Still not dead :D

Yup - very much still alive, and mostly emerged from under the kitchen fitting and getting Jamie through his web dev course (despite the best efforts of his GP to refuse to renew his meds the week before his deadline!).

Upcoming news: I have two podcast interviews definitely scheduled for The Miller's Tale - both being recorded in the next two weeks, at least one of which ideally will be out before UK Games Expo at the end of next week. There's a third I'm trying to fix a date for in June [Edit: now booked!], and hopefully a couple more over the summer.

Speaking of UK Games Expo, I'll be working the Catalyst Games event tables for the whole event: you can find me in Hall 4 in a fluorescent green on black t-shirt, about halfway down the right hand wall from the plaza entrance. I think we're here [Edit: fixed to be ZZ, not V], but it's all a bit chaotic. Come see what all the fuss is about with BattleTech, learn to play Alpha Strike in no time flat.

Catch you around!

The Miller's Tale - Episode 9

Episode 9: in which Mike once again attempts to remember how the heck the Heath Robinson-esque collection of RSS feed generator, local webspace and heaven knows what else all hooks together. And attempts to get caught up, and rambles about a 40-year old wargame...

Links from this episode

• Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro filament printer
• XTool S1 laser cutter
• Tales From The Periphery - my new podcast
• The BattleTech portal page
• Brutal Cities MDF terrain

2023 in review

The best laid plans, as they say...

Do feel free to go read my 2022 end of year post and laugh - probably somewhat hollowly. 

For those who missed the story - we were called up to parents by neighbours at the beginning of January, as Mum had had some kind of fall. Found her not brilliant (with hindsight, she may have had the first of a few minor seizures) and Dad seriously unwell with what fortunately turned out not to be a stroke. Dad to hospital, wife and I up to care for Mum for the next month while we tried to convince her she needed carers in. (How on earth Dad managed to look after her alone (beyond sheer bloody-mindedness) is beyond either of us. She'd been largely chair-bound for most of the past decade.)

When you're 87 and admitted to hospital in as bad a state as Dad was, it's not at all uncommon not to make it out alive. Dad, fortunately, is made of markedly more stubborn Yorkshire grit, and despite being flat on his back for most of 5 weeks, was back walking with the aid of a frame and then sticks before the end of April. And still in possession of the majority of his marbles.

Finally won the carers argument with Mum as it was the only way the hospital would allow Dad home. Sadly she was growing weaker, and passed away at the beginning of March. Next couple of months were taken up with funeral arrangements and starting the process of sorting out her estate. Then Dad (wisely, to be honest) decided that he'd found a really nice residential care home, and didn't want to live on his own in a house that would easily hold 6 while paying for care. (He was wise enough to recognise that his need for some form of regular daily care wasn't going to go away, and quite frankly, after the amount of effort he'd put into looking after Mum, I was quite happy for him to do whatever ever the hell he felt happiest with, because he'd Damn Well Earned It.)

And around about that time Anne's dad passed away. So, once the dust had settled on that, July was spent moving Dad, and then August to pretty much the end of November spent getting the house sold and emptying it of two peoples' lives for the past 50 years. I am I think blessed in that while Dad is a hoarder, he is remarkably good (whether the hospital stay was a wakeup call, who knows?), in fact ruthlessly so, at the idea of 'I no longer need this, lets get rid of it'). So we did - a local auctioneers run a house-clearance service, and they basically auctioned what was saleable (some nice antique furniture) and disposed of the rest. Finally found a buyer and agreed a price, not long after Mum's probate got granted, and Dad and I have spent December helping him set up various savings accounts, ISAs etc to store his half of the proceeds. (Us, we just paid off our mortgage - thanks Mum).

And for a final kick in the teeth, our close friend and musical partner in crime Steve passed away very suddenly in October. 

So. here I am. It's the end of 2023, and ... whew. In some ways I'd like it back for a do-over, and I know I'd like my Mum and Steve back. But... all things must pass, and we move on.

Takeways from that experience:

• Lasting Power Of Attorney - set it up NOW while the people involved still have their mental faculties. You don't have to use it, but it's there.
• Treat elderly relatives protesting that they are fine with a healthy degree of scepticism until you have evidence with your own eyes.
• The process for dealing with what happens when someone passes away is remarkably well documented, Don't panic.
• The NHS are overstretched, underpaid, under-appreciated and being manipulated by the present Government for their own gains and that of their cronies.
• You probably won't have to pay inheritance tax. The upcoming abolition probably isn't going to affect you at all, the Government would just like you to think they are.
• Tell the people you care about that you love them. You might not get another chance.

And... breathe...

 Ok. The dust has settled enough on Real Life that I have managed:

• to help run a game at Salute
• to make it back to club regularly
• to help get the show set up for Sep 3rd
• to have a very nice and, actually, very motivating chat with someone I really ought to know better than I do... which you may get to hear in a bit :D
• to actually think about picking up on various wargaming projects (Compendium? schmompendium :D).

More of all the above on subsequent posts.

In short summary of the non-wargaming bits of life: Dad has been out of hospital since mid-February, and Mum sadly passed away (peacefully and painlessly) around the start of March. The dust has, as I said, pretty much settled on all of that. Mum's estate and (pretty uncomplicated) will is in the hands of her very good solicitors and we're waiting on the granting of probate to wrap that up. Dad is doing fine, and pretty much back to walking again after 6 weeks spent flat on his back, and we're visiting most weeks to make sure he hasn't driven his carers mad. :D And I'm about caught up on the backlog of things I should have been doing in Jan and Feb outside of wargaming! (Guess who switched to a nice well-paying contract job on Jan 1, and thus wasn't getting paid for days he didn't work!)

Anyway. All is much improved. Watch this space for more wargaming updates.

2022 End Of Year Review

The end of another long strange year.

So, where to start?

On a personal note? Changed jobs again, which was almost as much a surprise to me as it probably is to you. A definite "it's not you, it's me" moment as I got a contract offer from CricViz I couldn't refuse, which also allowed me (as it is only a 3 days a week contract) to take on a second contract for a project I was in at the beginning of that I'd been trying to squeeze into my non-existent free time. Result? Hopefully both more money and more free time, helped by having more trained minions for church tech stuff.

The club, back from a fresh start at a new venue in 2021, grows from strength to strength: we have lots of new members, and consistently over 20 people showing up each Monday. Show wise, we took a big 54mm WW2 game to Hammerhead, our mad 1:1 garden gnome patio skirmish to Partizan, the equally mad Dead's Army (everything is better with zombies!) to Campaign:MK, and our 6mm IABSM game set on D-Day in Chef-du-Pont to the Other Partizan. 

Additionally, we ran a club open day (at which our Bloody Omaha game saw another outing) and Posh Lard, at which the Chef-du-Pont game actually got its first outing. 

We restarted our Wednesday night 'paint and natter' sessions late in 2021, which have basically seen a small group of club members variously doing work on club projects and personal ones. Principal club project at present is detailing the Chef-du-Pont boards, but we will have to revisit and tart up our Dambusters game for the Salute 50th (and Operation: Chastise's 80th) anniversary next year.

As for my personal hobby stuff?

Definitely New Year, new start.

• Just sent the most up-to-date set of Dux rules corrections off to my partners in crime. Now I genuinely have some free time, I'm aiming to crack on and finish the Compendium before the end of Feb. I know - you've heard that before: this time, hopefully is the charm.
• Slowly working on some fresh buildings and vehicles for a narrative Bulge campaign using IABSM - this was supposed to start this year but didn't :D
• I bought two Warlord Epic Battles ACW Starter sets off a club member in February: they are probably the 'second half of 2023' project - there's a heck of a lot of figures there, so it's going to need a good batch painting strategy, probably using Army Painter Speedpaints.
• I'm also aiming to set aside an hour a week to blog, initially, in 2023. Once the Compendium is out of the way, that time will go towards restarting the podcast. I wound up listing to a couple of Meeples episodes recently and realising how much I missed it.

• 

  Studio, including WIP Chef-du-Pont board.
  Garden detailing work started on the three houses
  near the camera.

  The hobby room (studio) just acquired an Ikea Kallax to store all the boardgames, and is looking pretty fine. I have to get some shelves up above the workbench in the end room (workshop) and then I'm aiming to set up the spray booth, hot wire cutter, Cricut machine, 3D printer (or printers if I get a resin one) and maybe an MDF cutter along its length along with a Mac to run them all.

A Happy New Year to you all, then, and hopefully you'll see much more of me online in 2023!

2021 End Of Year Review

To use a familiar phrase from this blog, "I Aten't Ded".

Hard to decide if 2021 was better than 2020 or just different. :D

Hobbywise, I guess the good news is that after a year of Monday Night Zoom calls, we actually opened the club again in mid-August, at a new and very nice venue - for those more local to Peterborough, we're now out at the George Alcock Centre out on the east side of town just off the parkway. Loads of parking space, nice airy main room. The only real downside is a lack of handy pubs and eateries, but this is made up for by having a bar on the premises (who will do food for special occasions) and an Aldi 200 yards away.

It's taken until pretty much this Christmas to get enough minions trained that I'm not spending a night or two a week editing something for church, so hopefully various bits of hobby stuff should start to pick up in the New Year, including You Know What, if I can find space in the 'editing stuff' brain compartment now it's not being used for church video.

On the subject of You Know What, I did manage to record a video version of the Miller's Tale episode 8 for virtual Hereward in September - if you missed it, the link is here. Sadly, the week I'd planned between Christmas and the New Year for at least making a start on the Compendium got eaten by the case of COVID my lovely wife brought home from work, and in the true spirit of the marriage vows, shared with me. Not recommended, I have to say.

Otherwise, I've run a couple of games for Virtual Lard, started a very loose IABSM Lite Battle of the Bulge campaign at club, bought more MDF and more WW2 vehicles...

So. Here's to 2022, and fingers crossed. Stay safe, and hopefully see you all online or in person sometime soon!

Dux Brit updates

While you're all waiting for me to stop being busy, and a) finish the Compendium and b) start the Linnius Campaign again, please allow me to refer you to Leading Lead's "The Rhegn Campaign" which is just starting up and being chronicled on their blog.

As those of you who made it to Virtual Lard will be aware, I managed to run two games of Dux over Zoom, which went pretty well - Rich Clarke (despite being 7 years rusty with the rules) in particular had a great time in the morning game, and we had players as far afield as Australia and Colorado USA.

The Compendium is progressing - I think my playtest group has pretty much laid the gremlins to rest in the various scenarios (thank you very much, folks!), so as soon as I get the last few bits edited I'll be looking for proof-readers. Sadly... actually, no. For once I am not Over-Commitment Boy... There are a limited list of people at church with my skill set, and pretty much 2/3 of my free time goes on that at present.  Fortunately, I am learning to delegate and train, so hopefully that will ease. And I am taking a week off in July, of which part is to record a long overdue album, but voice and fingers won't let me do that all day everyday, so the rest of the time is going on Dux.

State of the Mike

Knackered...




Oh, wait, you want more. :D

Ok, so. Last week, for those who pay attention to the Western ecclesiastical calendar, was Holy Week, from Palm Sunday through to Easter Sunday, and I have been editing videos every day (literally every day) for church (and for a fair chunk of the weeks before, while we were debating whether we were still going to be allowed to stream from an otherwise empty church). This has actually been pretty useful, since it's amounted to a free basic training course in Apple's Final Cut Pro, which is always a handy thing to go on the CV.

I'm also now officially Mill House Studios Ltd (site update IS on the todo list) as I also have a new job from the end of April as a contract developer - for now, I'd prefer not to say who for, if that's ok. Either way, there's a certain amount of organisation involved in getting that up and running, and it does mean I have a handy vehicle for putting the money I make from other projects through.

And then my wife has gone and done her knee in. Again. Because, as usual, she's too stubborn to remember she's already done it in once, and there are other people in the house who can do stuff for her. *sigh* I love her dearly, really I do. :D

I've also been writing a few blogs (per various people's requests) on assorted topics in gaming and setting up Discord etc. And trying to keep the Dux Compendium moving amid all this - the difficulty is that while I was hoping the time off after the previous job would allow me to focus on it, the stuff I have left really requires what programmers call 'flow', the ability to shut off outside distractions, get your head down and do stuff without breaks. And that has been in short supply.

Normal service is being resumed, slowly, honest. I have dumped my todo list into OmniFocus, in the hope that I don't drop anything on the floor.

The hobby streak, sadly, is toast - you'd have kind of thought not, given the circumstances, and if I was really trying I could have probably found something hobby related I've done every day to maintain it, but there are some days that it would have been a real stretch ("I read gaming Twitter!").

So anywhere, that's where I am. Well, actually, here's where I am....

Stay safe, folks!

State of the Mike

I'm starting to think I should have "I Aten't Ded" as a tag on this blog (sounds of typing - oh, wait, I do!), although to be fair if you've been following me on Twitter you'd be aware I've been busy.

So: to catch up,

I came down with a rotten cold (no, not Covid-19!) the last two weeks of February, for which my brain was typically getting about as far as 'Good morning" for the first week and then giving up - it took me a week before I had a day without a sinus headache or migraine. Sadly, not enough brain to string coherent sentences together for DuxB... Once I recovered, life has been a combination of catching up on work (as *another* of our team was leaving, deadlines were looming...) and finishing up tarting up the Dead's Army boards, which, if you HAVE been following me on Twitter, now look pretty bloody awesome, and you can see them at Hammerhead tomorrow!

We are (after a last panic to assemble the Rubicon telegraph poles I'd bought and forgotten about) now done, and I was looking forward to a weekend off at the O2 for my annual pilgrimage to Country2Country and then finding some time to finish the Compendium.

Fate has other plans. Just about every US country artist has fled the country in a Covid-19, Trump-induced panic, so C2C got cancelled. And on Thursday, my boss called me to tell me they were letting me go with immediate effect. If you want the gory details of the latter, feel free to DM me on FB or Twitter, or ask me at Hammerhead, but my opinions probably shouldn't be aired anywhere permanent and public :D

So - here we are :D

I have various agencies looking out for things for me - if anyone knows of Perl developer vacancies, particularly short term contracts or even part-time ones,  especially if they allow telecommuting (not that they might have much choice soon!), feel free to let me know. However, I do have most of a month pay in lieu of notice, and a couple of small contract jobs from CricketArchive to extend that with luck, so, the short term plan:

• reformat the work MacBook and wait for them to tell me where to send it. Dead prawn in the battery bay tempting but unlikely.
• tidy the s**t out of the office and workshop (already in progress, the labeller is earning its keep)
• set up the studio for game videos etc
• Finish the Compendium. 
• Start podcasting again (possibly two)
• Start writing the next batch of gaming stuff, which includes CoC scenarios and some D&D stuff for the DMs' Guild (quick wins for money as they're already hand-written up in the dread Green File Of Gaming)
• Look at starting a Patreon or other ways of further monetising this so I don't have to go back to work full time as a developer.
• Remind Anne that all the above is potentially paying work and that doesn't mean I have time for DIY 

Comments, opinions, good wishes welcome.

A merry Christmas to all my readers.,..

The wargamers Secret Santa delivered me a box of 15mm PSC Churchills - to the mystery giver, thank you very much - they're on the painting pile for 2015! Hopefully my recipient is as happy with his gift, and once again thanks to Ian and Catherine for organising it.

I think I'm now all caught up with the world outside wargaming, which is nice - making a conscious choice to quit a non-wargaming hobby responsibility that was just getting me seriously down and infecting me a global case of the 'don't-wannas' seems to have been a very wise move.

Currently plonked in the comfy armchair with a mug of tea (and an enthusiastically helpful three-legged black kitten) awaiting breakfast pancakes (a Saturday/holiday morning tradition hereabouts) contemplating where to start on the wargames and blogging to do list. This post, methinks :D