there, he replied. Well, I’m not walking all the way down there and you’re not going by yourself; there are a lot of bushes around here why don’t you go take a whiz over behind that one? So, he heads on over, drops trou’ and starts watering the bush. I rush over and stand behind him so people can’t see his egg mcmuffins. After hiking his trousers up I tell him, “usually people go around *behind* the bush!”
The following projects are under the brush and are expected to be completed in the next 5-10 days:
Orks and Angels 01 JC
Kroot 01 SS done
Inquisition 04 RT plus penitent
Emperors Children 10 EB
Daemonhunters 01 and 02 FL
Steel Legion 02 ES
Daemonhunters 01 FL display
Daemon Prince 01 PC done
Eldar Fleet 01 SR
Brettonians 01 JC +he mage about half done already
Daemons RY touchups done
Pirates 01 BC
War Machine 01 AR just barely getting started on Monday
Wednesday September 10 2008 Onward Ever Onward
Hey all.
My main and only concern is booking projects for October. We’re about 15% full right now.
My main and only concern is booking projects for October. We’re about 15% full right now.
I have an Ork army on hand and ready to go.
I also have this Space Marine Biker army:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI7k9_u0BqI
Is it possible to have bikes as troops choices with the new codex? If so, this would make a rocking army. If you have an interest in it, I can start working up a quote and some ideas. Cost of materials would be $250, which I think is at least half off.
Personally, I think it would be a lot of fun to create a new chapter, maybe switching around the white scars color scheme. I think that dark red with silver accents and bone white skulls would be really really cool looking on the table. But what would be a good name for the chapter:
Brazen Skulls (work on brass skulls as icons– too Khornate?)
Lions of the Emperor (use lion icons et al from the new High Elf range– key modifications can make the army)
And, of course, I can get any order, any project underway from scratch. You just need to let me know what you want done!
I am also resurrecting an old special for the month of September:
Hungry, Evil, or Dead
Give us Artistic License for a Tyranids, Necrons, Chaos Daemons or Vampire Counts and get 25% off on Painting and cost of Materials.
In the case of Chaos Daemons it needs to be a themed army of mostly one chaos god.
You can find a la carte pricing guides here:
http://www.bluetablepainting.com/downloads.php
OR you can just email or call me with your list. I can completely help you with any matter.
Political Video Dump
Oh, I could die a happy man to see this happen:
http://www.libertyamendment.com/
Here is an email I got from Eric Danley, my political counterpart.
Yesterday I spent the day up north in Wisconsin, Canvassing for Barack Obama. I’ve never hid the fact that I am an ardent supported of the Senator, but this is first time I really took that step into participatory democracy instead of just being a “Monday Morning Quarterback.” I’ve actually served as an election judge many times, but this was truly different. My team of 4 which included myself, my wife, an African American Cop from Chicago, and an African American Financial Auditor collectively knocked on 250 “targeted” doors. I think by targeted, they mean people registered to vote but not registered with a Party.
Most houses we knocked on were marked “not home” but there were many times where the residents were clearly visible and simply chose to ignore us at the door. Some tiimes we would be enthusiastically welcomed as the candidate of choice and other times we were politely told they were supported McCain. It was not our place to argue or convert, so we simply would ask what issues brought them to that decision and thank them for their time. A handful of times however the people we visited would throw our brochures at us, slams the door in our face, or all out verbally assault us or the candidate: “Oh god I don’t want that piece of $#@% in the office,” or “How dare you come to my door with his crap?” It may have been racism, or simply partisanship but to me it was truly sad.
I am a passionate believer in our democracy. I believe in our system, and our constitution. I have many times encouraged friends, family, and acquaintances to vote even when I knew their vote would be against my candidate. In order for a government to be truly representative, the electorate must be informed and participate. I guess thats what frustrated me so much about my day yesterday. Those people who could not spare 2 minutes of their time to be politely given a brochure and asked if they’ve decided on a candidate, but even more those people who were enraged by my choice to support a different candidate from their own. John McCain Loves America. Barack Obama Loves America. I love America. We are all citizens or this great nation and although we sometimes make different choices we all want the United States of America to be the greatest nation on Earth. So why can’t we have a civilized discussion? Its this great debate that makes this country a Nation By the People, and For the people.
I don’t know why I’m sending this to you, except that I know that you too love this country and we haven’t heard to much politics from BTP recently.
Eric
[Random thought from client]
Afther watching the political video dump in your blog I thought you might be interested to see the following if you havent already. Also if you havent already read the Creature from Jeckyl Island, a secong look at the federal reserve, I highly recomend it, its a fasinating read and endorsed by Ron Paul. cheers dan, good blog
p.s. tryed to put on comments on the blog but unable to get links to work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cESC0RaVnM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syDAa-doSLo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIA3UEDzAt8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ7LcplfkgY
Monday September 8 2008
Picture: an urban style Baneblade. This is an amazing kit and you can do variants for other races, too.
I spent most of the day with the Assembly crew working on that huge Ork army (we have two going concurrently right now. I took on the unpleasant task of texturing the bases on all 400+ models. It was really enlightening to work with those extremely talented people. We had a great time, I wish I could have recorded it all.
At this moment it is 4am. I am up with Griffin. He fell out of the bunkbed. He’s all right now.
When Tamie and I had our first child, we would absolutely freak out if the child were keeping us up at odd hours. Now, it’s very peaceful. We just go with the flow.
The following project is delayed on account of backordered models:
Wyches of Thoth 01
Just a reminder: I’m now booking project for October. Best to start early and get everything set up.
Now, not to throw a match in the gasoline barrel, but here’s a video I found interesting. It’s about politics. I’m not saying I agree (or don’t agree), only that it’s interesting. A sort of mental exercise.
Sunday September 7 2008 Normalcy
Let’s talk about yesterday. I spent the morning at the Provo Temple then to the studio where I was pretty much hanging out with Joseph all day. He was finishing up the Lava Nids. That guy is such a genius at painting that I can’t even understand half of what he says.
We listened to a bunch of those Real Men of Genius bud light commercials and laughed our butts off.
I made arrangements to get that massive Ork army assembled early next week.
At 4pm it was Stake Conference leadership. Usually I come out of anything church-related feeling quite upbeat, but as I drove home yesterday I had quite the opposite sensation. That my life has been really quite a waste up to this point and that I really haven’t accomplished much. As I drove into the driveway and was shuffling into the house it occured to me that it’s really unfair to sieze on a few weaknesses and blow them up into “my life is a failure”. Even with that little epiphany I still felt pretty down.
So, basically, I’m just plugging along doing my best and leaving the judgment up to God. Hopefully I’ll find mercy and grace at the last day. And in the meantime I plan on giving mercy and grace to my fellow man.
I’ve been watching the second season of Star Trek: TNG. I wish I could afford season three. Soon enough I suppose.
Now on to Sunday.
It was stake conference, so we spent a lazy Sunday morning watching TV, eating breakfast with my wife on the back porch in some perfect weather, and playing with the kids in the family room. Not to mention making up new magic items for the D&D game and getting things warmed up for next session. Sweet.
Stake conference was pretty keen. We camped out in a side room with speakers pumping the talks in. It was like a skybox. It’s tough for the kids to sit through it all. I try to keep a balance on the expectations. They’re not going to sit like little robots for an hour. I do love them so. They are my sweet little snooches.
Tamara and I went for a long walk this afternoon posting some flyers for the ward Father-Son outing later this week. The weather is a perfect 71 degrees. She is waddling along admirably. I’m just jumping up like Jonnie on the Spot to get her water, tums, or whatever she needs.
We spent the evening watching Bizarre Foods. Tamie loves that show. Oddly, they had a part where they ate fried bat (but not on a stick). That was beyond gross. I put the kids to bed, but about ten minutes later we heard the patter of feet upstairs. I headed up to find them looking pie-eyed at me, their mouths stuffed with marshmallows. Jonah said, “I just needed a drink of water”. As he’s saying this, little spuds of mallow are flying out of his mouth. “So, what’s in your mouth?” He paused. “Uh, marshmallow.” Yeah, that’s what I thought.