Wow, didn’t realize it’s already been over two years since I finished painting Hatchet. Finally painted the next miniature from “Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion”, Red Guard. Since it’s almost entirely red without a ton of little details I was able to paint it all in one day. Spent probably 4-5 hours on it.
I printed and assembled copies of the Trinidad Head Light Station model, which I designed earlier in the year, to give to my team at work as end-of-the-year gifts (one of our main projects is named after the lighthouse).
That was all I printed this month, but I received some fancy filaments for Christmas that I’ll need to come up with some fun uses for in 2025.
Despite my hopes from last month, I did not get much game playing in this month either.
Played a session of The Guild of Merchant Explorers at a board game meetup. I won.
Played a scenario of Mechs vs. Minions and introduced the game to friends. We ran the gauntlet and succeeded in reaching the other side while subduing the minions along the way. Victory.
After playing Creature Comforts at a board game meetup last month I thought Jess would enjoy it. So she found it under the Christmas tree. We played with friends and I won after a very productive final turn bringing in 29 points in just the one turn.
Tallying up the blog posts gives us 63 games played in 2024.
Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
While I had somewhat assumed that Forever Peace was a sequel to The Forever War Haldeman addresses directly in the introduction that it is not.
But it does continue to explore and discuss the issues that affect the participants and victims of continuous warfare. It then goes on to explore the idea of what if you could open everyone’s minds to collectivism and seeing humanity as one. What if we could reach a state of mind where violence against others is seen as violence against oneself and therefore pointless.
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
This was my Christmas gift from the girls this year. A Japanese fantasy book (translated) about a cat, books, and an old bookstore. They nailed it.
When Rintaro’s grandfather dies he withdraws even further from the world than usual as he takes over caring for the old bookshop.
Then a cat approaches him for help rescuing books. His love of books empowers him to break out of his shell and engage with the world around him.
And those are the only books I completed in December. Most of my reading was on a book in French and I just didn’t quite finish it. So it will show up next year.
Looking back over this year’s blog posts I tally 41 books for the year! With 1 of them in French.
I spent Sunday last weekend installing new shelves in the garage and then reorganizing our storage.
Before:
The new shelves (Everbilt heavy-duty, steel, shelving system):
I didn’t even reach the point of wanting to throw stuff out a window. And I only missed the stud once out of 33 screws.
Now all the Christmas stuff can be in one location instead of scattered all over the garage:
And the final state:
