Skip to main content

We're in the Homestretch. . .

A photograph of racing dogs seemed more appropriate, given my current state of mind, than racing horses.

Well, Sir, we are almost there.  The final day of classes is next Tuesday after which I have final drafts of papers to read and final course grades to submit online.  And then it's time to start painting all of these wagons, carts, and teams.  Our friend in Berlin, "Tante Anita," took delivery of the Berliner Zinnfiguren 30mm forge last Saturday, which the Grand Duchess will transport home in her carry-on baggage when she returns after her approaching three-week research tip to Berlin in May.  

Naturally, I'd love to be in Berlin during May myself, but there you are.  The Young Master and I will hold down the fort in Mom's absence.  Meanwhile, the Grand Duchess will enjoy, by all accounts, and judging from the photographs I've seen online, a a rather posh apartment somewhere on the western edge of the city.  Let's just say it looks rather more opulent than anything she/we have stayed in during previous residencies and visits.  Sigh.  As Rod Stewart once sang many years ago now, some guys have all the luck. . .  and some guys do nothin' but complain.  Sigh again.

Otherwise, it's the usual end-of-semester dull roar here at Stollen Central.  A sunny, warm(er) Good Friday so far.  Feeling pretty good today, so I'll wear a suit to school later simply to celebrate being alive, if you'll pardon the somewhat oblique Gay Talese reference.  And if you observe such things, Happy Good Friday. . .  langfredag as it's known in Norwegian.

 -- Stokes

Comments

marinergrim said…
When someone says that the wife/mom/housekeeper will be away I always think of the Simpsons episode when Margery is sent to prison and the house becomes a refuse tip.
Good luck!
2:22 PM
WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…
It's actually the other way around here at Stollen Central, Paul IN other words, everything will be shipshape, picked up, put away, and spotless for three weeks in May. ;-)

Best Regards,

Stokes
2:48 PM
Mad Padre said…
Wishing you all at Stollen a very happy and blessed Easter. I too am in the home stretch, having dispatched two of the three papers I need to submit to finish my last MA courses. A brief respite of games, painting, and yard work will follow before I start the thesis, which is mostly mapped out and ready to roll.
I have many faculty friends who have shared their groaners and travails with me, so I feel your pain. As a history prof friend of mine said, "I teach for free, I get paid to mark".
All the best getting through your travails, M
9:03 AM
CelticCurmudgeon said…
My Dear Heinz Ulrich,

Greetings and best wishes to you and the royal family for a most wonderful Easter.

This is the best time of the year, full of hope and the expectation that the grayness of winter shall be relaced with the warmth of the Spring, the tweeting of song birds and the sweet scent of flowers as they blossom. And, as I remember, completing the work load of correcting papers and posting grades, places a nice punctuation mark on the instructor's work for the semester.
I cannot wait to see how the field forge looks with a bit of paint. Will you be creating a mini-diorama with workers from the Minden range?
All the best,
Gerardus Magnus
Archbishop Emeritus
11:15 AM
WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…
Thank you, men! And Happy Easter to you too. The end of the academic year really isn't that bad. It's just that there aren't enough hours in the day. As my wife so aptly put it late the other evening, "It's all of the little things dumped in your lap between 8am-5pm everyday that make it difficult."

Best Regards,

Stokes
1:14 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And We're Off!!!

  Arrrgh!  Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus.  Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown.  More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart.   I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands.  In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands.   As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff.  Depending on ...
5 comments
Read more

Sunday Morning Coffee with AI. . .

    A rmed with a second cup of fresh, strong coffee, I messed around a bit this morning with artlist.io using its image to image function in an attempt to convert my hand-drawn map from September 2006 to something that more resembles an old map from the mid-18th century.  And just like my experiments with Ninja AI in June, the results are mixed.   The above map is pretty good, but Artlist keeps fouling up the place names and has trouble putting a faint overlay of hexes across the entire area.  Hexes, admittedly, are not likely to be found on any genuine maps from the era in question, but there we are.  Frankly, I prefer the appearance of the Ninja map, but there were problems getting it to correct its errors.  Grrrr.  As is the case with so much having to do with the various AI's out there now, the output generated is a direct result of the prompts entered.  For text alone, and when you develop a lengthy, highly detailed prompt, it is...
3 comments
Read more

Continued Regional Map Revisions. . .

F ooled around a bit more with the revised map just before and after dinner this evening, using the Fotor app to reinsert missing text .  I also removed a few other things using the 'Magic Eraser' function, which works surprisingly well.  Now, we're getting somewhere.  I just have to figure out how to ensure that the text is all a uniform font style and maybe figure out a way to add a few bunches of trees to suggest forested areas,  Ninja AI is not always entirely cooperative to the tune of "I'm sorry Dave.  I can't do that." -- Stokes
1 comment
Read more