Right on Schedule. . . Kind of. . .

The current and 'final' -- When in wargaming is anything ever really final where purchasing, painting, and collecting are concerned? -- batch of wagons and carts along with that company of Minden pontooniers.  I've added small (glued together) loads of balsa 'lumber' to the two Old Glory wagons in the foreground.  For now, at any rate, the lumber in the ox cart at the rear right is all loose.

The long summer break is, sadly, approaching its inevitable conclusion, and the Autumn semester begins in earnest on Monday next week bright and early with a 103W Academic Writing Intensive class for incoming freshmen at 8am.  Sigh.  So, it makes good sense to spend my last few, relatively carefree days preparing the final batch of wagons and carts as I wait for syllabus packets to return from Printing Services.  

While people on the outside might grouse about post-secondary educators getting long Christmas and summer breaks, we pay for it later by having more heaped on our plates with reading and grading student assignments, along with various other sorts of non-classroom, non-teaching professional commitments, than is (almost) humanly possible to wade through.  And you always bring work home with you, like it or not, whatever your initial plans might have been.  

Then there are the colleagues with their sometimes bizarre agendas, petty vendettas, near constant infighting, and vicious backbiting.  It's like a mountain village in Sicily!  So, before you think to yourself, "What's he moaning and groaning about?  I wish I had the entire summer off.  It must be nice!" let me assure you, the academy ain't a bed of roses all of the time.  At least not at the small liberal arts school level.  A single malt scotch whisky, or three anyone?

At any rate, base-coating this weekend, and maybe a start on the actual painting.  The original plan was to add only 15-16 such supply and pontoon vehicles to the armies of Stollen and/or Zichenau, however Black Hussar Miniatures and Westfalia Miniatures, darn them, have, or will shortly have, released some wonderful new wagon models that are simply too good to pass up although they are a bit pricey.  So, I may very well just 'have' to add a few more things to the transport pool at some point in the not-too-distant future.  

By the way, the Young Master begins preschool just after the Labor Day Weekend here in the United States.  He and I visited our local hair-cutter together yesterday evening for late summer touch-ups, so we both look somewhat more presentable for our respective first days of school.  Exiting times indeed!

-- Stokes