This Saturday I was supposed to do a 19 mile run but around mile 15 on the way home I did something to my left foot. I don't know what happened but I had to stop running and ended up taking the train home. I skipped the 9 miles on Sunday and had Monday off, so the tempo run today will be my first test of the foot since injuring it.

It certainly feels better over the past few days but it is still tender. I'm hoping that this was just caused by my old shoes being worn out and can be fixed by just wearing my new shoes, but I honestly have no idea.

I've been plugging away at my assault squad for my Crimson Fists, but I've also started planning out what I'd like to be painting after the two armies I'm working on are complete. I've made a lot of improvements to my painting over the past year and a half just through sheer volume of work but I'd like to slow down a bit and try to refine my technique.

To that end, I'm going to spend some time painting one off miniatures and units as a way to practice and refine what I know and try out some new techniques. This may involved units from any of my three armies (Wood Elves, Crimson Fists, Khador) but will also include some character minis from a variety of places, some fantasy and 40k chaos units, and whatever else strikes my fancy. This first think I'm going to do is paint up this guy:

I was inspired to do him as a Storm Lord after seeing some really striking marines in this log over at Warseer by FearFrost. I'm excited to refine my red and get a chance to practice painting white and yellow. This will also be the first time I'll be painting over a white basecoat. After I had built his base I went ahead and painted it. I won't be painting the marine for a while though so I can keep my focus on finishing the Khador and Crimson Fists.

Yesterday was Laura's first day at her new job in the astronomy department here at BU. After work I took her out for a drink and from what she told me it sounds like a really great environment to be in. The people seem to be very friendly and the work will be challenging but not overly so. I'm really glad she has a job because being unemployed was really starting to wear her down.

A month or two ago I won a contest on librarium online for a tutorial that I wrote on how to paint faces. My prize was 25 bucks and yesterday I used it to buy some new records.

Distractions by The Loved Ones - This is a 6 song EP that has three new songs and three covers. I've heard one of the original songs and really enjoyed it and I'm a big fan of their previous two albums and one EP so I figured this would be a good purchase.

We Are Still Alive by Latterman - This is the last album by the band and while it isn't my favorite one - their sophomore album No Matter Where We Go..! is phenomenal - it is still a great record.

S/T by Chris Wollard and The Ship Thieves - I hadn't heard of Chris Wollard until yesterday when I listened to his album online. I had it on for most of the day at work and when I saw that it was available to buy I decided to go for it.

Yesterday I had one of the best runs since I kick started my running last December. My plan was to do a four mile tempo run at 6:56 per mile and all of that went off without a hitch. About half way into the 4th mile I realized that I was feeling fantastic, and after thinking through a conversation I'd had with Culla about working up to 5 mile tempo runs I decided to add a 5th mile. I was still feeling great after the 5th mile but decided to call it a day and not over do it.

I'm really pleased with how I felt and I'm taking it as an indicator that my training is going well. I was planning on doing another 5 mile tempo run in two weeks (next week is 6 miles of cruise intervals) and then, based on this performance, I may bump up the last three weeks to 6 or even 7 miles of tempo.

I'm also currently exploring how I can incorporate some race pace (7:32) miles into my long runs. I'm not sure how to do this since I'm usually pretty exhausted after maintaining the 8:30 pace but Culla thinks it is important and he probably knows a lot better than I do.

My Hold Steady record finally arrived in the mail yesterday. After I ate and showered from my run I put it on before bed and it was an incredible experience. Right from the opening guitar and keyboard chords of 'Stuck Between Stations' I was totally hooked on this record. I'll probably give it another listen tonight with Laura after dinner.

I had Monday off and Laura, Kev, and I went to Metro for a little climbing. I had two good climbs on a 10d and an 11a, and based on those two I decided to go for an 11c. That turned into a pretty big disaster and so did the 11d I tried after that, but it was fun to get on them and I'm happy with the past two climbing performances I've had. We're going to go back on Friday but I'll probably take it easy since I have my long run this weekend on Saturday.

I've finished off my Crimson Fist Captain and I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. I tried out some washing techniques on his cloak, a new method for doing power swords, and some free hand on one of his shoulder pads. All of it turned out well for a first attempt and I think I can do better with practice.

Crimson Fists Captain


right side showing the freehand 5



back showing the shading on the cloak



power sword



a top down view of the sword

I also finished off the sergeant for my assault squad. I did a little freehand on him as well and got to see how the pouches and grenade bits look.

shoulder pad pouches



freehand 5 and some more pouches and grenades

Thus far in 2009 I've painted 7 Warmachine models and 2 Crimson Fist models, which gives me a score of 9 thus far (one point for each infantry model). I've got another 9 infantry models and 2 tanks to complete for the Tale of Painters projects I'm doing and then I'll move on to the pile of single mini's on my shelf.

Finally, I read this OpEd piece this morning in the New York times about how the Muslim community in India is refusing to allow the nine bodies of the Pakistani terrorists involved in the Mumbai shootings to be burried in a Muslim cemetary in Inida.

John Smoltz is on the Red Sox! Super exciting.

I decided to go back to my Man-O-War DC and make the ice mauls a bit icier looking. I can't tell if I'm happy with the effect or not but I think the models look better overall.

I've also started working on my Widowmakers. I'm mostly done with the easy, flat parts but their faces are starting to worry me. I've had a lot of success lately painting faces but the most recent attempt didn't go very well and I'm nervous about the four of these.

Widowmakers WIP

My Khador reinforcements arrived from ebay the other day. The Greylord Ternion and Koldun Lord will find themselves painted in the next month or two but the Kodiak will probably sit on my shelf for a while longer.

I also recently discovered that all of my old, horribly painted Ultramarines can be easily given a new life as Crimson Fists. When I was painting them I would paint each piece individually and then glue them together. Since the glue was paint on paint it is really weak and I can separate the pieces really easily. Right now I have an assault squad broken up and I'm going to buy some Simple Green to try stripping the paint.

My new (old) stereo arrived in the mail yesterday.

Everything seems to be in good working order and I'm totally enamored over everything being analog instead of digital. Initially I thought the record player or the receiver weren't working but my dad helped me to figure out the problem. I ended up ordering a preamp to help boost the output from the record player - not a huge problem at all and even now I can use everything.

Laura has been knitting like a machine. She recently finished two toys, one for me and one for her brother's friends' little kids. The beige, fat, dog is mine and the blue one is for the kids. She's currently working on some owls and I hear they're adorable.

Lisa and I had a pretty good 13 mile run this past weekend. Our overall pace was a little slow (8:45 per mile) but that's because we had a horrible first half due to ice being on all of the sidewalks. The second half we both felt great and kept up a very good clip. The weather is supposed to take a huge dip in temperature over the next few days and I'm worried about how our 14 miler this weekend will go.

I've started working on my next Khador minis, a unit of Man-O-War Demolition Corps.

Last night I finished highlighting the red which gets the hardest part of the models done. I have to do their green shoulder pads, a few details, and then a lot of touch ups since I've been messy with these guys but I hope to have them finished by the weekend. I can't say enough how enjoyable Privateer Press models are to paint.

Once these three are done I'm going to move on to my unit of Widowmakers. That will give me 400ish points completed and take me through my first set of Warmachine purchases. I used $51.13 of my new model fund to purchase several more models to help round out my growing force.

Koldun Lord
image from Privateer Press

Greylord Ternion
image from Privateer Press

Kodiak
image from Privateer Press

The Koldun Lord is a 'jack marshall so he'll give me some versatility in how I want to control my 'jacks. The Greylords are a support unit that can make my units tougher or the enemy weaker and they work well with the Koldun Lord who is essentialy a 4th, more powerful Greylord. The Kodiak is there to smash faces and look cool. The Destroyer I have already is a solid ranged and melee 'jack but the Juggernaugt is pretty outclassed so I decided to upgrade him with the Kodiak.

When Spoony was in town we went to Danger Planet and played my first three games of 5th Edition 40k. I lost all three but had a lot of fun.

The first game was 400 points and his list was a tactical squad with a missile launcher, melta gun, power fist, and Razorback and a Sternguard squad in a drop pad. Mine was a tactical squad with plasma cannon, melta gun, power sword, and Rhino and a Sternguard squad. Our Sternguard exchanged fire for a while and I wiped his out but eventually got destroyed by his power fist squad.

The third game was also 400 points. His list was the same but I dropped my Sternguard for an assault squad with power fist. The game started really well for me when I destroyed his Sternguard right away taking only one or two casualties. The game quickly turned around though when his power fist beat my assault squad and then over ran them. He ended up winning with the power fist again.

The second game was 1000 points. He had a Dread in a drop pod, a 10 man tactical squad in a drop pod, a 5 man squad and a Commander in a Razorback, and some Terminators that deep struck. I had a 10 man melta squad in a Rhino, a 10 man plasma squad, 5 Terminators, a jump Captain, and an assault squad.

In the first turn his Dread dropped down and hosed my plasma squad and his Commander wiped out 7 assault marines with an orbital bombardment. The Dread would end up assaulting and swamping the tactical squad for most of the game before my Terminators came and finished it off. My Captain would rally and destroy his 10 man tactical squad alone before dying and my melta squad would kill of several terminators before also dying. In the end it came down to three of his terminators, two tactical marines, and his Commander against two of my terminators and three tactical marines with a plasma cannon and plasma gun. I held on for a bit but ultimately he won.

These three games taught me that I do enjoy playing 40k but that I really have no idea how to do it. I would like to be playing more and the best option would be for me to head over to DP on Thursday nights to try to get some games in. I haven't yet because I'm nervous about going into a situation like that where everyone knows each other already and knows the game a lot better than I do. I think I should probably suck it up and go though.

I'm going to post up some pictures of a Razorback by Gareth so I can reference them later when I finally start painting my Rhinos. I'm hoping that looking at them will make me less nervous about getting mine done.

I've been thinking about where I want to take my Crimson Fists after the first 1000 points are done. The list will look like this:

Jump Captain
10 man tactical with melta weapons and a Rhino
10 man tactical with plasma weapons and a Rhino
5 Terminators with assault cannon
7 man assault with power fist

Some things that I would like to add are a Vindicator, a 10 man Sternguard squad in a drop pod and 5 to 10 scouts. The second wave of additions (or perhaps the first wave depending on my mood) are a melta attack bike, melta / heavy flamer land speeder, a drop pod Dread, and a Landraider. That would all look something like this:

Jump Captain

10 man tactical with melta weapons and a Rhino
10 man tactical with plasma weapons and a Rhino
10 scouts with various weapons

5 Terminators with assault cannon
10 man Sternguard with combi-meltas, heavy flamer, and drop pod
Dread in a drop pod

10 man assault with power fist
Attack Bike
Land speeder

Vindicator
Land Raider

That's a lot of stuff to purchase and paint but I think it would give me a lot of flexability in list building and playing. I'm also not sure I want to commit to purchasing and painting all of this stuff if I won't get any use out of it.

This past year was a big year for my and my little men hobby so I'd like to take a moment and recap it.

When Spoony and I moved in last September we decided to start Warhammer Fantasy armies. I chose Wood Elves, joined a Tale of Painters event at Librarium Online and ended up with a 2000+ point painted army. Over the course of those 12 months (not all technically in 2008, but I'm going to count it) I painted 78 models and went from what I would consider a low level painter to someone at the higher end of the painting spectrum. I don't consider myself a fantastic painter by any means but I think within the scope of people who paint miniatures I think I do alright for myself.

over the course of the year I went from painting the fellow on the left to the one on the right

I was (and still am) incredibly proud of how hard I worked and the improvements I made as a painter and I continue to get better. Once the elves were done I stared a Crimson Fist army and a Khador army. The Crimson Fists are an exercise in improving my speed while maintaining my quality and the Khador is about my improving my quality. Right now I've finished 25 models for the Crimson Fists and 3 models for the Khador.

Stealing another idea from lone pilgrim I'd like to give myself a score based on my productivity last year. His scale is 1 point for infantry, 2 points for cavalry or bikes, 5 points for monsters, dreads, and 'jacks, and 10 points for vehicles. Over the course of 2008 (and some of 2007) I painted 92 infantry, 12 cavalry, and 2 'jacks for a total of 126 points. I think I can match or beat that in 2009.

A new month means a New Model Fund update. I didn't spend any money on my hobby last month so I lose half of that month's left over money (half of 50 is 25) and pick up another 50 for this month, bringing my new total up to $75.

This month I will be spending some money towards the hobby. I plan to purchase the rest of the models that I need for my Khador Army (Koldun Lord and Greylord Ternion) as well as a Kodiak. I'm also going to puy some paints because I am out of black primer and running low on some other important colors. I also need another Space Marine Assault Squad but I can put that off for another month.

I recently finished my squad of Terminators after struggling with them for nearly a month.

I am pretty happy with how they turned out and I was ecstatic to finally have them off of my painting table. For my Tale of Painters this month I have a squad of 3 Man-O-War Demo Corps and a 4 man squad of Widowmakers to paint for the Khador and no real idea what to do with the Crimson Fists.

My 1000 point list has left to paint a commander (150 points), two Rhinos (35 points each), and a 6 man assault squad with power fist (143 points). I have all but 2 of the assault marines build already but none of them are primed and I have almost no primer left. I do however, have a 5 man scout squad primed and ready for paint. I may hold out for the black spray to arrive (I can paint all of my Warmachine models while I wait) and see how much I want to do, or I may just prime the commander and paint him - time will tell.

My first run for Boston '09 went really well. It was only four miles but I was happy with the consistent pace I kept and how I felt at the end. I was supposed to run 6 miles yesterday but that got scrapped due to A Very Die Hard Christmas, and today's 4 miler is going to get missed because Laura and I are going to the ballet. I'll make up the 6 miles tomorrow and the 4 miles on Monday. Not the best way to start off a training program but it can't be helped.

I finished off the first three Terminators the other day. It took me about two weeks to work my way through them which is a lot longer than I would have liked. For some reason I just wasn't very excited about painting and I couldn't do more than little bits on them before I'd get bored.

They're a little sloppy but I'm glad that they're finally done. I might have my first game with this army (and first 5th edition game ever) on Sunday afternoon. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try to get the rest of this squad painted by then or not.

Last night was the annual Christmas party at my house. We started a tradition last year where a bunch of us get together for dinner, beer, and Die Hard. I'm a big fan of the movie and since I organized the party, I cooked. Laura helped me make two lasagnas and a big salad and she brought cookies. I think overall it was a rousing success - at least I know I had a good time.

Thanksgiving was a good time and I find myself enjoying being home more and more every time I go. Britta, Dad, and I ran a 5k in the morning and it was gorgeous. I ran something around 18:45 and felt pretty good doing it. Dad and I then spend the day (and night) tearing up carpet on the first floor to allow a man to come in and assess our house for wood floors.

Mom's dinner was delicious as always. We had a big turkey, really good stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and yams of some sort. There was also cheese cake and pecan pie to help send us off to bed happy.

Britta and I saw Grandma briefly on Saturday afternoon before continuing on to Penn Station and our train. She doesn't remember either of us and the whole time we were in her house I was very uncomfortable and upset with the whole situation.

I've been doing a ton of research lately into marathon training. I've set a goal for myself of a 3:20:00 marathon at Boston this year. I read a good article from Culla and I bought a book he recommended. The more I read and learn the less clear the picture becomes for me; there is so much that goes into a good training plan. It is becoming very clear to me why coaches exist.

Before the holiday I finished the last three models for my second tactical squad. I'm having problems with my Blood Red being terrible so the red parts on the model are not very good. I like the melta gunners though.

multi melta, sergeant with a power fist, melta gun

second squad completed

That now makes two full tactical squads painted, which represents a big share of my 1000 point list taken care of. I think the next squad I'll do for this army will be five terminators, but right now I'm working on Sorcsha for my Khador army.

I didn't purchase anything little men related last month, which means my fund loses half of that unspent money (50 dollars) and picks up another 50 dollars for the month of December.

New Model Fund - $75

Model List -
Khador Greylord Ternion (to finish off 500 points)
Khador Koldun Lord (to finish off 500 points)
Khador Kodiak (to finish off 500 points better)
Space Marine Assault Squad (because it is cheaper than just buying the bits I need)
Space Marine Sternguard Squad (because the models are gorgeous)
paints and brushes (Baal Red, Devlan Mud, Badab Black, Thraka Green, Orkhide Shade, a 00, 0, and large tank brush, Testors Dull Coat)

There are also several more Space Marine purchases I'd like to make, including a Drop Pod and Vindicator, but I'm going to hold them off the list. Everything currently on the list (except the Sternguard) are for my Tale of Painters projects.

I wanted to save these images somewhere so I could find and use them later for reference. These are some Sternguard that were painted by spikyjames. Some of his conversions are fantastic and I'd like to incorporate some of his ideas into my squad.

I've been reading some interesting articles from the New York Times about the Citigroup crisis. I also read a story about some plausible but unsubstantiated terrorist threats on NYC public transportation and trains coming into and out if the city. Normally I don't put much stock in these things but since I'll be spending plenty of time on Amtrak and the NYC bus system tonight I'm a little spooked.

Work has been really dragging this week even though I had Tuesday off. Sometimes I can get myself excited to do something but most of the time I find myself bored, listless, and uninterested.

Laura has been applying to a lot of publishing jobs recently and came across an interesting potential career move for me in the field of mathematics text book publishing. She sent me a few postings for jobs editing and working with math texts. It is something I had never considered before but now that she's planted the idea in my head I'm intrigued.

Recently a UFC fighter who I like, Chris Leben, failed a drug test and was suspended for 9 months. My reaction to this was to feel bad for him because I like him and I feel like he's overcome a lot in his life. I was out on a run the other day thinking about this and I realized that my reaction was the complete opposite to how I normally react to situations like this. I can't stand Sean Sherk, another UFC fighter who failed a drug test, and have almost not respect for him as an athlete anymore. I also distinctly remember when Justin Gatlin failed his drug tests and how betrayed I felt by him. Other althletes like Marion Jones, Floyd Landis, and Jan Ulrich have been tainted for me by their steroid useage and I know that I can never look at any of their achievements with any sort of faith that they were achieved in good faith.

I honestly don't know why Chris Leben bucks my trend of anger and resentment towards althletes who use steroids. I liked Justin Gatlin more than Chris Leben and I was more familiar with Gatlin and Marion Jones's accomplishements and careers. Most of the other people on my list denied using while Leben admitted it immediatley. I wouldn't even say that Leben is very high up on my list of favorite fighters, so why do I feel sympathy for him when I could never support any of those others again? I honestly have no idea.

I've decided to start reading more. It's been a while since I read any sort of book and I'd like to get back into the habit. I also want to be more informed so I've taken to browsing CNN and the New York Times at work when I have spare time.

I went climbing the other night before and after teaching and had a lot of fun. I still remember most of my technique and I'm just waiting for my arm and hand strength to return. Unfortunatly I tore a lot of skin off the pad on my right middle finger but I've been drying it out pretty aggressively so I hope it will be usable in a few days.

I finished off the last three marines for my first tactical squad.

all 10


vet with power sword


plasma twins


the three new guys

I taught on Wednesday night and stayed after my class to climb during the open hours. I had my ass handed to me since I haven't climbed in so long; I loved it. I discovered that I really miss climbing so I'm going to try to get on the wall a few days a week. Matt told me I could use the wall right after work as long as I wore my staff shirt so that takes away my excuse that the open hours are too late and I don't want to commute.

Obama won on Tuesday night, that was awesome. Laura and I stayed up to watch McCain's concession speech (very gracious) and Obama's acceptance speech before going to bed very happy. After the past two Presidential elections I didn't have much faith in the election system and even though Obama has been consistently ahead in the polls for a while I was very nervous all day on Tuesday. Now that it's all over and he won so decisevley (and the Democrats picked up seats in the House and Senate) I have a much brighter view of the future of this country.

Laura and I saw the Decemberists play last night. I wasn't hugely excited for this show because I didn't know if this band could capture my interest live. I sure was wrong. The crowd was excited and the singer wrapped several hundred people around his finger for an hour and a half. They played a lot of songs that I wasn't familiar with but towards the end of their set they shook the balconey (literaly) with O Valencia! and then ended their encore with Sons and Daughters, my favorite song.

The best part of that song is the out-tro where the band sings the phrase "hear all the bombs fade away" together. Their vocals combined with the music produces a haunting and pleasent sound. Right before this section of the song the singer paused and explained that he had written the song a few years ago and this particular part was in reference to the current administration and how the only solution he could see to making the bombs fade away was to leave. Now though, after Tuesday he said the song's meaning had changed for him and it represented his hope that the bombs would fade away because a new President had been elected who would help lead the country out of the war. That was a really poignant moment for me, made even more so when he invited 30 people up on stage to sing it with him. I really couldn't have asked for a better ending to the show.

I found this thread by dave8oy on Warseer. Take a look at the lenses on the marine here - they're incredibly detailed and look phenomenal.

by dave8oy

I am hoping to use this weekend and my day off on Tuesday to paint the last three marines for my first Crimson Fist squad and I'm going to see if I can replicate this effect.

I voted this morning! After waiting for about 45 minutes I was given a scantron (not nearly as exciting as I wanted it to be) and a marker. I marked my Obama circle, had my name checked off a list, and fed my sheet into a machine. This was way more exciting than voting absentee (which I did four years ago) and I've been pretty amped about the whole thing since last night. Laura and I are planning to stay up to watch the election coverage because I doubt I could go to sleep without knowing the outcome.

My Crimson Fists did their civic duty and voted last night as well.

third man from the right is getting his vote on

Thankfully these guys are the last bolter marines I have planned for the foreeable future in this army. That's a good thing because I'm already getting tired of painting power armour. Once these two tactical squads are done I'll start painting some Terminators or Scouts for some diversity.

I've been running a little bit since the marathon but not too much. I am signed up for a 5k this weekend in Allston somewhere and that should be a good time.

Gobama!

Lisa and I survived our marathon this past weekend but just barely. We were cruising though the first 20 or 21 miles and we were on pace to finish about 4.5 minutes under my previous marathon PR of 3:35:12 when Lisa rolled her ankle pretty badly. I wasn't about to let her miss qualifying for Boston so we started alternating running and walking. I kept a close watch on the time and we finished officially at 3:39:03 to get Lisa her sub 3:40:00.

Prior to that incident her and I were flying along. We got a slow start trying to navigate all the people but we settled into something between an 8:05 and 8:10 pace all the way until mile 20. We had a few miles under 8:00 and a few over 8:20 but mostly we were feeling really good and steady. The course was very flat and scenic which helped to offset the lack of hundreds of thousands of fans and other runners. The biggest challenge for me was mental. Towards the end (even before Lisa rolled her ankle) the miles seemed to stretch out and it felt like ages between each mile marker sign. My cardio held up fine just like in Boston and I had some stiffening of my quads again but this was significantly less since there was no three mile hill to climb.

Overall the course was a lot of fun and I would have absolutely set a PR if I hadn't hung back to get Lisa across the line. However, I'm really happy with how the race ended and I'm really proud of Lisa for qualifying despite her injury.

mile	split	total
1	miss
2	17:51	17:51
3	8:18	26:09
4	8:13	34:23
5	8:08	42:31
6	8:10	50:42
7	8:22	59:05
8	8:08	1:07:13
9	8:11	1:15:24
10	8:20	1:23:45
11	7:46	1:31:32
12	8:06	1:39:38
13	8:19	1:47:57
14	7:52	1:55:50
15	7:56	2:03:46
16	8:04	2:11:51
17	8:09	2:20:01
18	8:05	2:28:06
19	8:06	2:36:13
20	8:11	2:44:24
21	8:21	2:52:45
22	8:27	3:01:12
23	9:21	3:10:34
24	9:45	3:20:20
25	8:27	3:28:48
26	8:35	3:37:23
finish	1:42	3:39:05

I started training for this during the second week in June and ended up covering 549.3 miles over the course of 18 weeks in training and the race itself. At one point during the training I missed out on a 50 mile week entirely and I spent a few weeks battling stomach problems that caused me to cut some runs short. Given all that, and the fact that I trained about 575 miles for the first marathon I am really happy with my performance here. I'm going to be running Boston in April again and I have some ideas to radically change up my training.

I took Monday off to relax and recover from the race and used to it finish off my next 5 Space Marines.

newest 5

all 10 that I've finished

I'm happy with how these guys are turning out. They're currently missing decals on their shoulder pads because I haven't figured out a good way to apply them. There is a good tutorial that I found online that I need to try out before I go wasting the decals that I need.

After rallying to tie the series 3-3, the Red Sox lost to the Rays on Sunday. It was a bummer but I'm glad they fought back and didn't roll over and give it to the Rays.

mile 13


finish!

I managed to assemble the next 5 marines while watching the Red Sox beat the Angles but I've been pretty busy lately and haven't had time to clean or prime them. I tried some more dynamic poses with these 5 - some of them worked and others not so much.

My taper jitters have come back. The runs that I'm doing as part of the taper have not been enough to eat up all the energy I have so I've been a little jumpy the past few days. My two runs this week have thus far been pretty good and I'm anticipating another good one this evening.

I watched the most recent debate and was generally unimpressed with both candidates. Neither one would answer a question directly and they just rehashed the same points from the previous debate. I think Obama won, but only because McCain lost worse.

While we're on the subject, I've been reading some more interesting articles about McCain and Palin. I'll be the first to admit my liberal bias, but I think it's worth giving these articles a read anyway.

A few weeks ago I sumbitted my Massachusetts voter registration paperwork and as the deadline approaches, I've been checking cityofboston.gov to see if they have processed my paperwork. They hadn't as of a few days ago so I e-mailed them but got no response. Since it is important to me that I be able to vote I called City Hall and asked about it. They told me I am registered to vote (hooray!) and that the online database isn't updated as regularly as their databases are.

Some photos from the 5k this past weekend:

My first Crimson Fist squad is done!

The three in front are the product of last week's work, and the two in back are a few months old. Those two I'm not really excited about and if I were to strip some models one day, those would be the first two I'd try.

I'm going to be building another 5 bolter marines tonight (hopefully) in an effort to knock off the boring guys first. Those 10 guys will be my first Tale of Painters II submission from the painting event going on at Librarium Online. This first ToP was the reason I finished up my Wood Elves and in six months I'm hoping it nets me 1000 points of marines.

Lisa and I ran a 5k this weekend in Somerville with some friends. I was hoping to go sub 18 and get a PR but apparently all this marathon training has blunted my speed a bit and I finished in 18:49. I'm still really happy with how I performed and I know that with a little speed work I could crush the 18 minute mark, seeing as I wasn't breathing hard at the end of this race at all.

We also did a 12 mile run this Sunday at 8:47 pace. This is also not as fast as I would have liked it to be but again I'm happy with it. After some rather poor showings on the previous weeks' long runs I was happy to get a quality run in before the marathon.

Friday after work Laura and I saw Burn After Reading. It was very well acted and the dialouge was clever and funny, but I wasn't totally sold on the movie. The plot was pretty complex and I had to focus on what was going on. This would have been fine if they had built it up to some huge climax at the end, but when the movie ended I felt let down.

I cooked burgers last night for Laura and I. Laura wasn't confident in her ability to eat a whole burger (a justifiable concern) so I made her two sliders. Early reports were positive and I haven't heard any terror stories about her body rejecting them, so I think she probably liked them.

I've finally gotten started on my Crimson Fists. I have the two test models I did a few months ago and last night I painted up a third bolter marine. From a technical standpoint I am very very happy with how he turned out. I gave him a really smooth base coat of Regal Blue and then two highlights. The first one was a 60/40 or even 70/30 mix of Regal Blue / Ultramarines Blue that was pretty watered down. I used this in pretty broad strokes as a bridge between the basecoat and the second highlight, which very thin lines of straight Ultramarines Blue.

Looking at the model up close I was really proud how how I had executed the highlighting, but from arms length almost all of them dissapeared. Obviously that's the opposite of how I wanted the highlights to work and I'm not sure what went wrong. I went ahead and finished the model with the hope that addine the reds, metallics, and whites would help the overall effect pop. To a small extent they did but not as much as I wanted.

I'm not really sure how to fix this but I'll keep experimenting.

Last week was the last up week of my marathon training and it was capped off with the last 20 miler in the schedule. Sunday was a very rainy, cool day and I think that contributed to the pretty poor showing both Lisa and I had during the run. Neither one of us had much pop in our legs from the get-go and come mile 10ish we were both feeling pretty bad. Around Kenmore Square we both decided to slog through to the bottom of my hill and then walk up.

I'm sure the rain played a role in our poor showing but I'm not willing to give it all the credit. Neither one of the 20 milers I've done this training cycle have gone particularly well, and both times (and other times through this training) I've felt that my legs just didn't have and life in them. I don't know if this is because they're reacting poorly to the increase in mileage or if they're not recovering adequately or if the problem is something else. I hope that the three weeks of tapering gives them enough time to rest and be fresh for the race.

Other people however, don't seem to be having my problems. Haile Gebrselassie, the world record holder in the marathon, shaved 27 seconds off his previous record time to finish the Berlin marathon in 2:03:59 and become the first person to ever run a marathon under two hours and four minutes. And he's 35 years old! I think it's only a matter of a few years before someone knocks off those last few minutes and we're looking at a marathon run in under two hours.

Steve and I had a long conversation yesterday about the financial crisis currently going on. I was pretty uninformed about it and when I tried to get informed, most of the articles I was reading were assuming that I already knew what was going on. I think I have a handle on the general ideas now and I'll admit to being a little nervous about what's going to happen. My dad sent me an article a few days ago that talked about the bailout plan that was ultimately shot down.

This Thursday is the Vice-Presidential debate. I am planning on racing home after teaching on Thursday to watch it and see how Sarah Palin holds up. I am pretty scared of the prospect of her becoming the VP after watching her handle herself in this interviw with Katie Couric. Thus far she's been almost completely hidden from the national media and most every time she has spoken it's been pretty scripted. She tried standing on her feet for that interview and failed miserably, so I wonder how she's going to make up for that during the debate. The evidence against her keeps growing and I think Thursday will be a very telling moment.

A few weeks ago my parents came up to visit and brought my old Play Station. Yesterday my copy of Final Fantasy VII arrived in the mail and I'm really excited to play it. I remember the huge hype and excitement when I was in 7th or 8th grade and it came out and how even now it is hailed as one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Unfortunatley I never got a chance to play much of the game (or Final Fantasy IIX or IX) so I'm excited, as a fan of the RPG genre, to finally get to play it through.

After teaching last Thursday I finally got on the wall and climbed for the first time in what feels like months. It didn't go very well. I still remember how to make all the motions but I don't have any of my arm, core, or hand strength. I've certianly done this before with climbing but it doesn't get any less frustrating.

I finished up the Waywatchers this weekend.

All five



A close up that shows the hair and details.

I'm really happy with how the hair came out on these models (the two who have it anyway) as well as their dark green cloaks. The details really help bring these models to life and they look great lined up with the rest of the army. I have two more models left for this army, and about two weeks to get them done it. The end is nigh!

I made use of some of the new Games Workshop washes on these guys, which was something I hadn't done before. I really wanted to bring some definition the their faces, so I tried the Gryphonne Sepia in several different scenarios. Overall I wasn't terribly impressed, although I will probably try once more with Devlan Mud. I had a little more luck with the bone colored armour on their chests. I started with Bleached Bone and gave a pretty liberal coating of Gryphonne Sepia over it. Again, not really a rousing success but better this time. The washes really shined on the two models with hair though. The Gryphonne Sepia helped bring a lot of contrast to the blonde hair, and Asurmen Blue was a hero on the gray hair.

While I had been hoping for more success with these new washes, I had enough to warrent me going out to purchase the Devlan Mud (brown) and Badab Black (black) ones to see what they can do. I wanted to make use of them for shading on the power armour of my Crimson Fists, so we'll see what happens. I may also try some more flesh experiments with Ogryn Flesh.

I am really itching to start my Crimson Fists army. I've been pouring over pictures online of well painted marines and I keep coming back to two painters who are very inspiring to me. The first is Cyric the Mad because of the bold and bright highlights he uses. His models have a very clean look that I like and I think his style would be easy to replicate.

The other is spikyjames. His style looks a lot less bold from far away but has a very bold effect from up close. The painting techniques he uses look quite a bit more complex but the results are incredible.

My goal with the Crimson Fists is to find a good balance between these two styles.

This past week was my first 50 mile week ever; Lisa and I ran 20 miles yesterday to cap it off. The 20 miler didn't go as well as I had hoped but after skipping a week of training for the road trip and having a rough few weeks due to stomach problems I was happy to finish at all. Lisa looks to be in phenomenal shape and I'm sure she won't have any problems qualifying for Boston.

More Crimson Fists painting research. A guy named spikyjames (who is already in my big thread of marines) does some really excellent work with marines. His poses and conversions look very realistic and dynamic and his highlighting is fantastic.

His Ultramarines are painted with the following (taken from his Warseer project log):

1- base coat of midnight blue allover
2- regal blue on all the armour plates leaving midnight in all the recess's
3- 1st highlight of 50/50 regalblue/ultramarine bluefairly fat around the edges of the armour
4- 2nd highlight ultramarine blue around all the edges of the armour(edging only)
5- 3rd and final highlight space wolf grey only on the extreme edges of the armour plates

This produces something that looks like this:

I think I can replicate this effect (not nearly as well, but enough). I really like how step 3 in his process adds something akin to a glow on all of the edges, instead of an extreme highlight. I also like the white dots he adds to the back of the lenses; I've seen it before and I'm going to try to incoprate it into my Fists.

I finally got a start on my Waywatchers. Right now their skin and smocks are painted, and I hope to get some of their camouflage done tonight. The models are very detailed and I've been taking my time on them. Thus far they've turned out pretty well and I hope I can do them justice. I tried using some washes of Gryphonne Sepia on their faces to bring out the details but I don't think it worked terribly well.

After taking a week off of running I wanted to come right back and get into the swing of things. My plan was to run 4, 5, 6, and 7 miles starting on Monday, take a break on Friday, and then return with the normal rotation on Saturday and Sunday. For some reason I ran the 4 and 5 milers at around 7:15 pace per mile and I'm paying for it now. My legs have been sore and tight for two days and I'm going to cut the 7 miles down to 4 to try to work the soreness out before this weekend.

Those two runs pretty much cemented for me that I won't be able to qualify for Boston this year. That pace of 7:15 is what I need to run per mile in order to hit the 3:10:59 qualifing time, and if I can barely hit it on 9 miles over two days I suspect that I won't be able to hit it for the full 26.2 I'm surprisingly unconcerned however and I still think I can get a PR at the race.

I've been here (and by that I mean driving across the country) for the past week.

The blog ends with our arrival in Vegas sometime on Friday night. I was exhausted and passed right out. Saturday we spent at the pool drinking beer and swimming (sometimes at the same time!) before donning suits and heading out to the casinos. I ended up losing 200 bucks playing blackjack and craps, but it was a fun time. I'm going to miss Spoony a lot, but he'll be around for ultimate and we made plans to meet up at some big Warhammer tournament sometime next year.

I only managed one run over the past week, which is a bit troubling to me. The one was a gorgeous 2 hour, 14 mile run along the coast of Lake Michigan that I was feeling really good about. I'm planning on doing 4 miles today, and increasing one or two miles every day depending on how I'm feeling.

At this point I don't think I'll be able to qualify for Boston this year, but I'm still going to train hard and do my best. I think I over-simplified the type of training I'm going to need to do in order to qualify, but I think the mistakes I made this time around will help me later on.

Spoon and I stopped at a comics / gaming store in Albuquerque so I could get a copy of White Dwarf to read in the airport. I ended up getting a few back issues and I really enjoyed reading it. There are all sorts of good tutorials and articles and tons of detailed shots of very well painted miniatures. I ordered a subscription today along with the Dark Elves and High Elves Army books. I've also been doing some more research into my Crimson Fists, so I need to get in gear and finish off those seven Wood Elves.

My laptop still hasn't arrived, but I know they've charged my credit card; hopefully it arrives soon.

I've been doing some research into Space Marine painting as I get closer to being done with my elves. After looking at a bunch of forums and blogs, I think I've identified the style of marine I'm looking for - bold and clean highlights on top of a clean basecoat. I have a few examples below, none of which were painted by me. You can get a better sense of the paint job if you click on the images to see larger versions.

painted by static grass

painted by rev

painted by lemfresh

painted by Cyric the Mad

painted by From the Warp



painted by kkoene


painted by spikyjames


painted by lone pilgrim

The last guy is the final step in a really great highlighting tutorial from From the Warp. The colors aren't the same, but the principles apply and I'm going to use this to paint up my third Crimson Fist test model. I've done a few tests already (here), and while they are in the spirit of my vision, they are also messy and unrefined. I think this tutorial will help me get them more in line with what I'm looking for. I've also found this article from Tau Online that gives a very detailed description of how to highlight marines.

Laura and I went climbing last night and it was a pretty big disaster for me. My technique is still around by all of my forearm and hand strength is out the window. Laura got to the top of an 11b, which is a pretty big deal considering she'd never gone up anything harder than a 10c before. She looked really good doing it to, probably a lot better than I did.

My running has been a huge roller coaster lately. Some days (like Wendesday) I can't finish a run because I have horrible stomach problems. Other days (like yesterday) I can crush a four mile run with 6:30 miles. I'm planning to skip another 4 miler I had planned for today and to start being more conscious of what I eat and when on days with runs scheduled. I hope this will get me back on track to healthy, stomach problem free runs. I am also planning on shifting my training away from the schedule I've been on since December (rest, short, medium, short, rest, medium, long) to a new plan that Culla reccomends. The new plan calls for three key workouts a week (tempo, long, and track) plus two other days of easier miles. This is really new stuff for me, and really intimidating, but he thinks it will help push me to the 3:10 time I need to qualify for Boston.

I am pretty sure that my fish tank is fully cycled, so hopefully I can get it stocked with some Neon Tetras soon. I found out recently that I had bought a 10 gallon tank (and not a 5 gallon like I had assumed), which means that I can put a few other fish in there. Currently I'm thinking about a school of Pygmy Corydoras, but I'm not sure how available they around here. Hopefuly when I get to the store I can take a look at what they have and make some decisions based on that.

Wow, lots of links!