http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/111/adventures-in-the-simple-life
For two years of my life, I lived 'the simple life,' or at least as simple as I will ever make it. I didn't live out in the wild, and really, I wouldn't want to be out in the wild, but my life was taken care of for me. Everyone told me that during that two years of my life, it was supposed to be the simple times, that the only thing that I was supposed to be worrying about was the job there that I was doing.
I had someone else paying for my house, I didn't have a job but still had a monthly income, and even my transportation was covered. I had free reign to do whatever I wanted as long as I stayed in the area that I was supposed to be in, and for the most of my time while doing this, those areas were pretty big.
It was supposed to be simple, but it never was.
The tricky part about things being simple, is that the normal stress and energy that people spend on those day to day life things, got spent on things that didn't matter. Instead of just allowing those complexities to disappear and enjoy the simple things within the simple life, they would decide to keep on being stressed. With nothing else to stress about, the people started to stress about those little things that no one should ever care about.
The mission schedule had times attached to it. There were specific times that you had to wake up, exercise, study, study with your companion, and the list keeps on going. Instead of seeing this as a simple schedule for a simple life, there were those that stressed out about every small detail that they could. It was impossible for them to relax.
The thing I don't understand with all of this was why in the world it was so hard for people to relax into the flow of things. Life was simple. Everything was done for us as missionaries, but some of them just couldn't handle the simplicity.
One of those Elders was Elder Balinski.
Elder Balinski was one of the crazies when it came to never letting the simple life be simple. Doing anything with him was a trial of constantly worrying about the rules and wondering if what he was doing was approved or not. The weird part about working near/around him, was that I was never actually a partner with him. There was never a single time that I was actually going around doing the missionary thing with him, but there were multiple times that I got stuck with him on splits because his companion needed someone to zone out with and do anything besides rip his head off.
Every time that I was with him, it was everything to the letter. If the clock said that it was a minute before the hour, we couldn't leave, but at the same time if the clock was a minute over the hour we were super late and had to get outside right away. The same thing happened at the end of our day. If we came back to the apartment even five minutes early, he would recommend that we go knock doors in the nearby neighborhood because we should, but as soon as that time went to the top of the hour, we had to get home.
The sad part to this is that everyone on the mission had different approaches to just how simple they'd allow the simple life to be. For some it was really simple while others stressed out over details that honestly didn't matter. The sad part comes that there was no evidence one way or another to show the difference between those that stressed out over the smallest details and those that allowed it to be simple. They didn't baptize more people, they didn't find more sucsess, and all things considering they were typically not people that anyone else wanted to deal with because they were so strict to everything that was done.
I'm sick right now, so I've worked on this draft over three days and it is making less and less sense as I continue to write it, so I'm going to finish it now and go to sleep.
Oct 26, 2015
I dug a deep hole
I just dug myself a really deep hole to get out of.
These look decent, and I know that I can possibly make them look even better. Only down side? It takes a LONG time to do a horde of skeletons to look like that. Right now, half awake, it took me an hour-ish, to do 5.
The thing that took me so long? Look at the fabrics. They're not one color.
These look decent, and I know that I can possibly make them look even better. Only down side? It takes a LONG time to do a horde of skeletons to look like that. Right now, half awake, it took me an hour-ish, to do 5.
The thing that took me so long? Look at the fabrics. They're not one color.
Oct 20, 2015
A Few Things
First, I got the elves in the mail!
With them here, I easily have enough to make an interesting fight for the vampires. Yay! Now, seriously, no more until I have everything painted.
Next, my grading is finally done, so I get to paint again! But I was thinking about it, and I'm going full ham on everything now. I have the chance to do crazy things to each model, like that color blend that I'm starting to get good at doing, so I might as well do that EVERYWHERE just so I can make sure that everything looks amazing.
Next, my grading is finally done, so I get to paint again! But I was thinking about it, and I'm going full ham on everything now. I have the chance to do crazy things to each model, like that color blend that I'm starting to get good at doing, so I might as well do that EVERYWHERE just so I can make sure that everything looks amazing.
Oct 19, 2015
Will Map For Fun - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/110/mapping
I make up fake maps for fun.
D&D is one of those things that has been part of me for such a long time, that it's always popping up its head no matter what I do, and apparently mapping is one of them. The crazy part about this is that because I make maps of fictional places, for fun, normal maps are easy to follow.
I had a geography teacher that tried to teach the class maps and how to read maps. The final exam on all of that was taking the New York transit maps and reading them. It consisted of questions about how to get from point A to point B and which train, bus, or subway was the best choice to take to get there. He thought it was impossible and hard to read, but to me, it was an easy map to follow because it made a whole lot more sense than the stupidity that showed up on my grid paper while I was trying to map out a dungeon.
The problems with my maps is that they don't make sense, at all.
When a person maps a house, you have walls and a set square footage that gets used. It's expected that however big the house is on the outside, you're going to explain where that room is when you get to the inside.
However, when I map things for D&D (especially my earliest maps) had nothing to do with the outside appearance of things. The players would walk into a basement, and one floor would be only a few hundred square feet and the next would be an expansive train of rooms that made no logical sense of how or why they were created in that particular order. Instead of looking like a map of hallways and rooms, it was just an advanced form of hopscotch with each square being a different size than the previous ones to 'mix things up'.
The only part worse than my horrible sense of design is the desire to play the game. In the game, a medium creature (like you and me) can occupy a 5x5 foot cell. Unless weird things happen, one person per 5x5 area. That meant that if my party had five players in it, I needed a room of at least 125 square feet just to fit five people in it. Then to put a monster in there, I'd need another 5x5, so I'm up to 150 square feet, just for a simple fight.
The worst part about that is that a room that takes up 6 cells is pretty small, but in real world terms, a 150 square foot room is good sized, and getting six people into it isn't that hard at all. What this meant is that my rooms in D&D are massive when they should be small. The only problem with massive rooms, and I mean truly massive rooms like conference halls and banquet rooms, get too big to map. A huge cavern that is 100 yards long is 60 cells long, and 60 cells on a grid paper is almost bigger than the paper.
That chunk of paper is only a 22x22 area, you'd need a huge chunk of these to even get close to something as vast as a football field. The tricky part is to think about your high school and its size in relation to the football field. If the football field too that much room on the grid, how much grid paper would it take to map out a high school to scale? Quickly, big things that should be taking up huge amounts of paper just aren't worth it, and I'm drawing a school at about half it's real size, but with rooms that are double their actual size.
To this day I am happy whenever I'm playing D&D because I know that none of my players care. Unless I pull out some really stupid things that don't make sense, they don't care if the rooms are jagged, that they aren't perfectly to scale, and that works perfect for me. I hate the idea of some other DM's where they say they have a player who is their cartographer, that keeps track of all of the maps and knowledge of the entire system. I might enjoy making maps, but I know that they are never good enough to force another person to have to recreate.
I make up fake maps for fun.
D&D is one of those things that has been part of me for such a long time, that it's always popping up its head no matter what I do, and apparently mapping is one of them. The crazy part about this is that because I make maps of fictional places, for fun, normal maps are easy to follow.
I had a geography teacher that tried to teach the class maps and how to read maps. The final exam on all of that was taking the New York transit maps and reading them. It consisted of questions about how to get from point A to point B and which train, bus, or subway was the best choice to take to get there. He thought it was impossible and hard to read, but to me, it was an easy map to follow because it made a whole lot more sense than the stupidity that showed up on my grid paper while I was trying to map out a dungeon.
The problems with my maps is that they don't make sense, at all.
When a person maps a house, you have walls and a set square footage that gets used. It's expected that however big the house is on the outside, you're going to explain where that room is when you get to the inside.
However, when I map things for D&D (especially my earliest maps) had nothing to do with the outside appearance of things. The players would walk into a basement, and one floor would be only a few hundred square feet and the next would be an expansive train of rooms that made no logical sense of how or why they were created in that particular order. Instead of looking like a map of hallways and rooms, it was just an advanced form of hopscotch with each square being a different size than the previous ones to 'mix things up'.
The only part worse than my horrible sense of design is the desire to play the game. In the game, a medium creature (like you and me) can occupy a 5x5 foot cell. Unless weird things happen, one person per 5x5 area. That meant that if my party had five players in it, I needed a room of at least 125 square feet just to fit five people in it. Then to put a monster in there, I'd need another 5x5, so I'm up to 150 square feet, just for a simple fight.
The worst part about that is that a room that takes up 6 cells is pretty small, but in real world terms, a 150 square foot room is good sized, and getting six people into it isn't that hard at all. What this meant is that my rooms in D&D are massive when they should be small. The only problem with massive rooms, and I mean truly massive rooms like conference halls and banquet rooms, get too big to map. A huge cavern that is 100 yards long is 60 cells long, and 60 cells on a grid paper is almost bigger than the paper.
To this day I am happy whenever I'm playing D&D because I know that none of my players care. Unless I pull out some really stupid things that don't make sense, they don't care if the rooms are jagged, that they aren't perfectly to scale, and that works perfect for me. I hate the idea of some other DM's where they say they have a player who is their cartographer, that keeps track of all of the maps and knowledge of the entire system. I might enjoy making maps, but I know that they are never good enough to force another person to have to recreate.
Oct 15, 2015
Mannfred has a friend
My detail painting isn't getting much better, I'm still struggling with some basics of highlighting, but after doing it enough times, doing this dark blue to light blue blend is getting stupid easy to do, and I'm even managing it on smaller and smaller things. Today's target for doing the blend? The skeleton unit that I'm finishing up and their banner.
I'm just crazy enough that if I have the time, I think I might give it a shot on some of the ribbons and sheets of cloth that are coming off of them when I do the finishing touches on the unit. Worst case scenario I cover it up with a flat coat of something else.
As a safety statement, yes I know that the skeletons are not finished. You'll see to the right of the image there are two ranks that are unfinished and the guy that is doing this is part of that group. He has a base coat and I decided to throw out some color blending, and it turned out decently well. If you squint just a bit and look into the fuzzy background you'll see the unit of 20 that you've seen previously on here. Either way, it's going to be nice to have an entire army that looks like they belong together. Add in the zombies and the necromancer that's mounted, and I'm starting to get enough to look like I might actually have a cohesive army that isn't just a bunch of plastic models.
As a side note - please if I ever look like some of the painting options that I've seen on ebay and even cool mini or not, tell me. If I ever do anything like this - tell me.
I get it, you have to start somewhere, but I'd like to think that even at my worst I'm slightly better than things like that, even with my limited background.
I'm just crazy enough that if I have the time, I think I might give it a shot on some of the ribbons and sheets of cloth that are coming off of them when I do the finishing touches on the unit. Worst case scenario I cover it up with a flat coat of something else.
As a safety statement, yes I know that the skeletons are not finished. You'll see to the right of the image there are two ranks that are unfinished and the guy that is doing this is part of that group. He has a base coat and I decided to throw out some color blending, and it turned out decently well. If you squint just a bit and look into the fuzzy background you'll see the unit of 20 that you've seen previously on here. Either way, it's going to be nice to have an entire army that looks like they belong together. Add in the zombies and the necromancer that's mounted, and I'm starting to get enough to look like I might actually have a cohesive army that isn't just a bunch of plastic models.
As a side note - please if I ever look like some of the painting options that I've seen on ebay and even cool mini or not, tell me. If I ever do anything like this - tell me.
I get it, you have to start somewhere, but I'd like to think that even at my worst I'm slightly better than things like that, even with my limited background.
Oct 10, 2015
Bigger Block
I finished up the next batch of 10 that I was working on, so I'm up to 20 skeletons.
Slowly but surely I'm painting this army, and it's going to look amazing. The really weird part about this block that I'm showing off is that even though it looks super awesome (even though my camera was having an issue with focusing), I don't use it in my 2k list. I guess I COULD drop some zombies and put skeletons in as a necro support unit for a necro to hide in, but I just don't know. Even if I don't use them, they're starting to look nice so that's all that matters.
The only thing left with this unit of skeletons are14 more skeletons, but part of that 14 is the command structure (champion, musician, banner) so I'm thinking that might be a bit longer than what I've already done. For all I know one of the guys I've already done I'll consider my champion because it's not exactly super clear which one is the 'leader' out of all of them. If we're going by coolest shield, it's the blurry guy in the front row in the picture above that has a dragon's wing on his shield. Coolest hat goes to second row, second one in to the right because that hat is the biggest one that any of them are wearing.
I'll figure that out later, the good news is that I'm slowly progressing through this army, and it's turning out to look pretty awesome. The only thing that I'm still debating on and thinking that I should do is figuring out how to base a unit, but that is a different problem for a different day.
Slowly but surely I'm painting this army, and it's going to look amazing. The really weird part about this block that I'm showing off is that even though it looks super awesome (even though my camera was having an issue with focusing), I don't use it in my 2k list. I guess I COULD drop some zombies and put skeletons in as a necro support unit for a necro to hide in, but I just don't know. Even if I don't use them, they're starting to look nice so that's all that matters.
The only thing left with this unit of skeletons are14 more skeletons, but part of that 14 is the command structure (champion, musician, banner) so I'm thinking that might be a bit longer than what I've already done. For all I know one of the guys I've already done I'll consider my champion because it's not exactly super clear which one is the 'leader' out of all of them. If we're going by coolest shield, it's the blurry guy in the front row in the picture above that has a dragon's wing on his shield. Coolest hat goes to second row, second one in to the right because that hat is the biggest one that any of them are wearing.
I'll figure that out later, the good news is that I'm slowly progressing through this army, and it's turning out to look pretty awesome. The only thing that I'm still debating on and thinking that I should do is figuring out how to base a unit, but that is a different problem for a different day.
Oct 8, 2015
Potosi and DelWeb - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/109/notes-on-camp
When I was fifteen I worked at not just one camp, but two Boy Scout camps throughout the summer, and what happens at a scout camp is something that only people that go to camp can even start to understand. There's so many stories about camp, that I'll only stick to two (or maybe three) of the really crazy ones, and then work from there.
The introduction to the camp starts with a skit night. All of the campers gather together around the fire pit and staff puts together a bunch of really lame, but ultimately funny, skits and songs for the campers to get used to the weird vibe that is a scout camp. Each area of the camp (aquatics, pioneering, shooting, etc) had their own dedicated skit that they had to do to act as a quick commercial to their area for campers to be interested in what they taught/did. High adventure had a running gag about climbing the nearby mountain that came in multiple 30 second acts, shooting had their skit, and then aquatics had ours.
Aquatics were the weirdos. We ran around in our swimsuits, were very often not wearing shirts, and not only that, but the aquatics director and one of the other guards were girls. At an all boys scout camp, this was permission for us to do just about whatever we wanted because first, no one wanted to seem sexist, and second, unlike all of the other areas our area required certifications to teach and participate with.
For our skit to introduce ourselves to the campers we grabbed sheets, made togas, and then Matt pulled out his backpack that had built in speakers in it, would blast the Blue Danube. Yes, it's already awesome, but it only gets better. While the waltz was blasting out of his speakers we would then take our giant jugs of water, take a swig, strike a good classical pose and spit the water out of our mouths like a fountain. This would go on for about six or seven spits, and then chaos would ensue and instead of being polite, classical, statues, we would start spitting at each other, acting like a sprinkler, and yes, even trying to catch each others' fountain water in our mouths from long distance. It was like a messed up version of the Blue Man Group's marshmallow act, but with water . . . and people in togas. Once all of the water was gone and we were significantly wetter than we started, we'd run to the middle and chant, "Reach, throw, row, go, with support - aquatics!" That, by the way, is the order in which you should try to rescue a person if you see them drowning. Unfortunately because we were laughing so much from the Britneys (yes, both of our girls were named Britney, and double yes, the aquatics director Britney is the name sake for the Britney that appears in the SN world that I write stories about) doing their best Triple H water spit
our chant was generally rushed, mumbled, and hardly understandable, but we did it every, single, week and we loved it.
That is only the introduction into the camper life, camp only gets weirder from there. There's the swimming merit badge strip for your life contest where you have to wear full clothes and strip down to your swimsuit (because hopefully it is under your clothes) and then jump into the pool. This is a timed event to show that in case of emergency you know how to get in the water fast, but ultimately led to each week at least one student would reach too far into their waistband and pull down suit with pants and manage to moon everyone, one person would forget to wear a swimsuit and jump in the pool in their underwear, and then one person who was taking their time would stumble over their own feet and belly flop into the pool while half dressed and their pants around their ankles. After the first week, the arts and craft area was next door to the pool, so this turned into a weekly event where all whittling, leather work, and basket making would pause for a few minutes to watch the strip and splash event.
As weird as the campers are, the staff is even worse.
There are strict rules for the campers, there are no rules for staff.
As long as we showed up to the classes we needed to teach, it didn't matter what else we did. One staff decided to try to sleep on top of every solid structure. You read that right, on top of the building. Another staff decided to create his own campground that was never used and took about a fifteen minute hike to get to. Staff snuck away from the mountain all the time to go back into Vegas to do whatever they want and would come back with Taco Bell for everyone. We had staff only competitions that lasted weeks, jokes and games that only staff knew about. There was the camper's triathlon, but there was the somewhat secret staff decathlon that was way more interesting.
All of those things we told campers not to do, we did - like gunnel hopping (pumping).
The side walls of a canoe, for those normal people who don't know things like this, are called gunnels. Gunnel hopping is when you stand up on those walls, and with a lot of balance and a bit of rhythm, start jumping up and down. When you do this without falling in the water and wrecking hard, you start to skip across the water. It's fun to do, but you're also bouncing 70 pounds worth of metal across water.
Being a camper is sort of lame, it's only about one week of a weird brand of crazy but being a staff is amazing. It's horrible money, the food is trash, but one summer of working at a camp can easily give you dozens upon dozens of stories that you'll have to tell.
When I was fifteen I worked at not just one camp, but two Boy Scout camps throughout the summer, and what happens at a scout camp is something that only people that go to camp can even start to understand. There's so many stories about camp, that I'll only stick to two (or maybe three) of the really crazy ones, and then work from there.
The introduction to the camp starts with a skit night. All of the campers gather together around the fire pit and staff puts together a bunch of really lame, but ultimately funny, skits and songs for the campers to get used to the weird vibe that is a scout camp. Each area of the camp (aquatics, pioneering, shooting, etc) had their own dedicated skit that they had to do to act as a quick commercial to their area for campers to be interested in what they taught/did. High adventure had a running gag about climbing the nearby mountain that came in multiple 30 second acts, shooting had their skit, and then aquatics had ours.
Aquatics were the weirdos. We ran around in our swimsuits, were very often not wearing shirts, and not only that, but the aquatics director and one of the other guards were girls. At an all boys scout camp, this was permission for us to do just about whatever we wanted because first, no one wanted to seem sexist, and second, unlike all of the other areas our area required certifications to teach and participate with.
For our skit to introduce ourselves to the campers we grabbed sheets, made togas, and then Matt pulled out his backpack that had built in speakers in it, would blast the Blue Danube. Yes, it's already awesome, but it only gets better. While the waltz was blasting out of his speakers we would then take our giant jugs of water, take a swig, strike a good classical pose and spit the water out of our mouths like a fountain. This would go on for about six or seven spits, and then chaos would ensue and instead of being polite, classical, statues, we would start spitting at each other, acting like a sprinkler, and yes, even trying to catch each others' fountain water in our mouths from long distance. It was like a messed up version of the Blue Man Group's marshmallow act, but with water . . . and people in togas. Once all of the water was gone and we were significantly wetter than we started, we'd run to the middle and chant, "Reach, throw, row, go, with support - aquatics!" That, by the way, is the order in which you should try to rescue a person if you see them drowning. Unfortunately because we were laughing so much from the Britneys (yes, both of our girls were named Britney, and double yes, the aquatics director Britney is the name sake for the Britney that appears in the SN world that I write stories about) doing their best Triple H water spit
That is only the introduction into the camper life, camp only gets weirder from there. There's the swimming merit badge strip for your life contest where you have to wear full clothes and strip down to your swimsuit (because hopefully it is under your clothes) and then jump into the pool. This is a timed event to show that in case of emergency you know how to get in the water fast, but ultimately led to each week at least one student would reach too far into their waistband and pull down suit with pants and manage to moon everyone, one person would forget to wear a swimsuit and jump in the pool in their underwear, and then one person who was taking their time would stumble over their own feet and belly flop into the pool while half dressed and their pants around their ankles. After the first week, the arts and craft area was next door to the pool, so this turned into a weekly event where all whittling, leather work, and basket making would pause for a few minutes to watch the strip and splash event.
As weird as the campers are, the staff is even worse.
There are strict rules for the campers, there are no rules for staff.
As long as we showed up to the classes we needed to teach, it didn't matter what else we did. One staff decided to try to sleep on top of every solid structure. You read that right, on top of the building. Another staff decided to create his own campground that was never used and took about a fifteen minute hike to get to. Staff snuck away from the mountain all the time to go back into Vegas to do whatever they want and would come back with Taco Bell for everyone. We had staff only competitions that lasted weeks, jokes and games that only staff knew about. There was the camper's triathlon, but there was the somewhat secret staff decathlon that was way more interesting.
All of those things we told campers not to do, we did - like gunnel hopping (pumping).
The side walls of a canoe, for those normal people who don't know things like this, are called gunnels. Gunnel hopping is when you stand up on those walls, and with a lot of balance and a bit of rhythm, start jumping up and down. When you do this without falling in the water and wrecking hard, you start to skip across the water. It's fun to do, but you're also bouncing 70 pounds worth of metal across water.
Being a camper is sort of lame, it's only about one week of a weird brand of crazy but being a staff is amazing. It's horrible money, the food is trash, but one summer of working at a camp can easily give you dozens upon dozens of stories that you'll have to tell.
Sponsored By No One - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/108/truth-and-lies-at-age-ten
I played around with this one with a few different stories, but then I remembered the most complicated, most ongoing lie that I told while a kid, and that's the one I'm sticking with.
I had a hat that said, "Sponsored By No One." Originally this hat was there to thumb my nose at the TPC Summerland rich kids who had tennis teams that were either sponsored, or at least got donated material from big name brands. My team was all sorts of ghetto, our main practice courts were two blocks away from down town Las Vegas, just down the street from the Las Vegas court house, as well as THE little white wedding chapel.
When I wore it on the court, it was snarky, and I loved it. Off the court, I knew that playing tennis was lame, and so instead of explaining my hat, I would say that it was an actual company.
This then expanded to me making up information about this fake shell company. As soon as I said it to one person and they started to ask questions about the company, the lie started to grow. What type of company was it? An extreme sports company, a small start up that specialized in things like skateboarding, snowboarding, or whatever else. Remember, this was in the late 90's and things like the X-Games were just starting to be a big thing. Was I actually sponsored? It depended on who I was talking to. For some, yes, but only up to the point that I got free clothing and gear from them, like the hat. For others, no, I got the hat at an event for free. They threw it out into the crowd, I grabbed it.
The lie was a small one, but I kept it going, and now that I think about it was because if any version of the story was true, I wasn't me.
I have always been an introvert. I have also always known that being a loner, not having any/many friends was weird, and any of the 'friends' I did have were school friends. Those are the types of friends that you see while at school, and while in class or around campus, you laugh, joke, and can be considered friends, however outside of school you never talk to each other, you aren't invited to birthday parties, you never meet their family, and the idea of ever going to their house is down right alien. In school I was sort of a loner, but outside of school, I was practically a shut in.
I knew that this was weird, and No One was, quite ironically, my way of trying to show that I had some sort of life than being 'that' kid. No One was the way that I could try to have a life outside of myself, even if that life was a complete lie. No One made me either related to the cool, cutting edge, extreme sports world, or it made me be part of the community that would at least go to events where there's at least the opportunity to get No One's hat. Even though it was a lie, No One was my attempt to break out of the weird little life that I called my own.
I played around with this one with a few different stories, but then I remembered the most complicated, most ongoing lie that I told while a kid, and that's the one I'm sticking with.
I had a hat that said, "Sponsored By No One." Originally this hat was there to thumb my nose at the TPC Summerland rich kids who had tennis teams that were either sponsored, or at least got donated material from big name brands. My team was all sorts of ghetto, our main practice courts were two blocks away from down town Las Vegas, just down the street from the Las Vegas court house, as well as THE little white wedding chapel.
The lie was a small one, but I kept it going, and now that I think about it was because if any version of the story was true, I wasn't me.
I have always been an introvert. I have also always known that being a loner, not having any/many friends was weird, and any of the 'friends' I did have were school friends. Those are the types of friends that you see while at school, and while in class or around campus, you laugh, joke, and can be considered friends, however outside of school you never talk to each other, you aren't invited to birthday parties, you never meet their family, and the idea of ever going to their house is down right alien. In school I was sort of a loner, but outside of school, I was practically a shut in.
I knew that this was weird, and No One was, quite ironically, my way of trying to show that I had some sort of life than being 'that' kid. No One was the way that I could try to have a life outside of myself, even if that life was a complete lie. No One made me either related to the cool, cutting edge, extreme sports world, or it made me be part of the community that would at least go to events where there's at least the opportunity to get No One's hat. Even though it was a lie, No One was my attempt to break out of the weird little life that I called my own.
Oct 6, 2015
Skeletons
With the zombies finished, I moved onto the skeletons. Without hyping it too bad, I'm starting to like how my army is coming together. They're all still skeletons, but they match Mannfred and it's starting to look really good.
Because I'm lame, here's a bunch of pictures now.
This is my skeleton primed and ready for paint, I'm lame so I use a grey primer. I didn't want to commit to either a white or a black, so I decided to go lame and do straight in between. But I like it because from this grey I can then do a base coat of black and/or white at the exact same time depending on what I want it to look like. Like this -
That is nice and all, but it's not nice enough, so I then go through, give a second coat of ivory on the bones, give white highlights, then wash the entire thing with a black wash. Base coat the cloth blue, edge highlight the blue with a light blue, base coat all browns and give them highlights as well, and then finally top the entire thing off with silver on everything else. Then we finally find ourselves facing these guys.
Because I'm lame, here's a bunch of pictures now.
There's only ten of them done right now, but at least there's ten down.
The really weird part about this is that I have always said that I will not speed paint. To me, what I have done with these skeletons is borderline speed painting, because I could easily go back in and try for a bit more detail, but I don't. The weird part about all of this is that these 10 really didn't take me that long while sitting in the chair. They've taken a long time outside of the painting because life has made it so I haven't painted much of anything, but when I did have time, it really wasn't that hard to follow the step that I just wrote above on each model and make them look like a cohesive whole.
Sure, it could have been faster, but it's going faster than what I originally expected, so at least there's that. The only sad part about all of this time and effort is that they're skeletons. There's not a chance in the world that someone is really going to ever stare at them that close because they're skeletons, they're just going to die, and they come by the dozens.
Either way, painting still helps me zen out and think about anything outer than life, and so I don't mind taking the time to make these look right, it's relaxing. The good news is that I have a bucket full of relaxing coming my way from Texas, but that's also the bad news. I underbid the auction by $100 (originally $300, I put in for $200 assuming that it wouldn't be accepted) it was accepted. Hopefully that army will be here by next week Tuesday, but with that purchase I'll have somewhere around 4k worth of high elves sitting around ready to start the fight, from there on out, no more purchasing.
I really want to put an "unless. . ." because there are at least two more things that I REALLY want for my VC army, but until I paint a whole lot more I couldn't even use them so I'm just going to hold of on the Mortis Engine and the vargulfs, vargeists, I don't know, but the unit of monsterous infantry that is really strong and heavy hitty. Those are the two units that I'm keeping my eyes out for if they ever go on sale or anything like that because I like them because they look cool, and also because they would totally kick butt to have the possibility to field them.
Well, it's getting late and my writing is getting very bad, to the point where I'm literally falling asleep as I write these things, so I'm going to sleep. Hopefully in the morning when I look this over I won't cringe too much.
Oct 5, 2015
I'm in Trouble
I found a good addition to my high elves on Ebay.
And it's cheap.
Did I mention how cheap it was?
Yeah, I'm in trouble. Most likely by the end of tonight I'll have put my Visa information in and bought something I know I can't afford.
Oct 4, 2015
Pioneer Trek - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/107/trail-of-tears
Stay with me for a moment here, because this topic is a bit of a stretch. I don't have any heritage within my family for anyone that was part of the trail of tears. I'm sorry, but I'm not 1/100th Cherokee no matter how hard my Grandma Walters tried to force the point. I do, however, have some family history in people getting kicked out of their houses, getting forced to move, and a lot of suffering coming from it, and I could care less.
For those that don't know, in the history of the Mormon church we weren't always loved. Even with the flack that we get from the media at points now days, our church considers some horribly missinformed statements from news personalities a slight tap on the back compared to what has happened to us before. We're talking tar, feathers, mobs with pitchforks, and even a law that allowed us to be target practice for people, has all shown up in the church's history. Obviously people didn't like it when they would get ripped out of their bed during the middle of winter to take a bath in hot tar only to be dried off with a pile of feathers, so they left, and that's why there's a lot of us in Salt Lake. When they left, they headed west, ended up in Salt Lake, and then started populating from there.
The super kicker to all of this is that some member were not rich, so instead of taking the trip in a covered wagon, which at least provided shade as well as the ability to have animals carry the heavy load for you, some families had to pull their own stuff across the country in a hand cart.
Again, for those that have limited imagination, this sucked. Blisters everywhere, limited food, and for the first batch of people they didn't even have an idea of how long they were going to be out doing this, they just knew they were headed west and they'd stop when they were told to stop.
I have family that did this. I have a LOT of family that did this. There's even a state park in Salt Lake City called the "This is the Place" monument. When they finally showed up in Salt Lake valley, that was the place that Brigham Young said, "This is the place" and they finally got to stop walking. I have a family member on that monument because he was there with that group.
The stupid part about all of this is that these people suffered. There isn't a single story that I've ever heard that talks about having to walk that far that was sunshine and rainbows. No one enjoyed that trip. Even the most optimistic stories from those that had to travel that trail are seriously edited. Apparently no one learned about just how bad it sucked, because there is still a major push for youth in the church (at least in this area) to go on pioneer trecks.
This means that we gather up all of the kids that are 12-18 years old, throw them out in the wilderness, give them handcarts to push, and let them suffer through for about a week worth of summer heat to find out just how 'fun' it was.
No thank you.
I don't know which brain child it was that came up with this nutjob of an idea, but it's the worst thing ever that I can think about. Remember that moment in history when we were complete rejects of society and it was illegal for us to even exist? Remember how much fun it was to watch your family die around you? Remember how great it was when all of the men got drafted into a war leaving the women to push these stupidly heavy carts all on their own? Remember all of the shallow graves that were caused from starvation and disease? LET'S MAKE THAT A SUMMER CAMP!
There's not a single part of me that ever wants to go through something like that ever, and even less of me would want to go through it for 'fun'. The only way I would ever consider doing that is if the prophet of God showed up and told me that I had to, but to do it just because I've got a week off during my summer break and I'm not actually moving anything and there's no threat to my life, my family's well being, and has nothing to do with me actually moving my own stuff? No.
For how much it sucked, I do not understand why anyone would consider it a fun thing to do. The people I really don't understand are those that dress up in time appropriate clothes, start all the way at the start line of the trail, and take an entire summer to recreate the entire fiasco. Did they just not read the journals from that time?
The logic train really goes off the rails when you start to do the logistics behind the whole thing. Walking for 10 hours while pushing a giant cart in Nebraska, where there are highs in the 80's and the elevation changes are minimal (what the original people did) versus even 6 hours out in the sun near/around Las Vegas where the highs are well above 115 in the sun while wearing period clothing that does not breath or cool you in any way while trying to push a cart through a desert of jagged rocks and hills. I have never understood why any teenager, or even any adult, would think that would be a good idea. You know what is going to make our teenagers really like our church? An activity that killed their ancestors, in a harsher condition than what their ancestors did, with no training or work up to the event at all. Let's take students who are sitting in classrooms for eight hours a day, and for a random week expect them to be in good enough condition to rival families that were farmers, blacksmiths, and other physically demanding jobs. Sounds like a great idea.
I understand that what my ancestors did for me to get where I'm at was a hard time, but that does not mean that I want to relive those times. My ancestors also survived the plague, but that doesn't mean that I want to re-live that. Where's the forced reenactments of the death caused by World War One and/or Two? That's bound to put a perk in my step and really love the person who put me into the situation to show me what bunker warfare was like. I don't get it. The worst part about not getting it, is that because I don't get it, and that I want nothing to do with hiking through the desert pushing a cart that isn't mine with a bunch of other teenagers, is that those people that LOVE doing trek try to sell me on it.
With saying that I hate one thing that I've never tried, the innocent Mormons around me turn into exactly what DARE told me to avoid. Instead of talking to me about Jesus and all things religion, they get extremely pushy about the entire thing. I've known my share of drug dealers, and they are less pushy about having me try drugs than some Mormons are about me not wanting to ever have anything to do with trek.
My favorite responses from telling people I want nothing to do with trek that could be used to sell me drugs as well -
1- Everyone is going. What are you going to do while everyone else is gone?
2- You don't know what you're missing out on.
3- I can't even explain how amazing it was. I was totally spent after I got off of it, but it was totally worth it.
4- You have to do it at least once. You can't say that you don't like something without trying it. For all you know you might really like it.
5- It's a little hard at first, but once you get over the pain it's an amazing feeling.
6- It brought me so much closer to God. It was like I could feel him.
Now, with that last one I'm toe-ing the line of being blasphemous, but here's my logic of why I laugh at that. God tells the prophet that people have to start hiking - I believe very strongly that because God told the people to do it, that He's going to make the best out of a bad situation. God did not tell you that it was essential for you to go out and roast alive in the desert while doing an antiquated activity that technology and society has since been able to remove the necessity of. You are putting yourself in a bad situation. God didn't tell you to do that. God didn't send down the angels and revelation to get you in the middle of a desert wearing clothes that are meant to be worn in the winters, you did that to yourself. He'll be around doing His thing, but do not confuse your situation for what the people before you did. You do not 'know' what they felt. You don't 'know' the support that they received because you knew that if you ever got tired there was a cooler full of ice water waiting for you along side a caravan of cars ready to give you a break. You can say that you've started to understand, but you do not know because you haven't been shot at. You haven't had your family die around you. You don't know anything at all of what they had to go through, or any support that He might have given them, because that's not your life.
No matter which way I look at a trek, unless it's the original one that God told people they had to do, it's not worth it.
Stay with me for a moment here, because this topic is a bit of a stretch. I don't have any heritage within my family for anyone that was part of the trail of tears. I'm sorry, but I'm not 1/100th Cherokee no matter how hard my Grandma Walters tried to force the point. I do, however, have some family history in people getting kicked out of their houses, getting forced to move, and a lot of suffering coming from it, and I could care less.
For those that don't know, in the history of the Mormon church we weren't always loved. Even with the flack that we get from the media at points now days, our church considers some horribly missinformed statements from news personalities a slight tap on the back compared to what has happened to us before. We're talking tar, feathers, mobs with pitchforks, and even a law that allowed us to be target practice for people, has all shown up in the church's history. Obviously people didn't like it when they would get ripped out of their bed during the middle of winter to take a bath in hot tar only to be dried off with a pile of feathers, so they left, and that's why there's a lot of us in Salt Lake. When they left, they headed west, ended up in Salt Lake, and then started populating from there.
The super kicker to all of this is that some member were not rich, so instead of taking the trip in a covered wagon, which at least provided shade as well as the ability to have animals carry the heavy load for you, some families had to pull their own stuff across the country in a hand cart.
Again, for those that have limited imagination, this sucked. Blisters everywhere, limited food, and for the first batch of people they didn't even have an idea of how long they were going to be out doing this, they just knew they were headed west and they'd stop when they were told to stop.
I have family that did this. I have a LOT of family that did this. There's even a state park in Salt Lake City called the "This is the Place" monument. When they finally showed up in Salt Lake valley, that was the place that Brigham Young said, "This is the place" and they finally got to stop walking. I have a family member on that monument because he was there with that group.
The stupid part about all of this is that these people suffered. There isn't a single story that I've ever heard that talks about having to walk that far that was sunshine and rainbows. No one enjoyed that trip. Even the most optimistic stories from those that had to travel that trail are seriously edited. Apparently no one learned about just how bad it sucked, because there is still a major push for youth in the church (at least in this area) to go on pioneer trecks.
This means that we gather up all of the kids that are 12-18 years old, throw them out in the wilderness, give them handcarts to push, and let them suffer through for about a week worth of summer heat to find out just how 'fun' it was.
No thank you.
I don't know which brain child it was that came up with this nutjob of an idea, but it's the worst thing ever that I can think about. Remember that moment in history when we were complete rejects of society and it was illegal for us to even exist? Remember how much fun it was to watch your family die around you? Remember how great it was when all of the men got drafted into a war leaving the women to push these stupidly heavy carts all on their own? Remember all of the shallow graves that were caused from starvation and disease? LET'S MAKE THAT A SUMMER CAMP!
There's not a single part of me that ever wants to go through something like that ever, and even less of me would want to go through it for 'fun'. The only way I would ever consider doing that is if the prophet of God showed up and told me that I had to, but to do it just because I've got a week off during my summer break and I'm not actually moving anything and there's no threat to my life, my family's well being, and has nothing to do with me actually moving my own stuff? No.
The logic train really goes off the rails when you start to do the logistics behind the whole thing. Walking for 10 hours while pushing a giant cart in Nebraska, where there are highs in the 80's and the elevation changes are minimal (what the original people did) versus even 6 hours out in the sun near/around Las Vegas where the highs are well above 115 in the sun while wearing period clothing that does not breath or cool you in any way while trying to push a cart through a desert of jagged rocks and hills. I have never understood why any teenager, or even any adult, would think that would be a good idea. You know what is going to make our teenagers really like our church? An activity that killed their ancestors, in a harsher condition than what their ancestors did, with no training or work up to the event at all. Let's take students who are sitting in classrooms for eight hours a day, and for a random week expect them to be in good enough condition to rival families that were farmers, blacksmiths, and other physically demanding jobs. Sounds like a great idea.
I understand that what my ancestors did for me to get where I'm at was a hard time, but that does not mean that I want to relive those times. My ancestors also survived the plague, but that doesn't mean that I want to re-live that. Where's the forced reenactments of the death caused by World War One and/or Two? That's bound to put a perk in my step and really love the person who put me into the situation to show me what bunker warfare was like. I don't get it. The worst part about not getting it, is that because I don't get it, and that I want nothing to do with hiking through the desert pushing a cart that isn't mine with a bunch of other teenagers, is that those people that LOVE doing trek try to sell me on it.
With saying that I hate one thing that I've never tried, the innocent Mormons around me turn into exactly what DARE told me to avoid. Instead of talking to me about Jesus and all things religion, they get extremely pushy about the entire thing. I've known my share of drug dealers, and they are less pushy about having me try drugs than some Mormons are about me not wanting to ever have anything to do with trek.
My favorite responses from telling people I want nothing to do with trek that could be used to sell me drugs as well -
1- Everyone is going. What are you going to do while everyone else is gone?
2- You don't know what you're missing out on.
3- I can't even explain how amazing it was. I was totally spent after I got off of it, but it was totally worth it.
4- You have to do it at least once. You can't say that you don't like something without trying it. For all you know you might really like it.
5- It's a little hard at first, but once you get over the pain it's an amazing feeling.
6- It brought me so much closer to God. It was like I could feel him.
Now, with that last one I'm toe-ing the line of being blasphemous, but here's my logic of why I laugh at that. God tells the prophet that people have to start hiking - I believe very strongly that because God told the people to do it, that He's going to make the best out of a bad situation. God did not tell you that it was essential for you to go out and roast alive in the desert while doing an antiquated activity that technology and society has since been able to remove the necessity of. You are putting yourself in a bad situation. God didn't tell you to do that. God didn't send down the angels and revelation to get you in the middle of a desert wearing clothes that are meant to be worn in the winters, you did that to yourself. He'll be around doing His thing, but do not confuse your situation for what the people before you did. You do not 'know' what they felt. You don't 'know' the support that they received because you knew that if you ever got tired there was a cooler full of ice water waiting for you along side a caravan of cars ready to give you a break. You can say that you've started to understand, but you do not know because you haven't been shot at. You haven't had your family die around you. You don't know anything at all of what they had to go through, or any support that He might have given them, because that's not your life.
No matter which way I look at a trek, unless it's the original one that God told people they had to do, it's not worth it.
Truth Serum - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/106/fathers-day-98
Of all of the possible things that could happen that have been talked about on TAL, sticking my dad in a room with me and being totally honest with each other is the one that I want the most. The idea that I could sit him down and talk about anything, ask him any question possible, and bring up any topic and it wouldn't be weird, awkward, or taboo would be amazing.
My dad and I never talk to each other.
Ever.
Even Alicia talks to my dad more than I talk to my dad. Most recently my parents came to visit us, and we drove by a small farmer's market in American Fork where there was a potter there. It's a weird thing, but my mom loves pottery from weird places that has a story, so we had to turn back and find a pot for her to add to her collection. While shopping for the pot Alicia saw a painting that she liked. My dad gave her a side hug and even said that he'd buy it for her as an early Christmas gift. With that in mind, the same trip my father did not hug me hello or goodbye, have a single discussion with me about anything in my life, and was entirely distant from me, and that is perfectly normal.
Any of those talks that you'd expect a father and son to have together - never happened. That 'talk' that should happen right around 11-12 years old, if not earlier to give some heads up about the changes about to hit? Never happened. The slightly more advanced talks that should happen to introduce some more personal topics? Never happened. The most advanced talk with any of that, that even happened was when I was in middle school and bought myself an athletic supporter (because things were starting to bounce and get in the way when I was running during tennis) and the extent of the talk went a bit like this, "I noticed that you had this in the laundry, do you have any questions? You don't? Great." It was never brought up ever again.
Even talks that I'm starting to realize would be a good thing to do, like talking about spirituality and personal belief, those never happened either. To this day, I still don't know what his mission was like other than the stereotypical story that he likes to share about knocking on doors and the people of Texas being nice and at least giving him a cup of ice water even if they weren't interested. I know nothing more of his mission than that. I know nothing about his high school career, college career, or even that much about what happened between graduating from college to working for Clark County. I don't know because he never talks with me.
Just recently I found out that he started a company out of college, it flopped just a bit, and he ran into some hard times from that . . . from an accidental reference from my mom who assumed that I knew that aspect of my family history when I wasn't alive. I had no clue that it had happened, and I didn't know that it was ever something that my dad had ever dealt with.
It would of course be interesting if it took a turn down this path - http://www.buzzfeed.com/alivelez/watch-these-people-play-a-hilariously-awkward-game-of-truth#.kj0a8AoZz - but I'm not even looking for that crazy of a conversation, I'm just looking to get to know the guy that I've had in my life my entire life, but is still a stranger to me. Of course, it'd be interesting to have the tables turned and see what he wants to ask me, but if that's the cost of admission into his brain to understand him, I'm on board. Of course there's that chance that it's going to get into that awkward realm, but him just agreeing to the entire concept of sitting down with me and having an honest, no limit, sky's the limit conversation is starting out at the height of awkward so what's adding on an extra pile of awkward? It'd be like adding a cup of sand to a beach, it's not making any difference.
Of all of the possible things that could happen that have been talked about on TAL, sticking my dad in a room with me and being totally honest with each other is the one that I want the most. The idea that I could sit him down and talk about anything, ask him any question possible, and bring up any topic and it wouldn't be weird, awkward, or taboo would be amazing.
My dad and I never talk to each other.
Ever.
Any of those talks that you'd expect a father and son to have together - never happened. That 'talk' that should happen right around 11-12 years old, if not earlier to give some heads up about the changes about to hit? Never happened. The slightly more advanced talks that should happen to introduce some more personal topics? Never happened. The most advanced talk with any of that, that even happened was when I was in middle school and bought myself an athletic supporter (because things were starting to bounce and get in the way when I was running during tennis) and the extent of the talk went a bit like this, "I noticed that you had this in the laundry, do you have any questions? You don't? Great." It was never brought up ever again.
Just recently I found out that he started a company out of college, it flopped just a bit, and he ran into some hard times from that . . . from an accidental reference from my mom who assumed that I knew that aspect of my family history when I wasn't alive. I had no clue that it had happened, and I didn't know that it was ever something that my dad had ever dealt with.
It would of course be interesting if it took a turn down this path - http://www.buzzfeed.com/alivelez/watch-these-people-play-a-hilariously-awkward-game-of-truth#.kj0a8AoZz - but I'm not even looking for that crazy of a conversation, I'm just looking to get to know the guy that I've had in my life my entire life, but is still a stranger to me. Of course, it'd be interesting to have the tables turned and see what he wants to ask me, but if that's the cost of admission into his brain to understand him, I'm on board. Of course there's that chance that it's going to get into that awkward realm, but him just agreeing to the entire concept of sitting down with me and having an honest, no limit, sky's the limit conversation is starting out at the height of awkward so what's adding on an extra pile of awkward? It'd be like adding a cup of sand to a beach, it's not making any difference.
Oct 3, 2015
Candice - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/105/take-a-negro-home
After being married for just over a year Alicia and I, or rather Alicia decided and I followed along, to help out a friend of hers from back home - Candice.
Candice, as great a friend as she is to Alicia, is also one of the worst friends and influences on Alicia that I can think of. Whenever Alicia gets around Candice, she is a different woman. Instead of being the college educated individual that she is, she turns into a very ghetto version of herself. Even with that horrible personality influence on Alicia, we agreed that without our help Candice was headed in a bad direction.
Candice had a history of bad decisions. She made multiple bad choices with boyfriends, her jobs she always seemed to shoot herself in the foot with making it impossible for her to keep a steady paycheck which lead to an excessive amount of debt, and then let's not forget the moments in Candice's life that we try not to talk about that include her being a prostitute. There's no nice way to put it, Candice made some bad choices in her life and decided to be a sex worker to pay the bills some weeks.
That's where we came in. Alicia wanted to get her out of that downward spiral so we invited her to live with us and to get her hair license in Utah so she could start fresh up here. The set up was simple. We would provide her with a place to live, and she didn't have to pay any rent. Meanwhile she had to go to cosmotology school so that she could get a job here in Utah.
It did not work out that well.
Throughout her entire stay with us she always wanted us to pay for things for her and she was powerless to be active in her own life. If we asked her to take the bus to school so she could get a job, we might as well had been asking her to walk 50 miles barefoot in the snow uphill both ways. Without fail she would spend more time in our apartment doing nothing, and her excuses always astounded me. No matter how kind people were around her, she never fit in here.
She was the super minority in Utah, and everything reminded her of that. As friendly as people were, she was constantly reminded that she wasn't comfortable with the weird little culture that is the Provo bubble. As much as it was VERY possible for her to get a job here, live on her own, and get away from the world that she was living in, she chose to go back to Las Vegas.
To this day Candice is one of the must frustrating things that you can talk to Alicia and I about because we constantly try to help her, and instead of trying to use our help to change her life, she uses our help to pay off quick debts because she got into the habit of knowing that if she needed an extra $100 that Alicia would be kind enough to give it to her. To this day we have a plan to get Candice out of Las Vegas, but she refuses to do what it takes.
After being married for just over a year Alicia and I, or rather Alicia decided and I followed along, to help out a friend of hers from back home - Candice.
Candice, as great a friend as she is to Alicia, is also one of the worst friends and influences on Alicia that I can think of. Whenever Alicia gets around Candice, she is a different woman. Instead of being the college educated individual that she is, she turns into a very ghetto version of herself. Even with that horrible personality influence on Alicia, we agreed that without our help Candice was headed in a bad direction.
Candice had a history of bad decisions. She made multiple bad choices with boyfriends, her jobs she always seemed to shoot herself in the foot with making it impossible for her to keep a steady paycheck which lead to an excessive amount of debt, and then let's not forget the moments in Candice's life that we try not to talk about that include her being a prostitute. There's no nice way to put it, Candice made some bad choices in her life and decided to be a sex worker to pay the bills some weeks.
That's where we came in. Alicia wanted to get her out of that downward spiral so we invited her to live with us and to get her hair license in Utah so she could start fresh up here. The set up was simple. We would provide her with a place to live, and she didn't have to pay any rent. Meanwhile she had to go to cosmotology school so that she could get a job here in Utah.
It did not work out that well.
Throughout her entire stay with us she always wanted us to pay for things for her and she was powerless to be active in her own life. If we asked her to take the bus to school so she could get a job, we might as well had been asking her to walk 50 miles barefoot in the snow uphill both ways. Without fail she would spend more time in our apartment doing nothing, and her excuses always astounded me. No matter how kind people were around her, she never fit in here.
She was the super minority in Utah, and everything reminded her of that. As friendly as people were, she was constantly reminded that she wasn't comfortable with the weird little culture that is the Provo bubble. As much as it was VERY possible for her to get a job here, live on her own, and get away from the world that she was living in, she chose to go back to Las Vegas.
To this day Candice is one of the must frustrating things that you can talk to Alicia and I about because we constantly try to help her, and instead of trying to use our help to change her life, she uses our help to pay off quick debts because she got into the habit of knowing that if she needed an extra $100 that Alicia would be kind enough to give it to her. To this day we have a plan to get Candice out of Las Vegas, but she refuses to do what it takes.
I Never Want to be a Professional - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/104/music-lessons
I took music lessons from the age of seven (if not earlier) until I graduated from high school. The first few years was nothing but piano, but after that was piano and cello, and ultimately was only cello. With all of that musical knowledge, I know that I want nothing to do with ever making music as my profession.
The amazing thing about Las Vegas is that the classical music scene is amazing. You see, when famous people come through Las Vegas, and they need a live orchestra to back them, Las Vegas has a horde of professional musicians ready and waiting to fill that role. The thing is, that when the professionals don't have any professionals to play with, they still have families to feed so they need a job, so they teach those that aren't professionals - those that are more worried about prom than they are about Paganini.
This is the amazing, and scary, part about Las Vegas. We have professional musicians teaching high school and middle school music classes. That means that in the best case situations, the high school students have learned from their teachers, and are borderline professionals. Thanks to Las Vegas' crazy pool of professional musicians/teachers, the Las Vegas Youth Orchestra has done things like playing entire symphonies, having amazing soloists, and playing at a level that can only be described as professional.
It was amazing to have that experience. To be able to sit through amazing performances, to put notches on my belt to say which symphonies and composers I've played are experiences that I will never forget, but the down side was that I got to know those professional musicians.
Richard Straub was my cello teacher. He is an amazing musician. You would never expect it from him, but the musical qualities that he had on his instruments of choice were through the roof. He had skills as a cellist, and even a bassist, but in my opinion piano and accompaniment was where his ability to understand music was beyond my understanding.
Mr. Straub was the gold standard that I put every single pianist against. The prime test was how well he could not only sight read complex classical pieces, but the amazing ability to compose his own sections of music if the person he was accompanying missed their cue to come in. It's a powerful thing to have a pianist that could make it seem like nothing was wrong and cover up for any mistake that you made as a soloist. Normal pianists stick to the music and don't stray from that, but Mr. Straub would willingly, and often, go off of the notes that were on the page and fill things in however the soloist needed. The most amazing thing that I ever saw him do was not only create 'filler' music that fit perfectly in the style of the composer, but to watch as his music fell off of the piano, which in every other musicians hands would have left a train wreck of noise or dead air. . . and he kept playing. He didn't have the song memorized, but he listened to the soloist and knew enough of the soloist's section that he managed to create a faux accompaniment that (in my opinion) sounded better than the original.
Even though his musical talent was something that was beyond comprehension, he was just making it. His wife and him were both music instructors, and they were both giving their life to watch 6th graders butcher twinkle twinkle, and there were only rare occasions that I got to see him really enjoy the music that he had devoted his life to.
Then there was Mr. Pfeil.
Brad Pfeil was my conductor.
Most people have multiple conductors. At the bare minimum you get one conductor at your middle school, and then a second conductor at your high school. In a weird swing of Mr. Pfeil switching jobs at the same time that I switched schools, for seven years of my life in school, he was my conductor.
Let that sink in. From my first day of sixth grade to my last day of school in my senior year, I saw Mr. Pfeil, and although I might be slightly biased, the man was/is a genius conductor.
Most conductors have their pet instrument or group that they love to conduct. Band students when they become conductors know how to conduct a marching band, but they have no clue how to get any good results from orchestra or choir. When a choir conductor tries to conduct an orchestra, they say things that make no sense at all to the orchestra students and the results are just as catastrophic. The list keeps on going. In the worst case scenario, a bad conductor knows how to get their favorite instrument to make the right noise, but the rest of the orchestra or band takes second place. Mr. Pfeil never showed that weakness.
He knew how to conduct a small string quartet, all the way up to a full symphony orchestra with a full choir with the same exact degree of control over the students he conducted. Without skipping a beat he could tell the string instruments exactly what he expected out of them, the brass section how he wanted their noise to sound, and dictating to the choir how their noise was unbalanced then give a single four count and have the mob of us start playing and it would sound exactly (or at least very closely) to what he requested from all of us.
It was in his hands that I played Handle's Messiah - all of it.
It was in his hands that I played just about every single orchestra piece that I have ever played, and I have a good grasp on who he is and what his life is like, and even with his skill and talent that he could throw around as a conductor as well as a very skilled bass player I don't want that life. Watching him put that much time and effort into music was nice, and it was great as a high school student, but I can not imagine as an adult trying to balance that much dedication to music while also trying to live a somewhat normal life.
As much as I love music, that's the biggest part about being a professional musician that I would never be able to do in a normal world, the absolute sacrifice of all things to become that good of a musician. Being a classical musician isn't as much about skill as it is about sacrifice. Skill gets you only so far, and sooner or later every single classical musician has to dump hours upon hours of personal time to make sure that pure raw practice covers for anything that their skill couldn't. The cost versus the reward just wasn't worth it to me. The personal cost of time and dedication just to sit in an orchestra to always be 'part of the team' and never stand out wasn't worth it.
I can honestly say that being a professional musician was an option for me, but there is no way that I ever wanted to practice and dedicate that much of my life into something that was interesting, but not something I was obsessed with.
I took music lessons from the age of seven (if not earlier) until I graduated from high school. The first few years was nothing but piano, but after that was piano and cello, and ultimately was only cello. With all of that musical knowledge, I know that I want nothing to do with ever making music as my profession.
The amazing thing about Las Vegas is that the classical music scene is amazing. You see, when famous people come through Las Vegas, and they need a live orchestra to back them, Las Vegas has a horde of professional musicians ready and waiting to fill that role. The thing is, that when the professionals don't have any professionals to play with, they still have families to feed so they need a job, so they teach those that aren't professionals - those that are more worried about prom than they are about Paganini.
This is the amazing, and scary, part about Las Vegas. We have professional musicians teaching high school and middle school music classes. That means that in the best case situations, the high school students have learned from their teachers, and are borderline professionals. Thanks to Las Vegas' crazy pool of professional musicians/teachers, the Las Vegas Youth Orchestra has done things like playing entire symphonies, having amazing soloists, and playing at a level that can only be described as professional.
It was amazing to have that experience. To be able to sit through amazing performances, to put notches on my belt to say which symphonies and composers I've played are experiences that I will never forget, but the down side was that I got to know those professional musicians.
Mr. Straub was the gold standard that I put every single pianist against. The prime test was how well he could not only sight read complex classical pieces, but the amazing ability to compose his own sections of music if the person he was accompanying missed their cue to come in. It's a powerful thing to have a pianist that could make it seem like nothing was wrong and cover up for any mistake that you made as a soloist. Normal pianists stick to the music and don't stray from that, but Mr. Straub would willingly, and often, go off of the notes that were on the page and fill things in however the soloist needed. The most amazing thing that I ever saw him do was not only create 'filler' music that fit perfectly in the style of the composer, but to watch as his music fell off of the piano, which in every other musicians hands would have left a train wreck of noise or dead air. . . and he kept playing. He didn't have the song memorized, but he listened to the soloist and knew enough of the soloist's section that he managed to create a faux accompaniment that (in my opinion) sounded better than the original.
Even though his musical talent was something that was beyond comprehension, he was just making it. His wife and him were both music instructors, and they were both giving their life to watch 6th graders butcher twinkle twinkle, and there were only rare occasions that I got to see him really enjoy the music that he had devoted his life to.
Brad Pfeil was my conductor.
Most people have multiple conductors. At the bare minimum you get one conductor at your middle school, and then a second conductor at your high school. In a weird swing of Mr. Pfeil switching jobs at the same time that I switched schools, for seven years of my life in school, he was my conductor.
Let that sink in. From my first day of sixth grade to my last day of school in my senior year, I saw Mr. Pfeil, and although I might be slightly biased, the man was/is a genius conductor.
Most conductors have their pet instrument or group that they love to conduct. Band students when they become conductors know how to conduct a marching band, but they have no clue how to get any good results from orchestra or choir. When a choir conductor tries to conduct an orchestra, they say things that make no sense at all to the orchestra students and the results are just as catastrophic. The list keeps on going. In the worst case scenario, a bad conductor knows how to get their favorite instrument to make the right noise, but the rest of the orchestra or band takes second place. Mr. Pfeil never showed that weakness.
He knew how to conduct a small string quartet, all the way up to a full symphony orchestra with a full choir with the same exact degree of control over the students he conducted. Without skipping a beat he could tell the string instruments exactly what he expected out of them, the brass section how he wanted their noise to sound, and dictating to the choir how their noise was unbalanced then give a single four count and have the mob of us start playing and it would sound exactly (or at least very closely) to what he requested from all of us.
It was in his hands that I played Handle's Messiah - all of it.
It was in his hands that I played just about every single orchestra piece that I have ever played, and I have a good grasp on who he is and what his life is like, and even with his skill and talent that he could throw around as a conductor as well as a very skilled bass player I don't want that life. Watching him put that much time and effort into music was nice, and it was great as a high school student, but I can not imagine as an adult trying to balance that much dedication to music while also trying to live a somewhat normal life.
As much as I love music, that's the biggest part about being a professional musician that I would never be able to do in a normal world, the absolute sacrifice of all things to become that good of a musician. Being a classical musician isn't as much about skill as it is about sacrifice. Skill gets you only so far, and sooner or later every single classical musician has to dump hours upon hours of personal time to make sure that pure raw practice covers for anything that their skill couldn't. The cost versus the reward just wasn't worth it to me. The personal cost of time and dedication just to sit in an orchestra to always be 'part of the team' and never stand out wasn't worth it.
I can honestly say that being a professional musician was an option for me, but there is no way that I ever wanted to practice and dedicate that much of my life into something that was interesting, but not something I was obsessed with.
It's Been Decided
High elves get to be my alternate army.
I decided to pull them out and do a quick point count on them to see just how many I had, and it turns out that as long as I'm willing to dump some points into magical items, and also duplicate a few guys that aren't actually hero characters as heroes, I have an easy 2,000 points.
The list, just in case I forget -
Lords -
Teclis
Prince
Archmage
Heroes-
Noble
Noble
Core -
Archers - x14
Silver Helms - x7
Spearmen - x15
Special -
Sword Masters of Hoeth - x17
Rare-
Bolt Thrower
It's not exactly the "ideal" high elf army, but with a bit of super glue, it'll hold together just fine and be field-able. The real question is if I want to keep them that highlighter orange, or if I'm going to try a different color scheme now that I have slightly better abilities than what I did about a decade ago. I won't have to worry about it for a while, I have promised myself that I'm going to finish my core to my vampires (skeletons, ghouls, and wolfs) before I even THINK about doing anything else, and that's quite a few models before I have to worry about some elves.
I decided to pull them out and do a quick point count on them to see just how many I had, and it turns out that as long as I'm willing to dump some points into magical items, and also duplicate a few guys that aren't actually hero characters as heroes, I have an easy 2,000 points.
The list, just in case I forget -
Lords -
Teclis
Prince
Archmage
Heroes-
Noble
Noble
Core -
Archers - x14
Silver Helms - x7
Spearmen - x15
Special -
Sword Masters of Hoeth - x17
Rare-
Bolt Thrower
It's not exactly the "ideal" high elf army, but with a bit of super glue, it'll hold together just fine and be field-able. The real question is if I want to keep them that highlighter orange, or if I'm going to try a different color scheme now that I have slightly better abilities than what I did about a decade ago. I won't have to worry about it for a while, I have promised myself that I'm going to finish my core to my vampires (skeletons, ghouls, and wolfs) before I even THINK about doing anything else, and that's quite a few models before I have to worry about some elves.
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