home for an island

The other day Laura asked me some question about how much my little men hobby costs. A while ago I started tracking my expenditures in a speadsheet so I looked up how much I've spent this year on little men and I was surprised to see that I had spent almost 1000 dollars this year on models, paint, and related supplies. Even though this hobby is expensive I think that's a bit too much money for me to be spending right now on things like that. I know that a lot of those purchases were not essential (not that any of this is essential, but within the context of the hobby for me) and that I could probably cut down without too much difficulty.

With that in mind I've decided to start making prioritized lists of the models I want to purchase and limit my spending. My plan is to budget no more than 50 dollars a month to spend on all aspects of the hobby. Every month 50 dollars will be put into my New Model Fund (I stole this name and most of this idea from lone pilgrim). At the end of each month I will bank half of the unused 50 dollars in the fund and lose the rest. This sets a maximum expenditure of 600 dollars for the year and leaves the door open for me to spend less.

The second part of this plan is to maintain a list of models that I want to purchase and try to rank them in order of importance to me. I think this will help me stop compulsively buying cool looking models and just keeping them in boxes on my shelf.

I'm going to start this retroactively to the first of the month, so the standings are:

New Model Fund - $50

Model List -
Khador Greylord Ternion (needed to round out my 350 point list)
a few Space Marine bits (jump packs, running legs)
Space Marine Sternguard Squad (because they're awesome)
Khador Kodiak (needed to round out my 500 point list)
Khador Koldun Lord (needed to round out my 500 point list)
paints and brushes (Baal Red, Devlan Mud, a 00, 0, and large tank brush, Testors Dull Coat)

Obviously things like shipping costs will probably dictate that I buy things out of order here (i.e. if I buy the Greylords I'll probably get the rest of the Warmachine models to save money on shipping) but I think this is going to help keep me on track.

I ran a 5k yesterday and did pretty well. The course was pretty bad (there were no mile markers, there were a lot of sharp turns on slick, uneven pavement) but I managed to finish 8th out of 250ish and get an 18:19. Given that I've only run five times since the marathon I'm pretty happy with my performance. I think that with a little effort I can hit my goal of a sub 18 on Thanksgiving.

After the race Laura and I went to a diner with the rest of the team and had huge heart-attack breakfasts.

Last night was the Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady show. Overall the show was fantastic. DBT were engaging and their three guitar assault was loud and rocking. There were some issues with the vocals that made the singer hard to hear and their fans were kind of obnoxious but none of that detracted much from their performance.

I went to the show to see The Hold Steady and they didn't dissapoint. They came out and played most of their usual live show fare with a few new songs (new to their live show) that really made the show for me - Chill Out Tent, First Night, Two Handed Handshake, and Killer Parties. The lead singer from DBT came out to sing the male part of Chill Out Tent and did alright, but when their female bassist took on the female part she sounded more like a cat than the Dolly Parton she was doing earlier. It was a shame that the vocals really let that song down but it was a real treat to hear the band play it. Other than a few songs from the new album that they tried to force their setlist was tight and very entertaining.