Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Asheville Plans on Hold, etc.

Okay, things are settling down again so I'd like to briefly update a few things tonight. The mother-in-law has departed once again for frozen New York, the monstrous Hydra is done for now, and in the past week all I managed to assemble for my Dark Elves was one little crossbowman. (Uh-oh!) How's that for an update? I suppose that's the most pertinent info anyways, the rest will just be details.

All that extra hobby time I thought was just around the corner for me turned out to be entirely imaginary... shocking, right? My daughter turned two years old yesterday so we've kept busy with friends and family stopping by in addition to having a very exciting and noisy birthday party on Sunday at the beach. We were staying one island over while my mother-in-law visited because preparations for the expected move to Asheville, NC have lead to a lot of upheaval at home and no space for guests. In vain I brought my Dark Elves to assemble but there were no good opportunities to work on them, although the stay at the beach was otherwise a great time. Getting to sleep in a bit as my mother-in-law took the early shift with my daughter was bliss. :) (Thanks again, Cheryl!)

As I said, the only progress I made on the Dark Elf front was putting together a single pitiful crossbowman. Oh and the Hydra is mostly done, still some minor greenstuff work to do on all those gaps but that's almost finished too. What this means however is that my timetable for this project is already thrown off track but worrying about it won't help, the only thing to do is press on. I'll focus my efforts on the miniatures I most expect to use for the 1000 point tournament at Adepticon, and if I can pick up the pace I might then look at some of the other models I've purchased. Hmmm, I think I should save details about this for a future post.

While I've made little tangible hobby progress recently, on the other hand I did find plenty of time last week to really dig into the first volume of the Malus Darkblade collection. I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would even with its moments of face-peeling grotesqueries. (As an aside, I sometimes forget what a sicko Dan Abnett can be.) So despite his cruelty and all around horribleness, I've quickly grown rather fond of Malus and find him to be surprisingly funny and even kind of endearing in a weird way. I actually find myself thinking of him as almost a Warhammer version of one of my all time favorite characters, Ash from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies, in that he is constantly being pummeled, beaten, stabbed, knocked out, captured, poisoned, suffocated, drugged, and otherwise generally abused at almost every turn. Yet to his credit he never stays down or out of the fight for very long and always seems to come out ahead in the end. As a hero, or antihero as you please, his greatest virtue so far appears to be his ability to take a beating. Also as I had hoped it would, the reading is helping me tremendously in my understanding of the Druchii as a people and their culture which previously had felt somewhat bland and one dimensional. Good stuff!

Another positive, albeit still somewhat disappointing, development from last week is the new plan my wife and I devised concerning the aforementioned move to Asheville. Musings of a Smurf kindly enquired not long ago how things had been going with this and I realized it had been awhile since I last updated the situation. As the title of this post suggests, unfortunately we've had to put everything on hold after getting burned recently by the anemic housing market. Less than two weeks from closing on my wife's old house, now on the market for more than 39 months, the current renters had to back out of their contract which they had signed almost a year ago to purchase the home. Instead they are moving out at the end of February so not only did we lose the sale but also the rental income as well. Their financing fell apart at the last minute and so now there's much to do to get the house back on the market again by spring.

The result of this is that we're going to have to wait on moving to Asheville for the time being as we deal with these new circumstances. Our goal now is to have everything resolved by summertime and will hopefully then resume our ambitions for moving to the mountains. So while I'm still eager as can be to translocate the family, for now we're staying here and will likely only unpack things as needed but otherwise restore order as best we can. Candidly I don't know what's going to happen but I'm optimistic everything will turn out for the best. I'm very grateful for everyone who has been so encouraging of me and who so graciously invited me to come game with you once I have moved to North Carolina. I appreciate it very much and I'm sure that such a welcoming spirit will provide ample motivation to see me through the coming months. Demolition work on the house begins March 1st, hooray!

Well I've rambled on long enough tonight. I apologize for the amount of RealLife whining contained in this update, it was something I had wanted to avoid for that reason alone but I didn't know how else to explain the situation. I remain very hopeful however about our chances of still being able to move to Asheville in the near future. Besides it was a perfect 75 degrees today with beautiful blue skies so I think I should manage alright in the meantime. For now though I've got some Dark Elves to attend to... goodnight, everyone!

10 comments:

  1. Hey Paps, glad to hear you got some time to relax with the help of tour mother in law. Any move (even ones that don't actually happen) are stressful times, and I would imagine more so with little kids to pack along too.

    Its a real shame about your house sale falling through. Is there any sign of an improvement in the market over there? We get encouraging signs of wall street rallys on the tele here in Australia which we assume transalates into a potential recovery across the whole US economy - its sad to hear that these positives aren't flowing all the way through.

    Anyway, I hope you get some time to work on your Elves in the coming weeks. Do you have a fall back plan in place in case you're not ready by Adepticon?

    I am, also half way through the Maus series. I had forgotten how good a collection of books it was until I read your earlier posts and dug them back out. As you say - face-peelingly grotesque - but very cool.

    Look for the bright side in things Paps and hopefully things will start falling your way. Best wishes to you and the family.

    Pom

    ReplyDelete
  2. Real life is often far more interesting, and here too. Sorry it hasn't worked out as easily as it might have, but you do have the example of Malus to guide you through the pummelling..! I enjoyed your thoughts on that too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Even one lone long bowman at a time, your Dark Elves will get done!

    Keep your chin up on the housing situation- houses are slowly starting to sell again.

    stoppit with all the warm beach talk. it's cold here and I'm jealous =)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sorry to hear about the house woes; that's a shame! Living out of boxes for months won't be fun either. May harmony and sanity reign at home despite the troubles.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sorry to hear about the deal falling through.

    Life is a bucket of manure sprinkled with raisins. You just have to savour the raisins.

    All the best mate.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Life sucks at times, Wayland are waiting of DEDOK to arrive instock, so Im also doing one (or two) Night Lords at a time, was given a tone of paperwork yesterday so that will eat some time while waiting, can you email me some picts of the DOK's so I can look at them properly. (I will tell you what the paperwork is via email.

    All the best Dee.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Tough break but it will work out, it always does. Thanks for the update.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @ Rogue Pom - Thank you, I appreciate that a lot. The word I've gotten working with agents over the past several months is that prospective buyers are having a difficult time securing credit for a home mortgage. Like Loquacious said though it's better than it was a couple years ago but there's still a lot of other houses for sale in my area. I think Charleston has been lucky compared to many other parts of the country and I am optimistic.

    I'm going to do the best I can with the Dark Elves but just in case I should be able to pull together enough of my old Dwarf army to still play in the tournament if I don't finish enough Elves in time. The one problem I foresee is that they're already packed away and I don't know exactly what box they're in. So for now I'm not worried but that might be a different story as we get closer to the end of March. It seems like I'll be doing my share of finger-crossing this year... :)

    Thanks again and best wishes to you too, Pom!

    @ Porky - Haha! Great observation, maybe that's why I've become so taken with Malus and his trials. I should indeed take heart from his inspiring can-do attitude... if nothing else you have to give him credit for that. Thanks for the smiles, Porky!

    @ Loquacious - I am grateful for the encouragement, thank you! I think you're right, too. I feel confident things are turning around already... ah, music to my ears. I can be patient, too. For the coming days I'll just take them one Dark Elf at a time. :) Thanks, Loq!!

    @ sonsoftaurus - Thank you! That is a very kind wish for my family, we appreciate the support. We'll make it to NC sometime soon, just not as quickly as we were hoping. Compared to some folks' troubles I know that's a pretty small thing for to me complain about, I'm sure everything will be alright. Thanks again, sonsoftaurus!

    @ Bartender - Hahaha! You always find a way to brighten my day, thank you!

    @ Derina - Thanks, great to hear from you! This has definitely introduced some new stresses for us but all things considered I am still so very grateful for the life we enjoy. No rush on the Deep Ones, I'm thinking of them like they're an allied band of knights traveling from far off. It will be a bonus to the army when they arrive so please work on other projects as suits your interest... say for example, should you want to give those Night Lords a Storm Raven. Have fun and good luck with the paperwork... take care, Derina!

    @ Gyro - Very true... I feel confident this is all for the best and will work out fine. I do appreciate the reminder, though. Thanks, Gyro!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Can the knights take xbows?? Just an odd qusetion.

    do you have any female bodies you can send me for the knights? and I'll post the male bodies with the knights.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm tracking down extra bits now and will send you whatever I can find. Unfortunately knights don't have access to the crossbows although that would be fun. Oh well....

    ReplyDelete