Splash! Gulp, cough, sputter. . .

When I was about eight years old, through most of 1975, I had a music teacher in elementary school, one Mrs. Kaiser.  She was, even then, a lady of a certain advanced age, who actually taught my class how to dance The Minuet (depicted above).  We absolutely hated it at the time, of course, at least the boys in the class did.  Or they pretended to.  But I wish I could remember the dance now simply as a curiosity piece.  My wife the Grand Duchess, however, might suggest that I am already eccentric enough without adding that to the mix! 

Just a brief post to apologize to my long suffering and very patient opponent, General de Latte, for my disappearance these last couple of months.  Real life has me swamped.  Ok, drowning in various details, duties, and commitments that are the complicated minuet making up my life recently.  Sadly, wargaming and related hobby activities have fallen through the cracks.  Besides family life, with all of the highs and lows that entails, I am teaching another May Term film course -- which meets daily for four weeks, three hours at a time -- and developing another (rush delivery) for administrative approval, to be taught in the fall.  Well, starting in August, really.  Geeze, Louise!  Summer vacation hasn't even started yet.

Then, there have been various writing projects on the table in different stages of completion, something that goes with the territory.  You work a little here, revise a little there, delete quite a bit there, etc., etc.  On a hobby-related note though, my article "Simplify Your Painting!  24 Tips to Help You Paint and Complete Tabletop Armies Faster and More Easily" appeared recently in Battlegames #29.  Shameless self-promotion, yes, but I'm reasonably pleased with the piece which, for some odd reason, took quite a while to come together before I could submit it for consideration.  Hopefully, it will be received well and might even help a few wargamers out there with their own painting.

Ok, it's on to my morning class planning now.  Sigh.  But the good General de Latte and I should be able to resume the Battle for Neu Sittangbad before too much more time has elapsed.  And I see that the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog is only a few posts away from the 1000th post, which should warrant some kind of small celebration or exhibition here in some form or other.  Watch for that in the coming days and weeks.

-- Von Tschatschke