A Year in Review: 2014

Well, another year as come and gone and a lot of broken resolutions from 2014 were never made.  So with tears in my eyes, lets cover what I resolved in January of 2014, copied right off from my entry in January in Italics, and my end-of-year answers in red:

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Personal:

Weight loss: To weigh 10 lbs lighter by the end of year, but to strive for more. Yeah, this was an epic failure.  I gained weight.  I have since lost some of it, but not the 10 lbs that I wanted.

Orienteering Society:  If I am relocated to a major city that has an orienteering society, I will join it and be involved in at two events, more if possible  Never even tried...sigh

Clearing out the house:  I will take a week off in March/April/May, weather & job dependent, and get a “Got Junk” dumpster delivered to get the old furniture out of the basement & garage, then go to my aunt’s and do the same in her garage.  Sadly, this came too true.  I did get a truck load of junk out of my basement and garage in the Spring (roughly 400 cubic feet of crap!)  However, with my aunt passing away during the summer, we also had to get rid of a lot more at her house then what I was planning.  I still have much more to go through.

Inventory / Sell books:  Complete my inventory and sell/give away to charity at least two banker boxes of books Sadly, again this was not completed in some ways, but like the one above, it was more than what I wanted to do.  I did not complete my inventory, but did give away one banker box of books to troops overseas.  My aunt was avid reader too and we have been giving away most of her books.

Record with books I read:  Record which books I read over the year for a review at the end of the year. Done and also started to add audio books & plays to my list later.  I read / listen to a total of 52 books, essays, thesis's, novels, and novellas.  Of which 33 were Non-Fiction and 19 were Fiction, which almost gives me a 3:2 ratio, which is highly unusual for me as it normally more like 5:1.  I think that it was mainly due to the fact that majority of the Fiction books were novellas, instead of novels, making them a much faster read.

Blog:  Make at least one post a month, but with the goal of doing three a month.  The subject and length is not important, get me to keep with some regular activity is important. Sort of made it.  Some months were less than 3, others were more than 3.  As an overall goal of 36 entries for a year, I had 37 total.  Unfortunately, several of them were about my aunt's illness and death, followed by the rioting & looting in Ferguson only 2 to 3 miles away. 

Sight-Seeing/Events: Go to the 150^th Anniversary of the Battle of Pilot Knob, Missouri.  Also visit the Cahokia mounds.  Take one week off to travel to both western Missouri and eastern Kansas for the 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War’s Price’s great raid, plus Bleeding Kansas sites, or travel down to eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee and Mississippi to see various Civil War sites.  If the finances and work are good, take one week off to go to New England to see American Revolutionary sites and Lovecraft’s territory. Happily, the main event was successful and I did get to go to Pilot Knob to see the 150th anniversary with Steve H & Pat L.  I also did get to see a battlefield for Black Jack in Kansas and the 150th anniversary reenactment at Fort McAllister, GA.  Besides that, I worked in Richmond, VA, for two weeks and got to visit the Edgar Allen Poe Museum & the Tredegar Iron Works Historical Site.  While at home, I got to go to the newly opened Civil War Museum in historical Jefferson Barracks; went to a Civil War book signing at the Soldier's Memorial and along with a nice historical walk of downtown St Louis with Steve H & his bother Phil H; sat on a lecture from Dr Mark A Lause about his book on Gen. Price's failed 1864 invasion of Missouri, as well as a lecture from James W Erwin on his two book series on the guerrilla war in Missouri; and finally, I went and saw the Prohibition exhibit while it was in St Louis.

Game Related:

Gaming area:  After the removal of the junk furniture in the basement, clear off my table space and run a game at my house no later than June 7, 2014 (incidentally, I am planning to run a D-Day game on that day for the 70^th Anniversary), but earlier would be better.  Sadly, another failure as I only ran one game and have not finished clearing off my table in the basement, even if it is almost done.

Inventory/selling “Lead Mountain”:  To completely sell off everything 15mm WW2 that is not specifically for my core company size forces.  To completely sell off everything of my 10mm WW2 project, except specific pieces for display.  To completely sell off everything of my 15mm Plains Indian wars.  To start inventorying and selling off my 25mm projects/figures that are not part of any project that I really want to keep. Another complete failure.  I started to redo my inventory and create an Excel spreadsheet and give each baggy of items a code number so I could keep track of who bought it, did they pay, the tracking code for mailing (if any), and a record that I did get rid of it so I would not be looking for it again if I found an old list.  But with my aunt's illness and death, that project sort of came to a stop and I never got back to it.  I did however give the 15mm Plains Indians figures over to Steve H.

Painting:  Commission out my 25mm Winter War figures and finish off my 20mm projects first.  Anything beyond that will be part of my 15mm WW2 projects. Ha!  I only painted one (1!) figure this whole year and never sent anything off to be commissioned.  Epic failure!

20mm Anarchy in the UK project:  1) Buy the needed vehicles from BW Models before they close for good.  2) Buy more civilian vehicles from Oxford / other sources.  3) Finish making my base cover for the urban environment and have enough buildings done to do a 4’x4’ game in an urban area. See above

25mm Winter War project:  1) Build the bases for the forest sections and work on game mat. 2) Paint (or commission) at less one platoon for both sides (see above) See above

Run games:  Run at least four games, at least one at my house: 1) 20mm WW2 D-Day using TFL’s Chain of Command; 2) 20mm Falklands using TFL’s Chain of Command; 3) 20mm Anarchy in the UK to be determined (could be two platoons skirmish, Gangsters/Police, Humans/Zombies, etc); and 4) 10mm Vietnam using either Charlie Don’t Surf or Tour of Duty. I only got the 20mm Falklands game off (Link to the AAR).

1/6000 Falklands project:  Paint and base the ships I really want to start crying now...see above

15mm Ridgeway project:  Read Vronsky’s “Ridgeway” and take detailed notes. OK, I am reading Vronsky's book and taking notes.  Also the only figure I finish painting is for this project.  So I give myself a successful mark here.
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Well, there you have it, my Year in Review.  I am going to try to type up my 2015 commitments later tonight. 

Until then...be see you!

Sapper