Story 15June2022: Wednesday

I was up late last night. I painted some figures and read until 11ish. I have some new figures from Etsy.com for the 1920s 28mm gaming, including a realistic H.P. Lovecraft figure. I was also following along with the data conversions that were running at work.

I started the day at 5:45, and while I did not have to rush, I could not go slow as I needed to be at the office near 7:30. It is about a 15-20 minute commute to the shoe company Clubhouse office building. So I made coffee, had breakfast of yogurt and a banana, and took all my meds. Next, I quickly showered and dressed. Previously I had collected some roses for Susie and put them in a bag to take with me.

Soon, Air Volvo had me at the office. I did an hour of meetings. I did head downstairs to get a Star Bucks coffee, still free, from the barista–just coffee with cream. I was again mostly following along.

I headed out at 10ish to see Susie at Humming Bird House. The traffic on 217 was the usual mix of aggressive and talentless drivers, sometimes the same drive. Nevertheless, I reached Susie’s place without suffering any damage or setting off any collision alarms.

Susie was up and eating breakfast: Scrambled eggs, pureed breakfast potatoes, apple source, and milk (slightly thickened). Susie paused her consumption to call her mother on my iPhone. Today, Leta was able to answer. Susie and Leta chatted for about ten minutes. Time is short for me on work days, a 15-20 minute trip allows for about a 20-minute visit, and soon I was saying goodbye with a kiss. Jennifer will arrange the roses. I did warn her; the thorns are wicked on this bunch of flowers from my roses.

I managed the trip back without incident, but I did see some extra-legal lane changes. Also, I thought a pickup would make me a witness to a grave mistake, but somehow the pickup truck violated the physics of time and space and did not crash into the car. It cut off. A true wizard of driving.

Back to monitoring and reading some items on neural networks.

I went to get coffee and fell partially on the stairs. I managed to grab the rail, hold on, and stop gravity from demonstrating why I should use the elevator. It was a close call near the top of the stairs (a ten-foot or more fall with the possibility of going over the edge and falling the whole story). I will use the elevator. Jim, our department head, was having coffee, and he joined me for the trip back up by showing him where the elevator was. I also showed him the footprints on the wall:  Nike sneaker prints. Somebody literally was going up the wall.

Aside: I twisted my back in the near-disaster and had to take some painkillers tonight.

My day continued until the last status meeting. Then, I returned home and had left-over goulash two nights ago. I heated it up in the microwave. Then, I logged back into work, followed along, and occasionally commented.

I took a break, read, and painted more of the H.P. Lovecraft figures (I have two to paint).

Of course, Howard is in the suit (two figures) and is surrounded by the gang, undoubtedly saying, “I would have summoned an Eldar God if it was not for you meddling kids!” I will be touching up HP soon and then adding some shading. His suit is in Dark Grey (Tamiya XF-24) and thus can be shaded with black. I will not put painting metal buttons on his vest as he was a poor writer.

Aside: I often use German Grey (Tamiya XF-63) instead of black paint on figures as it allows for shading, and at the 28mm scale, black just consumes the detail. For example, In the figure above, the hair is black and thus shows no details. I made the vest Desert Yellow to add more drama to the figure. Another good idea to make the figure stand out more is to use an Ash Grey instead on the pants and then heavily shade with black, but I wanted a more traditional look of matching coat and pants. I checked, and I need to add a bit of paint for a pocket square. I have a reproduction of a Sear’s Catalog from 1927 to check this stuff.

Well, that is about all, dear reader. I will try to finish Howard after my 9PM meeting. Zooming!