Hurrah for The Young Master!!!

Hurrah!!! The Young Master just passed the test for his green belt in Tae Kwon Do about 30 minutes ago via Zoom. Once again, I am just bowled over by his determination.

Since The Grand Duchess is usually the one who gets our son set up each afternoon and Saturday mornings with the computer, and often supervises from nearby, much of this was new to me. I have not really witnessed him in action since the last belt test at the end of February. His increase in skill, coordination, focus, speed, and form in just a little over two months is head spinning. He has practiced six days a week for 1-2 hours a day since the end of March when everything went into lock-down mode, so I should not be surprised, and he has indicated that he wants to help teach the martial art once he turns 14.

That's just 3.5 years away, by which time I expect he'll have his black belt, or be just about there. Anyway, we pick up the belt in a drive-by ceremony early Sunday afternoon. Wow. Just wow.

--Heinz-Ulrich

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

Presenting the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere!!!

Here they are, with the rearmost nine figures still drying, three squadrons of the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere, now in the service of the Grand Duchy of Stollen. And now, it's onto that artillery!

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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